Anybody have a good recommendation of cheese to use in a wood fired brick oven that melts well and holds up for slice pies? grande is just way to much. I tried sorrento and just isn’t satisfying me.
We don’t have the wood burner so I can’t speak to it’s properties in that style oven however we are tickled with our choice of cheese after switching several months back to Vantaggio cheese from our Bellissimo distributor. The taste profile is amazing, the melt/spread gives great coverage, and we get a beautiful finish in our XLT oven, all without paying a “grande” for our cheese.
I’m certain your local distributor would be happy to hook you up with as many samples as you’d like to test.
I agree with the vantaggio it is a very good cheese. It is packed by saputo under many different names so if you cant find the vantaggio label I can probably tell you what they pack it under with your distributor.
how about stella from sams club? any reviews on that compared to the sorrento
We’ll run and grab some Stella from SAMS in a pinch. For our pies it comes across somewhat tasteless and “rubbery” when it cools. Others may have different results with it.
Who do you buy from? Sysco, Roma, US Foods…?
BCPizza - What would it be labeled for Roma?
I don’t recommend the Stella from Sam’s. I’ve used it in the past and agree with the other poster, doesn’t hold up well and lacks flavor. The price isn’t any different for me than getting cheese delivered by a distributor either.
Indie sorry for the delayed response. I am not 100% on the roma label as roma does not deliver in my area. I did a little research and I am not sure saputo has a strong presence in the roma line ( I could be wrong). I have a phone number for a rep at saputo if I can manage to dig it up I am sure he can tell me. If you are currently using a saputo cheese from roma the first thing you want to look for is the plant number listed on the box when you get it in. This can tell us a lot about which cheese it is.
if you like grande and it works well for you in your oven why play around with it. If it is price there are ways to make that work. Grande is about .30 more then vantagio. that makes a difference of about .15-.20 per pie. I found that by using grande I actually use less cheese then the private lable brands. No guessing, i know what the product is going to do when it is delivered. if your doing a wood fired pizza I’m sure you are not heavily discounting it. Price your product accordingly, lead with quality and use the product you know is going to work.
in Roma line as to try the Piancone crown jewel
when you look at the roma products very few are mozzarella they are “pizza cheese”. The products are manucatured by Lapreino, they manufacture for the big three. We are independent pizzerias and we work very hard to differentiate ourselves from the big guys, why would we use fake, processed cheese when the only people who are benefiting from it are the roma reps. Every week the roma rep tries to sell me every item in his catalog that i dont want. I ask for a price on alta cucina and his response is why do you want that, grande, why do you want that. I tell him to solve a problem i have other then price and maybe we can do business. He hasnt gotten an order yet.
Last week in the pizzeria that I’m training at the rom a rep brought in a new Roma branded buffalo blend mozzarella that it’s supposed to compete with Roma (and at 2.53 lb it isn’t very competitive) we made a pie with it, nice taste and texture but it was just way too greasy… He tried to blame it on the buffalo blend… Rrrrright.