New Oven

[wa_dave]

At long last it looks like our landlord will be taking us off our month by month lease (last two years) and offering us a new extended lease.
This means we can now start looking at a new oven to add to our current MMPS360. I love the current workhorse for the great bake it gives and its simplicity in use. I could easily add another of the same but the new ovens are all much more enegy efficient, quieter and not all that much dearer than a refurbished one.
I have heard alot of adverse comments on the new MM especially the WOW with its digital control panel problems and replacement costs. Comments I have widely heard are the MM are still the most difficult oven to clean and are still noisy.
A major chain here have dropped the WOW and changed to XLTs. The XLT is reportedly quieter, easy to access for cleaning, cheaper to run and purchase and do a good job of cooking.
A local XLT supplier is recommending the 32-40 which can sit on top of the MMPS360 without any problems, adjustemnts or adverse affect on the XLT.
Paul, after your comments I would be interested in the Edge ovens but it appears they are not available in Australia so that leaves them out of the equation.
For some reason I am not interested in Lincolns - don’t know why but I they just don’t interest me.
I am open to any comments recommendations.
Dave

 

[paul7979]

Dave I’m certain you’ll love the cook of the XLT, I did.
A couple thoughts on what you posted though.

1. My Xlt was quite loud, but it was a 3270 which had two burners and two blower motors. I would imagine a 3255 or 3240 would be quieter due to a single burner and single blower motor, but you should test that yourself. Radio shack sells a decibel meter that will answer this for you.
2. If you are considering the 3240, why not consider the 3255? The cost should only be marginally more and the dimensions should be the same as the 3240 except for the length. Being that you are looking to put the new oven on top of your 360 which also has a 55 inch cook chamber, this setup should work as well if not better than the 3240. It will give you more capacity and loading and unloading the oven will be easier. Loading and unloading the 3240 will require you to lean over the belt of the 360.
3. I believe the 360’s have an exhaust flu on the back of the oven. If this is the case, your XLT will not be able to sit on top of this so the XLT will stick out quite a ways over the front of the 360, possible by as much as 15 inches. The XLT’s are about 60 inches front to back while the 360 is about 45 inches front to back.

Hope this helps.

 

[pizzaduo]

I purchased a XLT 3240 double stack six months ago and have been pleased with the overall performance. The noise is less than middleby marshalls PS200s they replaced. I also heard horror stories on this board about the gas usage and heat the XLTs produced at the end of the oven. I have not experienced either of these problems, in fact my gas bill has gone down, not significantly, about $40 a month.

I do agree with Paul, if you have the space and if it fits your current configuration I would purchase the 3255. It was a mistake on my part not to purchase the bigger ovens. One word of caution DO NOT use the XLT pizza caculator on their web site it is totally flawed. I have no idea how they come up with their pizzas per hour calculator, but I can guarantee you it doesn’t work.

 

[wa_dave]

Thanks for the input guys.

Paul, I was thinking about the 32-55 for the reasons you stated. As far as the flue goes I think from memory (without having a look at it) an adjustment to the flue may be made so it comes out at 90 degrees to the oven, then put on an elbow to take it back up again. I will have to check first to confirm this can be done. I have plenty of room from the back of the oven to the wall to allow for any adjustments to overcome the fluing issue. The flue connector is only like the old cast iron plumbing fittings so i don’t forsee any problems there adjusting it. After living in the country for 10 years and driving tourist buses through Nth Africa and Asia Minor during the '70’s (yes … before some of you were born or out of diapers) I became very proficient at adapting to fix any problem … commonly know here as being a bush mechanic :

Pizzaduo, thanks for the heads up on the calculator. I will keep this in mind.

Dave

 

[George_Mills]

A local XLT supplier is recommending the 32-40 which can sit on top of the MMPS360 without any problems, adjustments or adverse affect on the XLT.

“Check with the factory. The certification of the XLT ovens does not allow for stacking over or under other Makes of ovens”

My XLT was quite loud, but it was a 3270 which had two burners and two blower motors. I would imagine a 3255 or 3240 would be quieter due to a single burner and single blower motor, but you should test that yourself. Radio shack sells a decibel meter that will answer this for you.

“The XLT ovens produced over two years ago were much louder than the current models that have the quiet fire feature.”

I believe the 360’s have an exhaust flu on the back of the oven. If this is the case, your XLT will not be able to sit on top of this so the XLT will stick out quite a ways over the front of the 360, possible by as much as 15 inches. The XLT’s are about 60 inches front to back while the 360 is about 45 inches front to back.

“The XLT units are not certified for use over or under other brand ovens but you do set one on top of a 360 the exhaust pipe can be re routed.”

One word of caution DO NOT use the XLT pizza calculator on their web site it is totally flawed. I have no idea how they come up with their pizzas per hour calculator, but I can guarantee you it doesn’t work.

“The calculator in question calculates the absolute maximum possible production of a specific size pie baked for a specific time. That is, every pizza that can be squeezed on to the conveyor with no space between them. No one is baking pizzas that way but there is no other way to set a production capacity.”

George Mills

 

[George_Mills]

Further Info on oven production>

The mathematical formula for determining the absolute maximum production of an oven is. Bake chamber length times the bake chamber depth -divided by the size of a round pizza squared- times- 60 minutes divided by bake time. The XLT Production calculator shows the production of 16 in pizzas at a 6 minute bake in a 32" wide By a 55" long bake chamber as 68.7 This formula shows 68.88 Close enough I think.

George Mills

 

[dscheidt]

George Mills:

“The calculator in question calculates the absolute maximum possible production of a specific size pie baked for a specific time. That is, every pizza that can be squeezed on to the conveyor with no space between them. No one is baking pizzas that way but there is no other way to set a production capacity.”

Sure there are. There are all sorts of ways of figuring out what capacities are. Easiest would be to figure out what normal loading of the oven is (in terms of how much space gets left between pizzas, and how much wasted space there is between the edge of conveyer and the pizza, and add that value to the area of the pizza. there are all sorts of other techniques, including dozens of methods of simulating actual usage pattern. That sort of work is one of the things that drove the development of computers; it’s a very well studied problem. That’s harder than quoting the area that travels through the oven divided by the area of the pizza in question, of course, but it would produce a useful number.

 

[brad_randall]

Here is the formula I use to calculate how long it will take to crank out a large order:

(((B4/B5)*B3)+B3+((B4/B5)B3)(B6-B7)/B7)=Minutes Cook Time

B3 = Chamber Cook Time (from when the pizza is entirely in the oven until it is completely out)
B4 = Length of Pan
B5 = Length of Chamber
B6 = Number of Pizzas
B7 = Number of Lanes

My ovens seem to be set up where the digital cook time equals the length of time it takes “one link” of the oven chain to move from one edge of the cooking chamber to the other end of the cooking chamber. So for example, when my cook time is set to 10 minutes it actually takes the pizza 12 minutes from the time when the pan is set on the chain (outside the chamber) until it is completely free of the chamber and ready to be cut.

That XLT calculator doesn’t take into account this “feed time” of the 1st pizza(s) - either that or their cook time is figured differently from how my controllers are set up. Anyways, I come up with “62 pizzas per hour” for my answer.