Thanks alot. We do alot of volume I think. I hate to slow it down but if it comes to saving money it might be worth it.
thanks again
With s scale “zeroed” for the cup you use, weighing the cheese ads about 5 seconds to making a pie. Walter’s comments notwithstanding, the operations I have bee familiar with all save money with this tool. In our case, over the years, I have found when we stray from 100% measuring that cheese cost rises by hundreds of dollars per month. In one case it was $800 high for just one month.
What scale are you currently using?
I’m debating between the $30 scale and the 300$ pizza scale.
When we bought the place, the first thing we did was start weighing cheese. Customers noticed the improvement in quality and consistency immediately.
Here is a recent thread where we discussed weighing cheese: http://thinktank.pmq.com/threads/scale-for-toppings.15961/
This is the one I have.
For those of you who weigh consistently, how much cheese waste do you have? Cheese that is lost in the make line, spilt, etc? Obviously, 100% is ideal and unrealistic.
I don’t weigh mine yet. But i would assume less waste being ur taking time to weigh as opposed to throwing it on
Any problems with it?
We spot-check cup weights on a digital scale to verify portioning is correct, maybe once a night.
Grande has weights listed for shred and diced right on the cups, and they are fairly close too.
We have a Hobart price calculating printing scale right on the line that we use for our bulk products that also is used for spot checking.
I feel way more comfortable using volumetric measurements than scaling each and every topping. Just need to make sure everyone is doing the same thing and interceding when they aren’t.
Ive been to way too many pizza places with consistency issues, it seems that nobody is doing the same thing, and customers start to ask “Whos doing pizza tonight?” and they will alter their order accordingly because of it. I do not want that to happen here, EVER!
They’ve got it down to within 1/10th of an ounce with measuring cups on cheese and measurable toppings such as olives and such, We use fresh sausage, and I can spot how close they are visually and make corrections on the fly. I can see what is in their hand, and ask that they hit the scale with it, many times they are within allowances and they get praised for doing it correctly
Pepperoni; They have a set number of slices to a pizza, and once I explained why they get counted, and average slices per ounce, and multiplied that out to annual usage, they understand it well enough when I show them increased costs and how that affects their random bonuses.
A few weeks back, My supplier came up short on diced cheese , so I got loaf cheese instead. I ran it through a meat grinder, scaled it in cups then weighed it out, we had to go up a cup size to meet our target weight.
After doing the math comparing extra labor cost and yields, to getting pre-diced, we stayed with diced. Less chance for losses due to human error.
Why would there be more cheese waste with weighing cheese? Makes no sense to me at all. Cheese goes in cup. Cup goes on scale, then put cheese on pizza. Since we would use the cup anyway the only difference is putting it on the scale and we sure don’t spill any doing that.
As far as cheese in the make line… that is what the catch tray is for. No waste to speak of there either.
Theres absolutly no waste except maybe an ounce on the floor when shredding it.
We shred 150lbs in 40 mins(openinig the loafs using the wire,cleaning the machine, putting it in smaller bins, putting it away) shred thickness matters
Sorry matters less bc all cheese is weighed at time of sale.
The connection to the AC adapter isn’t as secure as I would like, but other than that, no.
Maybe I’ll post a picture of what I’m talking about. Cheese that falls into the prep table, cheese particles left in the VCM, etc. You have some level of waste, maybe it’s so minuscule you don’t feel the need to measure it, but there is some.
Just feel like we have more than we should, and I’m not sure what’s practical to shoot for.
There is some slight waste when shredding cheese…maybe 4-6 oz. at best…
We use a simple dial scale, zereod out with a small stainless bowl used to capture/hold the cheese while the weight is established…
We used to carefully scatter the cheese around the pie, saving the last oz. to go over the toppings…a little bit can drop to the catch tray…
Then I caught a shift leader just dumping 90% of the cheese onto the center of the pie & spread it around…I was furious!!!
Then, after some additional trial, we changed to that method, still reserving a bit to scatter over the final toppings…
It speeds things up just a tad & the taste/appearance remain the same…
We dump and spread. What is this catch tray? Are we talking about in the prep table under the cambros?
Our make line has speed rails with catch trays underneath. Any cheese that falls around the pizza ends up in the tray and is put back in the bin.
I guess we might loose an ounce from time to time in the transfer from the VCM to the bins.
Hey Piff, to answer your question you def need to google the ultraship 55 scale. I got this model from this forum so im sure these guys will back me up. Weighing your most expensive ingredient is vital. And the difference is tangible, like bodega said 800 bucks in a short time. This scale is worth the price and runs on batteries, has a retractable screen so you can see the weight from wherever convenient and any size pizza unlike some other ones. My staff knows from constant reminders that we weigh every pizza every time.
Thanks!
We use cups I know its $$$ and consistency when you dont use some form of measuring but I just can visualize using a scale during the peak hours.