I am looking at getting a new/used conveyor oven for our pizza shop. We are a small shop with a Baker’s Pride single Deck Y-600 (on LP). We are in a small town and only average about 100 pizzas a day (double that on weekends). Our current oven does fine for the most part, but it does become a bottleneck if we get slammed for a dinner rush. Our small town (population 2,000) is about to get an influx of 1500-2000 out-of-town workers (moving here for a 1.5 year project). Our Chamber of Commerce had a meeting today and urged us to start getting ready for this new business now.
I am wanting to move to a conveyor oven (LP), but we have never used one. I don’t want to lose the deck quality of bake and I am not sure what we need for our capacity and even what is reasonable pricing on a used oven. We currently have 3 pizza sizes (16,12, & 8). We only bake our pizzas and finish off our pasta dishes in the oven now (we have a 35# deep fryer and a 4’ griddle.)
What is the best ‘bang-for-your-buck’ oven and should I look into a single or double stack conveyor? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!!
Do you lose any ‘quality’ going to a conveyor oven? Everyone that I have spoken to says that there is a big taste difference between a deck oven pizza and a conveyor oven pizza.
Can you send me a price quote on the single 60 & double 60? Do you think I would need the double or is that just overkill? I can send you an email if that would be better??
Google
[SIZE=5]MF&B Restaurant Systems, Inc.[/SIZE]
and talk to Michael.
I think the EDGE ovens are fantastic, and with a 5yr warranty, heh, easy decision versus a used oven. Roughly 2 to 2.5 times the cost of a used conveyor.
The edge ovens are great, very efficient and very cook consistently. There is a difference in conveyors and deck ovens but not as much as many would have you believe. If I had to cook one pizza to be the best I could cook, I would use a deck. If I had to cook 100 pizzas, there is no question I would use a conveyor.
Also, do not consider just a single conveyor oven. Things do break from time to time and if you only have one you are out of business until parts come in. Edge makes a 40 inch oven that is cheaper than the 60 if a doublestack of 60’s is too expensive. They also recently introduced a new no frills 40" oven that is not part of the Edge line that is even cheaper.
Going with an Edge oven as George has suggested, and using the Lloyd’s Hearth Bake Disk (cloud hole pattern) with non-stick anodized finish, then eliminating any sugar, milk or eggs from the dough formula, and setting the oven at 475F with a 5.5-minute bake time will get you very close to where I think you want to be with regard to achieving a hearth bake characteristic in an air impingement oven. If you buy the oven new work with Edge to make sure the oven finger profile is set-up for the best bake, if you buy used, make DOUBLY SURE the oven has a finger profile for baking pizza and not some other baked product. We call them “pizza ovens” but they are not, they are just an “oven” which can be set-up to bake a multitude of different products by manipulation of the finger profile, baking time and temperature.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
another very satisfied EDGE customer here…replaced my Rotoflex with a doublestack EDGE60WB and still wondering why it did not do it sooner…have them come by with the trailer so you can see for yourself
The fingers you refer to were a failure as the first few discharge holes in the fingers did not get enough hot air as the hot air blew over the top of them.
A deflector could be added but that did not solve the problem to our satisfaction
no, George, we added complete regular fingers after fooling with the lighting fingers…it really makes a diference in old MM360…you might be surprized…not so much with the top fingers, but it really crisps up on the lower…
Thanks everyone for the great advice. Another question: I have a few hundred pizza screens that we use with the deck oven, can I use them with the conveyor oven? I seen the prices on the Lloyd disks, is there a huge difference in quality over the screens or the perforated pans on webstaurantstore.com? http://www.webstaurantstore.com/3223/perforated-pizza-disks.html
Also, how long does it take the edge oven to heat up to operating temps?
