Rotoflex or stick with decks?

[zaslice]

Looking for current advice and opinions on Rotoflex. Ive searched through all the previous posts about them but nothing is very recent. Ive signed a lease for a second store slated to open in early summer this year. I currently run 2 Blodgett 1060’s and am very pleased with them but do tend to run out of room on very busy nights and large togo orders. The second store is much bigger and like the capacity of the rotoflex, but not sure if a better way to go is a few stacks of 1048’s or 4 1060’s. Or if someone has a high output deck they like lets throw that in the discussion as well. Ill mention too that i am NOT interested in any conveyor system whatsoever.

Questions on rotoflex:
-will a full sheet pan fit in the windows and spin around without getting stuck?
-how hard is placing pizzas off a peel onto a moving deck? we dont (and wont) use screens. i know there is a button to stop the decks but its on the front i think
-the videos ive seen of it in action they start on the top and constantly move them down. can you bake from start to finish in one place?
-if you can bake all the way in one spot, how easy is it to keep track of the “next spot”?

• is there a very large temperature variance between the decks?

any and all opinions are welcome, positive and negative. if you love it why? if you hated it, why?

thanks!

 

[bodegahwy]

Deleted off-topic unhelpful comment about how conveyor ovens actually do everything you are looking for.

One of our competitors uses a rotoflex. Enormous thing. Somewhat limited output but his is an older model. Hard to get parts for it according to him. More capacity than one of our conveyors but not as much as our stack of two. Problem arose when the thing went down and he was without any oven at all for several days waiting for parts. Of course it happened during one of the best weeks of the year. All mechanical things go down at some time. Having a stack of ovens means that when one is down you are not out of business. (Of course, conventional decks also nearly never go down… they are just slow as h*ll)

 

[jollypizza]

I put a Roto-flex oven in my shop in April 2013 and am very happy with it. I replaced 3 Baker’s Pride ovens. We cook most pizzas in the same spot and have no trouble finding which spot the pie goes back to. The new ovens rotate slower than the older ones you see in the videos. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me.

 

[zaslice]

thanks bodegahwy. i saw the previous post and i appreciate you editing it to a more helpful response.

thats a good point, if it goes down you are screwed until you get it fixed

jollypizza, what are your approx. bake times? can you fit a full sheetpan on the decks? we roast a ton of bacon and sausage, along with baking bread. if a sheetpan wont fit thats a deal breaker

 

[famousperry]

we switched from 4 decks to 1 rotoflex approx 7yrs ago. It does fit sheet pans which we use during off peak times. I always have spare parts ON HAND so we have never been down for more than 1 hour. Our service guy Rick Eller does the routine maintenance and if there is ever a problem I call him right aways and he calls right back. Overall it allows us to do alot more volume with less work although it does take more skilled labor to work the oven than a conveyor. I have found the Rotoflex to be the closest to decks without sacrificing quality and gaining volume although I will be looking at some of the new ovens at the Expo to check out the XLT…i would love to be able to not pay an oven guy and it should pay for itself in one year as long as the quality of the bake is close.

I would rather have a consistent above average bake than the best bake with an oven guy