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Hand stretched dough is this becoming a lost art?

Bluebird said:
I’m a real stickler for consistency so the problem is not only can they stretch, but can they stretch like you. I’ve had no luck with those with experience. They tend to beat he crap out of it, and stretch too thin for my liking. They come out completely different than mine. And to tell you the truth I’m not sure I could do it differently then I do it now. I’m teaching a 16 yr old kid now, no experience. He’s been topping my pies a , so he sees how I do it. I’ve been letting him stretch some 12" ones, he’s doing really good with those, hopefully he’ll be graduating to large soon. They have to want to learn though and I think he does. It takes time and you just can’t teach it like cutting an olive.
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Bluebird: I am on the same page as you. Growing up in the family shop culture we were taught young and thus made pies like the elders like a child inherits their parents traits. I approach it today basically the same way. If someone wants to learn to make pies they have to have the passion for pizza and working with people with disabilities. Then I take them in as family in my heart. I had Paige, one of my high school special needs students, who made pies identical to mine. Your 16 year old sounds like the right personality. I have also found I have to want to have someone appear to make the pies like I do. Somewhere in my ego I can sabotage that 🙂 . I believe it is based on letting go of control. This challenge is an ongoing one for me and I am excited to have it so make my life more positive. Walter
 
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My biggest concern is consistency, I do not want our customers to be able to figure out which one of our crew member has made their pizza just by looking at it.
I’ve seen it happen, and I got into the habit myself of asking “Who is cooking tonight” so I knew what items would be done correctly because one cook did a fabulous job on certain menu items, but a poor job on others.
 
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GotRocks said:
My biggest concern is consistency, I do not want our customers to be able to figure out which one of our crew member has made their pizza just by looking at it.
I’ve seen it happen, and I got into the habit myself of asking “Who is cooking tonight” so I knew what items would be done correctly because one cook did a fabulous job on certain menu items, but a poor job on others.
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That is the number 1 problem when hand stretching pies. I’ve had customers come in and tell me they know I had the night off because the pizza came out different… It’s not something you can train.
 
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I agree with @bodegahwy on this one it does take some time and a lot of practice but it can be done you just have to find people who want to learn.

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BspaPizza said:
That is the number 1 problem when hand stretching pies. I’ve had customers come in and tell me they know I had the night off because the pizza came out different… It’s not something you can train.
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I’m going to respectfully disagree,
My main guy on the pizza end of the line does a fantastic job of stretching dough to exactly duplicate the way I do it, . Granted, it took a little bit to get him there, but he did it.
I’ve also had other guys on the make line who absolutely refused to copy what we due, their tenure here was brief for that exact reason.
One other thing I did to get consistency tighter was to get some portion cups like P-J’s uses, I learned of them on this forum when someone posted an eBay link, I snagged as set ASAP found them to be great for getting even more consistency from person to person, and even pie to pie. Plus more consistent foodcost ratios were recognized too
 
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Maybe I need to rethink the training then. They have no problem getting the pies looking the same but small details still jump out with the finished product.
 
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BspaPizza said:
Maybe I need to rethink the training then. They have no problem getting the pies looking the same but small details still jump out with the finished product.
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It all boils down to how much one wants to learn your system and how much time/commitment one is willing to devote to make that happen. That is a problem in small shops where there isn’t much if any time to allow for the amount of time needed to teach an artisan skill vs. an assembly line skill. Walter
 
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johnmorrison said:
Specifically what kind and size portion cups ?
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I do not remember how those cups were listed on eBay, but they are multi colored heavy plastic, some have drain holes for measuring olives and such others do not, they are all color coded.
To start out, I hung a chart on the make line as a reminder of what color cups to use for each product.
My sausage is not measured that way because my guys are able to get real close just by feel and sight, once in a while they will spot check themselves on a scale just to verify they are within the allowable variances. We lay pepperoni heavily, the slices almost touch each other, so while setting up my costs, we laid out pepperoni on a pizza, then I weighed it to verify the usage weights and piece count.

Here is the original thread on this forum http://thinktank.pmq.com/threads/papa-johns-portion-cups.8900/

If you use Grande cheese, they will also set you up with cups to measure cheese, there are approx weights listed on them for their diced and shredded cheeses respectively.
I checked the stated weight by weighing the cheese, and it was very close.
 
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