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Do dough presses work ? anyone ?

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Can anyone give me some advice with regards to dough presses ? We have never used one and our operation is doing fine without it right now (Thank God) But of course like many others, staffing and training issues is really making life hard with regards to the operational side of it. I want to know if it will compromise the taste or will it simply be cosmetic as far as having the pies come out in a consistent shape and form.???

Thanks ,
Charlie
 
I use a dough press and love it! The biggest bonus for me is that I can keep my dough in the cooler and dont have to worry about blown dough. Dont know if this is an issue for you, but for me its great!

The other, is like you say consistancy, even my most inexperienced staff can get a consistant thickness on the dough and I just find I have less troubles.

Cheers
 
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In my opinion there is not one thing that is going to make all the difference in your end product. At one extreme there is Pizza Hut with frozen dough and low quality ingredients and the other is a high quality independent that does everything by hand and by scratch. I think you can take a good quality frozen dough, handle it right and use quality fresh ingredients and make a great pie. You can also use poor quality ingredients and make your own dough, hand toss it and use cheap toppings and come out with a bad pie. By pressing the dough you are not going to have as lively a finished crust but that does not make it a bad pizza – but it will be different than what you have now.
 
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I use a dough presws and have found it is the closest thing to hand tossed. It is faster and consistent
 
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I use a Press and love it. There is no better way for my situation. I have no room for a sheeter and like Canukfanlady, I too appreciate being able to keep my dough refrigerated until right before I use it.

As for training, I have several employees that came from other pizza outfits and it was pretty easy to get them up to speed with the press.
 
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While it’s not going to be as good as the best hand-formed crust, it’ll give you more consistency. When you pile on training and everything else, you’ll probably end up ahead, anyway.
 
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My main pie is Thin crust and my dough is very firm so hand topping right for a ball is a pain… I use a dough sheeter because I do 3 diffrent sizes and never presheet and store the crusts… When I was deciding wether to get a Press or a Sheeter, I looked at the extra time it would take me to switch out the “plates” or whatever they are called for the correct size crust. If I get an order for a 16" then 12" then 18" I sheet them, lay on the screen, cut around the screen and i’m done, i’m not changing out the “plates”.
 
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Integraoligist:
My main pie is Thin crust and my dough is very firm so hand topping right for a ball is a pain… I use a dough sheeter because I do 3 diffrent sizes and never presheet and store the crusts… When I was deciding wether to get a Press or a Sheeter, I looked at the extra time it would take me to switch out the “plates” or whatever they are called for the correct size crust. If I get an order for a 16" then 12" then 18" I sheet them, lay on the screen, cut around the screen and i’m done, i’m not changing out the “plates”.
What kind of plates are you talking about? My press does everything from 8" up to 16" without changing anything.
 
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pizzaguy:
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Integraoligist:
My main pie is Thin crust and my dough is very firm so hand topping right for a ball is a pain… I use a dough sheeter because I do 3 diffrent sizes and never presheet and store the crusts… When I was deciding wether to get a Press or a Sheeter, I looked at the extra time it would take me to switch out the “plates” or whatever they are called for the correct size crust. If I get an order for a 16" then 12" then 18" I sheet them, lay on the screen, cut around the screen and i’m done, i’m not changing out the “plates”.
What kind of plates are you talking about? My press does everything from 8" up to 16" without changing anything.
I use a DoughPro DP1100 and I don’t ever change out plates. Like pizzaguy was saying, we do all of our sizes in the same press.

I’m curious Integraoligist, when you cut around the screens, do you recycle the extra dough? I hope so, with the raising flour prices. :shock:
 
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has anyone tried the special attachments to acheive a special raised crust? I believe the 1100 and 3300 model has that option.
 
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I use dough presses in my stores and they work great. My finished pizzas always come out of the oven with a nice raised edge. The great thing about a dough press is that it takes little practice to learn how to press out a dough. They’re fool proof and provide consistency.
 
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When I was looking at the presses a few years back the one’s i’ve seen you had to swap out the “press” pieces to the size of the crust you want thus cutting off any excess that squished out the sides. Maybe I was looking at a new fangled one? not sure.

pizzafanatic, of course, after we cut the crust from around the screen we put it back into the dough bin until we get enough extra pieces to make another pie then smash them togeather and sheet them out. Never any waste.
 
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what dough press do you use? The raised edge looks good even without any special attachments?
 
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So this may be a stupid question but what does a press do dfferent than my sheeter? they both flatten the dough

does the press take it from a dough ball all the way to a 16 inch pizza instanly with no tossing??

what are the draw backs. should i swap out my sheeter for one of these, are they faster?
 
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Hello Charlie,dough presses are in my opinion the joke of the pizzerias.Theres nothing in the the world like a true hand tossed pizza and the customers will agree.The dough presses should be left to frozen pizzas sold in Walmart!Look on e-bay and you’ll see many for sale that should tell you a lot.
 
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Hi guys;

Lots of positive in put on dough presses: Just to balance the discussion. None of our chain accounts use presses. We sell one to the occasional start up single pizza shop. The main reason for not using them appears to be the heated portion. We are told, by those that have rejected the heated press unit, that it leaves a skin of some type on the pizzas that they find detrimental. Note we do not make pizzas and only pass on what our clients tell us.

George Mills
 
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I am not a fan of dough press but big chains like Jeryy’s Subs Pizza with 140 location uses Dough Press.
 
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Perhaps the customers are pressing dough too far in advance of prep? According to articles by Tom Lehman there is no ‘skin’ unless using a heated upper and lower to specifically par bake. I could be wrong here and am planning to use a dough press myself for real time preparation.
 
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