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New QII Deck - any thoughts?

S

sausagemike

New member
There is a new oven out called the QII Deck. These are the guys that bought up Q-matic a few years back and have completely overhauled the oven. They kept the infrared and radiant heat cooking systems but revamped the controls, removed the pilot, made it easier to clean, and all under 750 pounds. They are advertising at http://www.qiideck.com. They told me they’ll be at the Ohio Pizza Show and Expo.

They have a guy on their website from Mancino’s that uses it but has anyone seen these around or have experience with them. I lack capacity with only 2 sets of double stacked y600s. but cannot bear to think about paying over$42,000 for a double stacked middleby marshall ps670 so-called WOW ovens. The bake won’t be the same and the noise is something that I don’t think I’ll like - or my staff will like.

I’d appreciate any help or advice. Thanks, Mike
 
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Being a conveyor fan and a previous owner of Qmatic & several CTX ovens, I also reviewed their new web site…nice…simple…informative…

The leasing option is a bit pricey, but the technology aspect is intriguing…I didn’t use my original Qmatic, as we sold that operation quickly after opening, but the infrared bake & the quite operation are indeed, pluses…

I think the trick in any conveyor is the dough formula and slowing down the bake time to develop flavor & the crust characteristics you seek…

I would put this oven back into the mix if I were considering a new oven, but remember, you may best be suited to put some/all of the veggies under the cheese for a ‘prettier’ & drier pizza
 
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Patriot'sPizza:
I would put this oven back into the mix if I were considering a new oven, but remember, you may best be suited to put some/all of the veggies under the cheese for a ‘prettier’ & drier pizza
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Do you recommend the veggies underneath only if I move to a conveyor impinger oven? Or is this your recommendation for the QII DECK / Q matic? One of their selling points is that they DON’T blow hot air and thus the veggies and meats stay moist.

Even if this oven sells for around $17000, the lease option still brings the price of the oven about $2000 cheaper than paying for a MM PS670 i think.

Thanks for the reply.
 
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Hi Mike:

The Q-Matic oven was never very sucessfull.We tested it in our shop and found the pizzas needed to be spaced a substantial distance apart or there was under baking where the cool air layers surrounding the pizzas overlapped.

I do not think it was controls or pilot lights that were their main problem.

As to the pricing of air impingement ovens, Middleby is very expensive. We sell the comparable XLT for a little over half that price and warranty it for five years.

Domino’s, Little Caesars, Costco, And many others have found the XLT ovens perform as good as, or better than, any other ovens on the market.

George Mills
 
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George Mills:
The Q-Matic oven was never very sucessfull.We tested it in our shop and found the pizzas needed to be spaced a substantial distance apart or there was under baking where the cool air layers surrounding the pizzas overlapped.

I do not think it was controls or pilot lights that were their main problem.

As to the pricing of air impingement ovens, Middleby is very expensive. We sell the comparable XLT for a little over half that price and warranty it for five years.

Domino’s, Little Caesars, Costco, And many others have found the XLT ovens perform as good as, or better than, any other ovens on the market.
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There’s no question where your business comes from 😃 . How long ago did you test the Q? Did you call for support or allow the company to try to make the pizzas come out better? From what I’ve read, it sounds like they are very keen on helping out owners and that once the settings are there the oven really does cook like a deck. MM or XLT honestly cannot say that no matter how many ads they pay for in PMQ and Pizza Today.

You can sell and XLT for $11,000 - boy that is affordable! I’m a Y600 guy so I’m pretty wary about going to big brand impingers.

Considering the companies you listed (Domino’s, LC, Costco) I would prefer to keep my pizzas from tasting like theirs. Just my honest opinions about their crusts and bake. :mrgreen:
 
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I’m driving 20 yr old ovens & compete quite favorably against deck ovens & new conveyors…as I’ve preached b4, slow down the conveyor speed & lower the temp…a 4-6 minute pies tastes like a 4-6 minute pie and can’t compete with a pizza that has had time to bake & develop flavor…

I had to put veggies under my cheese w/my CTX, especially mushrooms, as they weep much too much w/o the impingement factor…

I still put 10% of my cheese on top of all my pizzas just because I prefer the look of the finished product…not because of the impingement air…

If I had to rate new ovens, I’d say #1 Edge, #2 XLT (sorry Geo.)…PM Paul, as I believe he can explain better the Edge advantage over the XLT, as he’s owned both…
 
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Hi Mike:
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How long ago did you test the Q? Did you call for support or allow the company to try to make the pizzas come out better?
A
We had no problem with the bake of the product just the problem we indicated. We declined to market the oven. Just a word of caution over the years that oven was on the market we never had anyone call looking to buy one but lots of calls from owners wanting to trade in or sell them.
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a 4-6 minute pies tastes like a 4-6 minute pie and can’t compete with a pizza that has had time to bake & develop flavor.
A
You are correct. We recommend a 6 minute minimum bake for standard pizzas much more for deep dish.

