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Picard Pizza Oven

A hearth baked conveyor oven seems like a dream!
Anybody remember the the old CTX ovens? I had them back in '84 or so and they were some of the earliest conveyors that I can remember- and near me geographically.
The belt was kind of funky- very tightly spaced sections that, once in the chamber- almost formed a deck. I believe we used to almost parbake a pie (on a screen) for 10 seconds or so (or sometimes not even at all) and then just drop it onto the belt as they entered the chamber- pie was almost like a hearth or deck pie.
We did this for ourselves- we used screens for customer’s pies.
I do know that you could never do that with my current MM ovens.
Don’t hold me to too much of the above… 1984 was a long time ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be.
What was the question? 🙂
 
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The oven that you are describing is the old CTX oven. It’s an infrared oven as opposed to air impingement. The conveyor was referred to as a woven wire mesh conveyor, in later years it has become known as The Hearth Bake Oven by Middleby-Marshall.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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The oven that you are describing is the old CTX oven. It’s an infrared oven as opposed to air impingement. The conveyor was referred to as a woven wire mesh conveyor, in later years it has become known as The Hearth Bake Oven by Middleby-Marshall.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
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Tom,

Have you used any of the newer stone conveyor ovens? I saw the youtube for the italforni stone conveyor and it claims a deck oven pie in just over 3 mins. Just curious how these are ovens are doing and how reliable they are.
 
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No, I haven’t had a chance to work with one yet. Now that I’m retired from my job at AIB I can no longer request an oven for testing or demoing in the pizza class anymore, so I have to wait until I can see one at one of the pizza shows or I have an opportunity to work with one in one of my client’s stores. This is one of those ovens that I hope to see at the upcoming Pizza Expo.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Their site is a bit lacking… I just kept saying “but how does it work and what does it look like”
I then found a video on YT (done by Picard so maybe it was on their site and I missed the link, etc) and
it was quite informative. It is, essentially, very much like the CTX that I mentioned above in that there are 2" strips of stone that work as the “belt” and that creates the surface. Pretty darn neat!
And yes, Joe- I, too, noted some interesting bake times. But… to have a conveyor and get that crispiness w/ a hand-tossed product is very cool.
I almost think- in the right market- an oven like that creates a marketing opportunity.
 
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URNUTS said:
I almost think- in the right market- an oven like that creates a marketing opportunity.
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There is a 3 location brand in my town that uses these ovens and markets “stone fired pizza”. They are quite popular and people speak very highly of their food but I was very much less than impressed the one time I had eaten there.
 
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Actually, “stone fired” is incorrect, it should be “stone hearth baked” as “stone fired” implies that the oven fuel is “stones”. It is a glorified deck oven so the quality of the pizzas coming out of it will depend upon how the oven is set up to bake their pizzas.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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i almost had the opportunity to work with one a few years back…but we couldn’t agree on terms…but for those interested in WFO, I had a great experience with a rotating one a while back…super fast! It takes two or three people to make & bake on big, busy nights…
 
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Just came across this conversation about stone conveyor ovens and wanted tell you guys about some of the problems ive been having with the picard ovens. I purchased 2 hotrocks last year and been having issues. Ive had parts changed 3/4 times last year. The same parts kept failing like this box that controls the air inside side the oven. It should open/close the air ducts as needed. When it fails the pizzas come out lightly cooked on top. Also the conveyor itself has long bolts that hold the stone slates, which ive had changed multiple times. Dont get me wrong it cooks good but its not reliable. Well I had this go on for the past year not to mention throughout that year I was forced to close for more then 10 days because of the problems. The worse part is that its so new that no service company in the area has any knowlege of how to work on these ovens. Parts are sent from canada which takes time and how do you open your pizza shop and not be able to sell pizza. So your forced to close. Well the VP of the company sent 2 new ovens 2 months ago. They also sent a factory tech to do the install. Tonight I had another malfunction. The stone heat goes 100 degrees over the set temp causing the pizzas to burn underneath. I called the factory and nobody is available. So I have to figure it out till monday I guess. This is not what you would expect from a pair of 70,000$ ovens. So if you are in the market for this particular oven please give it some thought. Im so upset about what happened tonight I just wanted to give everyone a heads up before getting these ovens.
 
No, I haven’t had a chance to work with one yet. Now that I’m retired from my job at AIB I can no longer request an oven for testing or demoing in the pizza class anymore, so I have to wait until I can see one at one of the pizza shows or I have an opportunity to work with one in one of my client’s stores. This is one of those ovens that I hope to see at the upcoming Pizza Expo.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
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Tom go to the Pizzaovens.com booth (#2531) at the Pizza Expo for a demo of the Italforni stone conveyor oven. If you have your own product with you I am sure you can test the oven yourself. It does give a deck-oven bake in about 3 minutes.
 
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I am the VP of Picard and I would like to response to Ceasar from New York Pizza that mentionned that he purchased 2 of our Hot Rocks oven and that said on his post of Feb. 27, 2016 that our oven are not reliable. Picard has been manufacturing a stone conveyor for over 15 years now which was the LP-200. Then, in 2015, we launched a second version of our Stone Conveyor, called the Hot Rocks. I have to admit that we had our challenges when we launched it. However, we have always back-up our products because we are rowing our company based on quality and service.

To come back to the experience of New York Pizza in Charlotte, we agree to give them 2 new ovens because we initially though that the problems were coming from the oven. However, after swaping their ovens for brand new ovens, they were still having problems. Then, we found out that their was only 1 gas regulator pressure for all its equipment and that this has caused to bust the ovens’ burner. We gave them free burners to fix the situation even though their was no problem with the oven. We sent one of our engineer on site to fix the situation, but the owners of New York Pizza were really not collaborative.

Finally, we have many happy clients across Canada and in the USA that have been using our LP-200 and Hot Rocks and that produce and sells over 1500 pizza per night and that are keeping buying our oven. Due to our success, we just built a new state of the art factory because we double our revenues in the past 2 years.

I am personally inviting any Pizza Restaurant owner to come and test our oven in our brand new test kitchen. In fact, we are organizing an Italian Day on January 24 and we will be reimbursing travelling expenses and giving 2nd year warranty to any buyers purchasing an oven within 2 months after their try-out.

You have any comments or questions, do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]

Best regards

Vincent Tourigny
 
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Not a good time to realize I don’t have a Passport… which you now need to get into Canada, yes?
Lived in Vermont for many years and an ID was all you needed but that was when things were a bit simpler.
Too bad, I would have driven up to that. Love to see that oven and do a test bake.

** Guess you don’t need one! ***
 
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