Looking for some input. Have a good problem… our little place is getting too busy for our oven to keep up! No gas in building, no room/ability to put in required range hoods so propane is out as well. Leaves electric. Have an older deck oven now. Next problem is only have 60 amps of single phase 240v available. Can not upgrade. The only oven that will do the job within the available parameters will not cook properly using reg pans. The question is how much of a difference will there be if we change to a perforated pan or disc vs our existing pan that we oil before pushing out the dough?
We did over 50 orders between 6 and 7 on Friday. (No, the small conveyors will not work).
Hi There,
If you change to a perforated pan and you oil your pans it will make a mess of your prep table and in my experience they only cook better where the holes are. You should try a dark pan. They hold heat better. Here is a place where you could order a couple to test. I bought mine from them and they are a great product. Best of all, they have a non stick hardcoat for easy cleaning. If you like the pans they give 25% off large orders.
http://www.lloydpans.com/SearchByCatego … ays#258029
Make sure you cure the pan before you use it: Coat it with oil and bake at 300 to 350 for at least an hour.
Two questions: First, why can’t you upgrade the electric service? Second, why won’t the converyors work? A pair of lincoln impinger ll should just about do it. A triple stack would be better. Where we are no hood is required for the double stack. The triple is borderline.
Been there, checked that out.
To upgrade the service to my unit would require upgrading the buildings main service. Because of changes to code since building was built, would cost over $20,000!!! . Two Lincolns have the ability to cook two 14" at once. An order for four large pizzas would take 10 minutes. I can currently cook 8 14" in the same time.When my deck oven slows down it has the same production as the Lincolns. A 30"belt conveyer would have the production needed but uses way too much juice…
I think you may be underestimating the value of the conveyors in your situation. They will bake the same number of pies every hour, hour after hour, consistently with no drop in production volume. They actually IMPROVE in efficiency when they are in continuous use.
Have you looked into adding an entirely separate small service and panel to the store rather than expanding/upgrading the current service? You might be able to get a small 3-phase service in for far less than $20K and have power for a more muscular oven that is cheaper to operate.
Thanks, I will look into the seperate service idea. Sorry, I can not get my head around only being able to place 2 14" pies on the belt, (given a double stack), being able to come close to keeping up? What about my school order for 18- 14" ? I’d be putting the last two on the belt 45 minutes after the first ones came out! I need a MINIMUM capacity of 60 14" per hour with the ability to cook at least six at once.
Boatnut you feed them in one after another…
Boatnut,
I see the quandry. It is one I am having in a smaller scale. I am outrunning the efficiency of my smallish baking deck oven. I need to move to an oven with enough muscle, and have room to place it in operation.
I suspect George Mills will arrive in this thread soon. I use a website for conveyor oven capability . . . http://tinyurl.com/6s4tbq . To get the capacity you are talking about, it looks like you are going to need a 32" conveyor belt, even if you double stack. One MM 360 appears able to bang out six 14" pies in 9.5 minutes.
What deck oven are you using that puts out 60 pies in an hour every hour? There are lots out there, and I want to be sure I am looking at the right ovens to compare.
That is the capacity I need, not have! My older Bakers Pride is good for 30 14" pies an hour at best. The Doyon Piz3 (60 an hour) and the Piz6 (90 an hour) would work fine apart from you have to " deck" the pies to brown the bottom. I see a lot of burnt pies lol… I will be trying a PIZ3 with optional wire racks (supposed to cook bottom of pie better) in a test kitchen soon and am hoping combination of different pans and optional racks will overcome problem. “Wiseguy” recently bought a PIZ6 and very kindly tried cooking pan style pizza in it for me. Said it was all 100% except bottom was cooked,but white. If anybody has any experience with these optional racks and pan pizza I would love to hear from them…
Boatnut, let me know how goes that testing you do. I am looking at the Doyon ovens a little as well. Real curious to see how your experiences match the other couple of folks who have worked with them. I trust the others’ judgment and think another voice would build a good case for me to take to my pizzeria partner for discussion.
Will do…
Just keep in mind that with an oiled pan, in all probability you are actually frying your pizzas as much as you are baking them (think Pizza Hut deep dish pizzas). This can have a significant impact on both ther flavor and bottom texture of the finished pizza. No, adding additional oil to the dough won’t compensate for the lack of oil used in the pans, so don’t think about going there. The best advice that I can give you is to get some of the different pans you are interested in looking at (just one or two pans are all you will need) and give them a try to see if you are satisfied with the resulting finished product.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Thanks Tom. I will do exactly that. Am I right in saying that if I switched to “black” pans and kept everything else the same, I would cook the bottoms/sides quicker but not effect the top? I hope this is the case as that is the desired outcome if I decide on the Doyon PIZ 6 oven.
All things being equal, the black colored pans will give a stronger bake to the bottom and sides than a bright colored pan. In a deck oven you will need to test the “new” pans to see if they will actually bake as fast or faster than your old pans (assuming they are dark colored). In an air impingement oven I would say that the perforated pand will provide for a faster, and probably stronger bake, but deck ovens are a “horse of another color”.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor