Dough Tray Vs. Sheet Pan & Saran Wrap

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

So we have a good problem in that we no longer have enough dough trays to keep the proper amount of dough in the cooler to keep up with sales. We need to add capacity & we currently use doughmate dough trays. By our calculations we need to add about 100 trays to our inventory. Does anyone have experience with the use of a sheet pan with saran wrap?

Before I invest in the new trays, I wanted to explore the possibly of using a sheet pans in racks. I visited the operation of a large chain that used the sheet pans rather than dough trays. I wanted to know if anyone on the board had any pros or cons for either system. I am pretty happy with the dough trays at the moment. Just wanted to pose the question before spend the cash.

2

Saran wrap? They make bags just for this purpose.

Space out the pans in the rack in the walk-in for at least a couple hours. This accomplishes the same goal as cross stacking.

3

I have no experience with dough trays, but have been using sheet pans and saran wrap for 9 years. I have no problems with it, having never used dough trays I always thought they would be harder to use because of trying to rotate the dough.
When we make dough, we put the new trays on the next empty space down on the rack. Whenever we need to sheet out dough, we grab the top tray and go from that. Simple. Once a day (in the morning) we rotate everything up so there are no empty spots at the top of the dough rack, leaving plenty of room below.
How does it work with dough trays? These stack, right, not go on a dough rack. I would think it would be difficult and time consuming to rotate so you get the new dough first.

We use vegalene pan coating spray when making dough.

  1. spray pan with a coating (not too little or the dough ball will stick when you try to remove it)
  2. place dough balls on the tray
  3. press down dough balls
  4. spray tops of dough balls
  5. wrap with plastic wrap, being sure not to have any air gaps because that will dry out the dough
  6. expiration date, time and initials written on the wrap with a perm marker
  7. place in walkin

Dan

4

We also use sheet pans and plastic wrap - in tray racks exactly as described above.

As stated above, I don’t understand how people use stacking dough trays and keep the oldest dough the easiest to get to.

5

The way you rotate with trays is you start a new stack. Put the new stack behind the old one. A heck of a lot easier than moving trays up and down a rack and no messing around with spray and wrap!!

Much easier!

6

Having used both sheet pans @ CiCi’s and dough trays on my own, I’m partial to dough trays…

Ya can put more on a sheet pan, but it is a minor hassle to wrap & keep on the make line…

I can stack dough trays to e walk-in ceiling and rotate as needed…they also seem to be easier to maneuver around the make line…

@ CiCi’s, I’d have to run to the cooler every so often & we had no where to stage the dough effectively (a CiCi crisis…)

I think dough trays are better for tempering the dough for volume operations…

Trays are a pain to clean & store, but cheaper than pans?

When making 250 #'s of dough, trays are my preference…

7

I’m partial to saran wrap and sheet pans. We put them in a rack in cooler. At our old location I couldn’t wait to get dough trays we did and one of the many things I DON;T miss about it! :smiley:

8

Thanks for all the responces. I think we are going to stick with the dough trays. Why fix something when it is not broken.

9

Would a bag around the sheet pan be easier and retain moisture better than saran wrap?