I am thinking of buying a couple bakers pride electric deck ovens. How do they compare to gas and can you get a great cook out of them. One thing I like is you can somewhat adjust the top and bottom heat in the oven so you can cook bottom of crust more and top less if you want. Any input would be appreciated.
Kel
I used to use Electric deck ovens, but went to gas. The major difference between the two is when they break. Fixing a gas oven is cheap, simple and usually DIY - but if your elements burn out on an electric deck it is neither cheap nor is it a DIY.
I used an electric deck oven for many years and as time went by, I watched it slowly degrade, until I had a hard time baking a quality pizza in it. Then I switched to a gas deck (Marsal) and now I wouldn’t go back. More consistent bake times, better bake, a lot less load dependant, shorter bake times. One other thing, and I think George Mills, our resident equipment expert, might back me up on, is with regard to buying a used electric deck oven. My advice in one word…DON"T. A completely refurbished one with all new electricals…I’ll let George weigh in on that one. But with a gas deck, if you know how to look at and evaluate the condition of the oven, and if it isn’t too old, you might be able to latch onto a good used one. Refurbished gas ovens seem to be pretty good too, but with their reasonable cost, new deck ovens are not out of the reach of most operators.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
As usual Tom is correct. Gas is best. And gas ovens are vastly less expensive to operate.
With minimal maintenance they appear to be industructable.
George Mills
thanks for the reply, I will be going with gas.