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You can sell an XLT for $11,000 - boy that is affordable! I’m a Y 600 guy so I’m pretty wary about going to big brand impingers.

Considering the companies you listed (Domino’s, LC, Costco) I would prefer to keep my pizzas from tasting like theirs. Just my honest opinions about their crusts and bake.
A
I suggest you review some of “Tom the Dough Doctor postings” on the quality of air impingement baking.

The quality of the product is primarily dependent on the quality of the ingredients and the care taken in preparation, a little on the ovens. There are outstanding and award wining pizzas being baked in every type of oven imaginable.

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Patriot: Writes: If I had to rate new ovens, I’d say #1 Edge, #2 XLT

A
The edge is a fine oven I do not see much difference in them except that XLT has the confidence to offer a five year parts and service warranty.

George Mills
 
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George Mills:
Hi Mike:
–We had no problem with the bake of the product just the problem we indicated. We declined to market the oven. Just a word of caution over the years that oven was on the market we never had anyone call looking to buy one but lots of calls from owners wanting to trade in or sell them.

–We recommend a 6 minute minimum bake for standard pizzas much more for deep dish.

My unanswered ? --You can sell an XLT for $11,000 ?

George Mills
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George, thanks so much for the reply. Though I might seem argumentative, I’m just trying to make sure that I compare apples to apples here. I know that you rep XLT, so I have take that into consideration.

I spoke to the guys at Northern Pizza about the QII Deck and they actually have a QII Deck to test with and I’m thinking about heading there if it is available to cook on. Speaking to their service team, I’m told significant improvements have been made to the overall design, the controls, and servicability. I didn’t know this but the QII Deck is owned by Berkshire Hathway and Warren Buffett himself. The company actually shut down production to revamp the entire oven instead of pushing out the oven of the past (The Q-matic). Thanks for the information about the past, however, it seems like this may be a new company and a different oven. Can you say a MM360 is the same as a MM670 or an XLT an original 3270 is the same as a newere 3870? Just asking …

I’m glad you actually say a pizza in an impinger shouldn’t be cooked faster than 6 minutes even though XLT and MM boast speed as a main selling point. (See XLT’s Top 2 of 3 new releases: a pizza every 19 seconds). You have it figured out that speed makes a pizza taste bad - the manufactures haven’t figured that out :shock:

Finally, you said the XLT is 1/2 $ of the MM. A MM sells at $23-25,000 (Double stacked PS670 - $46,000) so you are saying you can sell and XLT for $11,500 to $12,500 ?

Thanks, Mike
 
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To say that the Q11 is owned by Berkshire hathaway/Warren Buffett seems to be a bit of a stretch. It appears that they are a member of the Marmon Group, a trade group that is owned by Berkshire Hathaway:

How We Operate

The member companies of The Marmon Group operate independently under their own management. Through
service agreements with each member company, a
small professional organization in Chicago, Illinois –
The Marmon Group LLC – provides consulting and administrative services, including tax and accounting services, legal counsel and management consulting, to member companies of The Marmon Group. The Marmon Group LLC employs approximately 80 people and has its offices at:

Furthermore, George stated that he could sell an XLT oven “for a little over half the price” of a Middleby. If you are seriously interested, I’m sure he will be happy to provide you with a quote and I’m sure you will see that it is just a little over half the price of a Middleby.
However, I doubt you are interested in his ovens. Your agenda seems to be pushing the Q11 ovens.
 
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perfect pizzas:
I doubt you are interested in his ovens. Your agenda seems to be pushing the Q11 ovens.
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When I step back it does sound like that. Thanks for helping me take a deep breath. I’m looking at replacing deck ovens and thought I found something interesting in this new oven. I guess all the research I’ve done, talking to the QII people - everything just short of testing product in the oven - it seems my opinion and interest was quickly thrown out by an XLT sales rep that, regardless of his years of expert opinion, really hasn’t even seen this QII Deck oven. He probably hasn’t seen a far diffrerent oven - the orginal company’s oven - probably for 10 years.

So I’ll go back to my original qustions: Any thoughts on the new QII Deck? Anyone tested one or been to their kitchen or to Northern’s test kitchen? I’m not concerned about advice on an oven that was produced years ago and is no longer sold.

Man,pizza is an emotional business 😃 !Once again, thanks to you all, Mike.
 
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Hi Mike:

No we have not tested the new Q oven

I do not use equipment. I just report for the consideration of this forum what the operators we have contact with tell us. Rarely Has an oven that did not perform well been worked over by a successor company and then they performed acceptably. If the basic concept is flawed all the tweaking and changing of peripheral components rarely overcomes the basic fault.

