Cleaning a conveyor Oven (Fingers & Belt)

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

Hi,

Just wondering what everyone uses to clean the fingers & belt of their conveyor ovens. We have a WOW oven that I have taken apart and cleaned once with an oven/grill degreaser from Sam’s and a lot of elbow grease. It’s about time to clean again and surely there is a better method than my first time around…

Thanks in advance!

2

We soak them overnight in the big white ice chest that you get from Sam’s. Put both belt and fingers in the chest. Add 2 to 4 gallons of Glitter oven cleaner from Rest Depot. Fill the rest with HOT water to cover all the parts. Let soak 1 to 2 days. Everything will basically rinse off.

3

How about a power washer in the parking lot? Never done it, just an idea. Have taken them to the car wash in the past though (conveyor).

4

I’ve done the power washer. It’s ok. It just doesn’t get all the carbon off. You need the heat of the water combined with the carbon removed.

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5

For monthly cleaning, broom to sweep out excess carbon inside the chamber, hand broom or just a dry rag to clean the fingers down.

The belt i pay a company to do. Depends on your usage and spillage in the oven, but i go about 3 or 4 years between cleanings.

6

We recently started using a grinder tool (ryobi brand) and attached a wire wheel. We’ve done it at both locations and depending on the build up, you could have the fingers done in 5-10 minutes. You’ll have some debris fly at you so I’d recommend doing this outside and wearing an apron/poncho to so you don’t stain your clothes.

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7

5-10 minutes per finger that is. If you keep up on it religiously degreaser should wipe everything off… if it’s been too busy to get to it I’d definitely recommend trying the grinder tool

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8

Just wondering, did the grinder tool work for the oven belt also?

9

I’ve never used it on the belt but I would assume it would if you get a fine wheel as opposed to a rougher one… do not use a fine one on the fingers, it’ll wear out before you finish all fingers

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10

Pizzapirate, How many chests does this require per oven you think? I have an Edge 60. Also, does it ruin the coolers or can we still use the coolers after we do the soaking?

I’ve never had the belt off of the ‘drive carriage’. I’m assuming you took it off and folded up the chain into the chest? Is it hard to get the chain back on the carriage?

Thanks

11

We use 1 chest per oven. You can usually clean both ovens with the same solution though. We do Monday morning take apart and soak. Clean and rebuild Tuesday morning. Take apart and soak next oven Tuesday afternoon. Clean and rebuild Wed.

Chain is taken off and soaked with the fingers. Edge chains are TIGHT. Its not easy getting them on and off. But if I can do it anyone can.

12

I cleaned one of my Edge 60’s yesterday using the ice chest as recommended by Pizza Pirates. I put the belt, 6 finger covers(2 of the top ones scraped off without soaking) and the window in the cooler. I could only soak for 3ish hours before I started cleaning them to get the oven put back together. 3 of the 6 finger covers sprayed clean, one took minimal scrubbing and two were only slightly better than they would have been without soaking. The belt was pretty clean, only needing about 15 minutes of spot scraping after putting the oven together to look brand spanking new. All in all, much easier than not soaking but next time I’ll try to allow the parts to soak for a full day.

13

I’m sure everyone already does this but be sure to hot water. Hot water and oven cleaner combination melts off the carbon.

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14

You can remove the whole conveyor as a unit it is the conveyor plus the metal frame. The whole thing might fit into the freezer once it’s folded up I believe it folds up into 3 pieces

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15

Does this ruin the ice chest?

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16

I thought it would so I brought in an old beat up one with broke hinges. Turns out that it cleaned up probably better than it started. I’m still designating it as only the oven cleaning cooler as I have a few others.

17

You will absolutely have " oven only " chest.

You can stick one end of the conveyor frame in and soak it, then flip it and soak the other end.

I did have a chest crack and leak on me once. We soaked an oven over Thanksgiving one time. When we came in Friday morning it had drained out all over the floor. Solid black and stained all the grout. I do a crack check on them now.

18

I pay a guy to clean ours. He disassembles the belts and rolls them up and secures them then puts them and the fingers in a caustic soda/hot water solution and lets them soak while he cleans the inside and out of the ovens. He has a large trailer with stainless steel sections where he soaks everything.
He then hits them with high pressure water.
Takes him about 3 hours all up to do our two MM PS360s - fingers, belts, cleaning inside and polishing outside.
We get it done about every 9 months
Dave