Deck ovens burning pizza bottoms

[fishinc]

I’ve had this problem for years. When making pizza you have to be very careful that the bottom doesn’t burn or cook faster than the top. I have Blodgett deck ovens with the heavy stone baking surface. It seems like when we are busy the pizza cooks evenly, when it’s slow you have to watch carefully. i’ve tried many techniques, we cook around 550 degrees and higher with the usual spinning pies to cook evenly, not moving pies to “hot” areas, cooking in the spot it was placed in, etc. I’m wondering if i can eliminate the high skill level required to produce a good hand tossed pie, Screens maybe? Any help would be greatly apreciated. thanks in advance. forgot to mention we do a hand tossed crust with 22oz doughball stretched to 16inches 7oz of sauce and 9-10oz of grande diced 50/50 on a large pie.

 

[smeagol8]

Try dropping your temp 25-50 degrees when it’s slow, but don’t forget to turn it back up for busy times.

 

[system]

what do you cook on, corn meal? i used to double screen them when it wasn’t busy. that is pretty hot for those ovens too, so as was said, turn it down some. i even put a 1/16" layer of asbestos in my first one under the stone many years ago to cure that problem. the heat shield could be burnt out too. you can replace with new or have one made. i’ve had 5 of them and finally got a bakers pride that was much better, then on to a conveyor. the bakers pride holds an even temp better and no hot spots and the conveyor is like having another hand in the shop. j

 

[George_Mills]

Hi Fishinc:

The situation appears to be that you have no Idea of what the actual temperatures are in your oven at any particular time. That Gadget on your oven called the thermostat is actually a wishostat. You just wish that the temperature you dialed for is what is happening in your oven.

You have asked your oven to give you a specific temperature but you have no way of knowing what the actual temperature of the deck or the air above the deck is without direct reading thermometers.

You should get a couple of grill thermometers. The are in the shape of a hockey puck and give you a reading of the surfice temperature of your deck. You can move those instruments around to find where the hotter and cooler sections of the deck are at any particular time, as that is constantly changing during a busy evening .

You should also have some oven thermometers that you can suspend in the oven to give you the temperature of the air that is baking the top of your pizzas.

George Mills

 

[NicksPizza]

Whilst you may manage it better with the lower temperature and working the baffles actively . . . .you will never remove the nature of the beast. Deck ovens are just more demanding of frequent and active temperature management than are the conveyors. The simple reality of opening and closing those doors at different rates and for different lengths of time will make the each and every pie a unique and skilled cooking event. More craft than science. Embrace it and love it . . . or you may need to consider conveyors.

 

[Kris]

We bake at 600 on screens…about a minute before done we take it off the screen.