Choosing a pizza oven

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

Hi guys,

I m doing a due dilingence to prepare opening a pizza activity in China.

I will need a 3 deck electric oven. I found an incredible range of prices and I m not sure how to make my choice.

For example a good quality US oven like this:

http://www.marsalsons.com/default.aspx?pageId=47

is in the 15-20,000 Dollars range

While in China I can find things like this:

http://sencengchi.en.alibaba.com/produc … _Oven.html

for just a bit more than 1000 dollars!

Of course there are also a lot of options in between…

I know that the quality of the oven makes a difference, but if a chinese oven can give me a reasonable quality I would save a huge amount of money…I could even buy 2 to have a backup in case of failures…

Hope to hear your comments!

Best,
Ste

2

frankly, it is hard to say without trying them.

My experience with musical instruments is varied. the Chinese have vastly improved quality, but still lack consistency in manufacture of instruments. the designs are copies of other, existing models. the price seems right, the specs are right, but the specific piece could be a gem or a dud.

Try before you buy and get a good warranty, includingnt8tal replacement if anything goes wrong or, especially, is wrong upon installation.

3

I have no knowledge concerning the ovens in question but for the difference in price it is worth giving them a try.

George Mills

4

Food for thought,
Contact the manufacturer to find out who has the oven, you want to see, and go bake your pizza in it.

Even if you have to travel a few hours, it is better than finding out the hard way it will not work. Does the manufacturer have a “demo” oven that they travel with to sell?

5

The link I sent is a 3 deck, 2-trays-per-deck, 18kW oven

I found out that the company can also produce the small 1 deck, 1-tray, 4kW oven, built with exactly the same materials and technology. The price is really cheap, like 300 dollars.

I was thinking to buy this small one and try it in my home. If it sucks, 300 dollars is not a big loss, and I might be positively surprised.

What do you think?

Best,
Ste

6

Settling for “reasonable quality” is what makes bad pizza. And you can’t make good pizza in an electric oven.

7

I’ll weigh in on this one too.
My experience with the best electric ovens made here in the USA is that they take a second seat to the same oven operating off of gas. We typically need to bake at a higher temperature and bake for a substancially longer time. As for the Chinese oven in question, see if you can find some in use and visit those facilities to see how they are working. If the manufacturer has one installed for you to test, by all means bring some dough and ingredients to their facility and give it a test drive. As for playing with that smaller oven, it will probably make decent pizzas at home, but in all probability it will not translate well to another oven, so you will be on your own once again with the full size oven. How thick is the hearth on the full size oven in question? There are just so many variables in ovens that it is all but impossible to accurately predict how an oven will bake a pizza, both singly and when fully loaded. As an example, I once tested an electric deck oven that would bake a single pizza in about 7-minutes, but when we loaded the oven the baking time exceeded 15-minutes…bummer! I think your best action is to find one or more presently in operation and go see it, then time how long it taked to bake a pizza during slack times and during slam periods, then decide where to go from there.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

8

Tom, I hope you realize how much you have helped the online pizza community. Everyone from professionals to home pizza makers. I just want to thank you.

9

Daysleeper;
Thank you.
It’s always good to hear kind words of encouragement.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor