I read “the dough doctors” thread on the differences between hand tossed, pressed, and sheeted dough preparations and I had a question.
If a business was looking to do high volume (200+) pizzas a day, was doing new york style pizza only, was using a conveyor oven, and was not trying to do gourmet style pizza then would most of you say that a dough press is the best way to go?
Do most of you prefer a press over a sheeter? After reading the article the sheeter just seemed best for really really then crust pizza.
Any comments, suggestions, or ideas appreciated.
Hi Freddy,
We use a doughpro, but for different reasons than your mentioning. We use it because it eliminates the need for a “pizza guy”. All of our servers and cooks are trained to make pizzas. Our flagship pizza is our 16" thin crust. It works great fro it, we just set it at the lowest setting, use a 16oz dough ball and it presses them out perfectly. We spray the ball and the press, do a pre-press, then reshape the dough into a circle and finish it. People say our crust is the best thin crust they ever had. We just introduced a "traditional crust using the same machine. We now use a 24oz doughball and out it on the second setting, pre-press, re-shape and finish, again all our staff can use it and make to make all our pizzas. And… I know I’ll probably get flack from the real artisans here but, I think I get an airier crispier crust than hand tossed (cringes) I had a bubble problem, but with the help of my friends here I learned about docking. They are very expensive, but in my opinion it has paid itself off long ago, and this thing is like a tank. I don’t know if it could or will ever break. Love it!
Hi Freddy:
Its obvious that many shops are using dough presses and like them
As I have stated before I do not use equipment I sell it. I can only report what our clients tell us,
We Had one of the very first presses and sent it out for testing to many chains and many independents for their evaluation. Not one of those that tested the press purchased it.
I am not aware that any of our nationwide clientele use dough Presses.
That does not indicate that you will not find it to your liking.
George Mills
What did they not like about it? This should be interesting.
In order to keep the dough from shrinking back towards its dough ball shape the platen of the press is heated. I have been told that the application of heat produced a sort of skin on the pizza.
Some operators who apparently have very elastic dough had to apply considerable heat to have shape retained. Those folks felt that the application of the heat negatively effected the bake of their product.
You should try a unit on your product before buying one to see if you will be satisfied with the results. Apparently many of the units have been sold.
Perhaps our clients are more finicky about their product than most.
George Mills
California Pizza Kitchen & CiCi’s use dough presses…
the trick is your dough needs to be proofed & tempered…
altho I don’t use one, I had one & didn’t like it so I sold it…
years later @ CiCI’s, I learned to use one quite successfully…
I would consider using one again under certain circumstances, those being volume of business and quality of the labor pool…
you get a consistent product…the colder the dough, the more shrink…
you may need to stretch it if dough not tempered…
you’ll need to dock the dough slightly, as CiCi’s does, right on the screen…
I’ve also use a sheeter quite extensively (under the wrong(?) circumstances) but would consider that again, based on volume & the desire for a super thin crust…again, dough management is the key
@ the CiCI’s I was
Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference between proofed and tempered?