WOULD U RECCOMEND DIGITAL SCALE FOR PORTION CONTROL?

Hi i was interested in finding out if anyone uses digital scales for controlling food portions like cheese, toppings etc.

If so does it work pretty good, and could anyone recommended any good scales to buy?

Also how much cheese do u think should go on a 12" 14" 16" and 18" pizza

Thanks alot

Actually weighing slows things down a lot. We determined portions by weight, but for cheese, we use a measuring cup and train the cooks not to go back for more after the portion is used from the cup.

We’ve used scales for a little over a year now. Bodegahwy is right, it does slow you down a bit. For us, the reason behind weighing toppings wasn’t as much cost as it was for consistency. We’re about to start pre-weighing cheese in cups though, just to speed the process.

The other MAJOR hassle that we didn’t consider is that the scale needs to be stable to be zeroed out or even give you a decent weight. How often during a rush is your make-table sitting perfectly still, with nobody leaning on it to get toppings, spoon sauce, etc? The scale that we have on the far right of our make table is almost impossible to ever zero out because it sits above the compressor. That little vibration makes it oscillate ± 1 ounce or so and hence won’t tare.

If you do decide to go with scales, I’d like to recommend that you NOT buy Detecto brands. We started with three, and I’m currently down to one about a year later. I’m hoping the other two can be repaired. I’ve had no luck getting them to fix them on warranty, despite the fact that they were still in warranty when they started breaking. Detecto customer service has been non-existent.

Beyond the actual scales, I have had to fix the foot switches about every week. The internal switch becomes separated from the housing, making the switch useless until you open it and reset it in place. Very poor engineering on those.

Unless you have cooks that handle everything China dishes, these scales are not durable enough for this application.

Do u think the portion cups work good for cheese?

I’m mainly concerned abt. controlling my cheese portions

I’m thinking abt. getting some 4oz. cups or something like that to pour the cheese, but i dont know if it will help

Portion cups are better than freehanding…but scales are way better than both. It takes no time at all if all your cheese is weighed during your slow times. We switched from portion cups to scales about 5 years ago and wouldn’t even consider going back…the amount of money we’ve saved is huge, why mess around with such a high priced commodity??

John

if you are weighing your cheese during slow times, how do u keep it seperated? baggies or…?

Yeah, when I said we were going to switch to cups I meant what Johnf is saying… we’ll still be using the scale to weigh them out, not using them as “volume” indicators. We weigh to the tenth of an ounce, =- .2. That consumes a lot of time when doing it on the makeline.

Filling a cup to a set line with cheese was almost as bad as free-throwing (at least by our tests.) Depending on when and how you shredded your cheese it could have very different densities. The cups were off from ideal by up to 2 or 3 ounces sometimes… rendering it pointless.

When we are really rocking we do from 50 up to 100 pies an hour for a 3-4 hour rush. There is no way to pre weigh for that level of business and time is important. The cups work fine.

how many ounces or how ever u measure the cheese do u use for like a 12", 14" 16" and 18"?

Here’s a good link on portion control for cheese:
http://www.bigdaveostrander.com/articles/cheese.htm

You’ll have to determine if its worth your time…but, 100 pizzas per hour times 2 oz(this is how much we were off!!) divided by 16 ounces, times $2.50 per pound (just averaging for those who use Grande) equals about $31.25 per hour…times 3 hours equals $$93.75. I wonder how many cups a minimum wage employee could fill in 1 hour?? Would it be worth it if you saved $31.25 per hour?? It’s just a thought!!! I want pizza guys to make money!!!

John