Case in point is the Lincoln X 2 oven. That was originally designed by the Wolfe Electric company and sold as the E-flow oven. Wolfe decided that the basic concept was flawed but an industrial engineering firm picked up the patent. They did a great deal of re engineering and offered the units for sale. Unfortunately they did not change the basic operating principle, sold a bunch of them to a second level chain and had to buy them back. That outfit gave up but Lincoln thought they could make it work. Lincoln purchased the design and re engendered the unit and offered it for sale. Again the basic system remained the same and the oven has been a flop. I do not think Lincoln is still offering it for sale.

Just not to create a false impression, XLT is not the only oven we sell, we are Lincoln, Blodgett Bakers Pride dealers. Virtually all oven manufactures have offered us dealerships and if we placed an order with them they would sell us ovens.The exception is Middleby who despite us being their top dealer for almost 20 years dropped us and the few other dealers and now sell direct.

We Have several chain accounts that are regularly buying the XLT ovens from us mostly in conjunction with the entire store package and we have sold many XLT ovens to individual Clients. Every buyer is, apparently, very happy with the units. We have had only good reports from buyers.

The XLT 32 70 Has a 32 in wide belt the 38 70 has a 38 in wide belt. As to the Middleby 360 -670 they are all together different ovens 360 ovens are smaller and are a very different configuration but the basic operating principals are the same.

I mentioned A few major chains because they are hi volume operators and put tremendous strain on all their equipment. They would not be using the XLT if they were not getting outstanding performance.

You ask about XLT pricing The factory requests that we do not publicly advertise our price. Sufficient to say here that the double set we discussed we sell for close to half the price of the ovens you mentioned and that includes a 5 year warranty as opposed to a 2 year.

If the Q oven folks have a great product they should be able to sell it to one of the top chains, Those outfits have the capability to put an oven through the wringer and find out if the equipment is capable of producing the product they want and is capable of taking th strains they put upon it.

Every Manufacture talks a great game, few can prove all there claims. A high volume operation testing a unit for several months can determine the veracity of their claims.

George Mills
 
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Hey thanks George. Will you be at the NAPICS pizza show in Ohio or out in Vegas? I’m going to try to see demos at the shows. As far as I can tell, QII and reps for XLT will be at Ohio. And all the manufacturers will be at the Vegas show.

I’ll see how everything looks at the show. I’d love to meet you if you are attending.
 
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Hey thanks George. Will you be at the NAPICS pizza show in Ohio or out in Vegas? I’m going to try to see demos at the shows.

We will be in Vegas. The Ohio show is a good show but it comes to close to the Vegas show.

We cant be away much at this time of the year, we have a bunch of new shops to draw plans for so as to be ready for when the weather breaks and construction can start.

We will be in booth 925 At the pizza expo. Stop in.

George Mills
 
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Hey George - good to meet you at the Expo. I didn’t ask you then if you’d been over to the Qii booth. Any thoughts?

The pies they were putting through (2 styles) were the real deal - crisp, hot & moist. Tasted great. I didn’t get alot of time to talk to them but did swap emails with Matt (the owner on their website) and set up a test bake for next month.
 
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Yes I saw the unit. Looks very well built.

The older units also made a very good pizza.

In fact just about any oven can bake a great pizza.

The test is when you try to run 50 or more pies through as fast as you can.

What happened on the older oven was that if yo did not have a substantial space between the pies going through the oven The edges of the pies that were adjacent did not bake properly.

The above is a common problem in any oven that does not have substantial air movement inside of it.

What happens is when a pizza is baking a layer of the cold that is leaving the product forma a layer of cold air around the pizza. Therefore if th pizzas are close to each other overlapping layers of cold air are formed and the pizzas do not bake as thoroughly as the portions not subject to overlapping cold zones.

Air impingement ovens such as Lincoln, Middleby, edge and XLT blow away that layer of cold air and do not have that problem you can jam pizzas into them as close as possible. The entire pizza bakes the same and bakes faster because of that air movement.

Another factor is that the air blowing down on a heavily topped pizza forces the heat down around all the toppings and bakes most all heavenly topped pizzas in the same time as the lightly topped. Ovens that do not have that feature will usually take much longer to bake a heavily topped pizza. Some non air impingement ovens take so long to bring heavy toppings up to the proper doneness that the bottoms over bake.

I hope the new model Q 2 has solved those problems

George Mills
 
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I would agree with George that any test should include loading the oven down for a significant period of time. I’ve had more than one conveyor oven that cooked great pies when it was slow and there was only a few in the oven, but would turn out undercooked pies when there was a bunch of pies back to back with alot of toppings. When purchasing an oven that you will count on to cook millions of dollars of pizzas, don’t be afraid to spend a few hundred in food cost to insure you’ll be happy with it under your busiest times.
 
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