I recently changed ovens,I had a garland air deck,and I am now using an xlt3255. I am using the same dough and all the same ingrediants. The only difference is my pizza is greasy. I cut and put in a box and the bottom of my crust turns orange, due to the excessive grease…its horrible,what happened???..How is this possible, when It NEVER did this with my old oven, and now it does with the conveyor.
I do a thin crust pizza on screens. someone please help,my pizzas went from great to crap,just by switching ovens…
Not being an expert w/the XLT brand, but it might help posting the brand of cheese used, the amount, the time & temp of the oven…
Sounds like you are using a whole milk mozz & you may need to lower the temp &/or reconfigure the fingers…
I would also consider contacting XLT if the oven was brought new…
thanks for the advice…
I bought the oven used,its 2 years old…
I make my own pizza sausage, which is raw,so I thought it might be the culprit,Never thought about the cheese,Because we have been using the same cheese for 15 years…
My invoice says Welcome pizza cheese Block,the label on the cheese block says “Wisconsin Cheese,Nasonville Dairy, Inc.”
I will try to cool down the temp and see what happens…ANY OTHER ADVICE APPRECIATED,THANKS
Absolutely call XLT and talk to their engineers & R/D guys…even if preowned I’m sure they’ll bend over backwards to help you get the oven configured to your pizza. The problem just doesn’t sound like an oven switching issue though, I can’t see how swapping an oven would lead to a “greasy” pie all of a sudden.
Sounds like the temp in your new oven is low.
The orange color tells me that the grease is most likely from the pepperoni. You did not provide any information on your finger profile, baking temperature, baking surface (screen, pan, disk) or the type of cheese that you’re using. It is entirely possible that you are baking your pizzas too hot, or with too much air flow to the top of the pizza for your particular pizza (based on the type of cheese you’re using as well as the pepperoni). You might want to begin by reducing the temperature to 440F and then adjust the baking time to give a decent bake (probably about 7.5-minutes), then go up to 450F and reset the baking time (about 6.5-minutes) and finally go to 465F and set the bake time at 5-minutes. This will tell you if you need to bake at a different temperature. If these changes to time and temperature don’t improve the situation, you may need to reduce the amount of air flowing to the top of your pizzas. For this, you will need to call XLT to change the top finger profile. I’m betting you bought the oven used. If you had bought the oven new, the factory rep, doing the installation would have adjusted the finger profile to correct the problem. XLT is a very easy company to work with, I’ve been impressed by their unfailing customer service. You can reach XLT at 888-443-2751.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
thankyou for the reply,I have been working on this problem for a while now,I did call XLT, and they gave me alot of advice on finger placement…so I have been doing some experimenting…
I do a very thin crust pizza on screens…and I do have some questions if someone can answer them…
It seems to me that my meats.(raw sausage, pepp. etc…) might me the culprit… I used to cook my homemade sausage in my garland air deck oven(homemade sausage links) for other items on my menu…and the sausage turned out good,I tried sending some sausage thru my xlt3255,and the sausage was spitting and splatting grease everywhere…What does that mean??? oven is to hot??? to musch airflow??? Im thinking this is happening on my pizza’s…
my finger placement on my xlt3255 is
top----blank, 4 holes across, 4 holes across, 4 holes across, and blank
bottom—6, 6, 6 ,6, 6
do I still have to much airflow across top,do i need to block somemore air…???
Any suggestions…
The thing to keep in mind with any type of air impingement oven is that if the fat spatters, such as when cooking a sausage link, the high velocity airflow will only help to disperse the spattering around the inside of the oven. The new XLT has a lot higher airflow than the old Garland, ADO. Also, it’s entirely possible that you are just hitting the product with too much heat. A couple things that I’ve done to bake sausage is to put it into a deep-dish pan and cover with a piece of foil, or you can do the same thing using a sheet pan and covering the meat/sausage with a wide sheet of foil to help reduce the heat to the sausage while at the same time controlling the spattering problem. Have you done the work on reducing the baking temperature yet?
On your fingers, do the inner panels match up to the outer panels? T%he reason why I ask this is because you can have an outer panel (finger sleeve) with the lerge holes, but the finger, or sleeve insert has an entirely different appearance to modify the airflow through those holes in the sleeve.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
thanks for the advice Tom,
I did turn the heat down and adjusted the fingers per XLT,it seem to help, but not totally solved. I am guessing its my cheese, after I did numerous tests…It seem when I cut my pizza,bottom is perfect,(thin and crisp) but when I cut there is a waterery, oil on top, even on just a plain cheese pizza,What type of cheese do I need to experiment with??
I use a Welcome cheese pizza block…the label says Nasonville Brand for pizza, a semi soft cheese and then says manufactured by Nasonville dairy, inc. Marshfield, WI ANY IDEAS.
To keep things as simple as possible, I’d just ask my supplier to provide me with some samples of mozzarella from other suppliers that they carry, then test them by making plain cheese pizzas, and pick the one that performs well and meets your taste requirements. I’ve had very good success using Grande, whole milk mozzarella if you want to use that to bench mark from.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor