sauce spoodle

[Piff]

Does anyone use multiple size spoodles for multiple size pizzas? I have 5 pizza sizes. I only use one but considering getting a smaller one for smalls and medium.
Thanks

 

[GotRocks]

We use flat bottom ladles of different sizes, I have tried to use the spoodle, hated it!
had a few employees who liked them, but side by side building pizzas with me, they saw how quickly and evenly I got the sauce out, and they changed over to a ladle with no coaxing on my part.

Consistency is key, and making sure everyone is portioning the correct amount of sauce is crucial IMO

 

[Home_Town_Pizza]

We just use the one 4oz ladle. Works for our Medium (4oz) and Large (8oz) but we have to eyeball for XL (10oz) and Small (2.5oz). I would love to say just use one to stay fast and efficient, but nothing else we do is as fast and efficient as everyone else. We are also lower volume right now than most places. If we pick up we may have to change things. But right now, we ladle the sauce onto the pie, then spread it with a small pie server thing to make it even across the pizza, weigh our cheese on a scale, then I weigh my pepperoni. We recently switched to hand pinched sausage instead of ready-made, so I have been weighing that for now until I get a feel for sizing. So, yeah, adding a second ladle would totally throw us off, ha ha. It actually goes quicker that typing it out makes it sound. But we haven’t had problems with eyeballing sauce. And if it looks like too much when we spread it, the pie spatula can scrape some right off pretty easily.

 

[GotRocks]

@Home Town Pizza
Congrats on going fresh on Sausage, I grew up with fresh sausage on pizza, and several frozen pizza makers in my area also used fresh up until a few years ago. I do not understand the switch to pre-cooked that many went to that route.
Is it due to worries about undercooked sausage going out? or is it for financial reason due to labor costs?
This is not meant as a slam to anyone else who may use pre-cooked, so please do not take it that way

 

[Home_Town_Pizza]

I’m sure it has to do with the extra labor involved with fresh. Also, the added steps required when working with raw pork around pizza toppings. Being in BBQ, you have a pretty good setup for that I assume. I would like to grind and mix my own, but there’s the space required and the room to keep from cross contaminating things in the grinding/mixing area. So I have found a great frozen ground bulk Italian sausage in 5lb bags. I thaw it, then pinch it onto full sheet pans. Then I put it in the oven for 5 minutes. Count me among the nervous about using raw topping directly on the pizza. Plus, I don’t want the raw pork on the make line. Cooking it also gives me more time before it goes bad, which is pretty quick once ground meat hits air. Anyway, after it comes out from 5 mins, I drain it as much as possible and chill it in a Cambro. Then it goes on the make line. After the 10 mins we bake our pizza, it comes out great. The extra steps are worth it for the improved product. And, as with all the things I’m making myself such as chicken, it comes out cheaper than the pre-made stuff.

 

[noreason]

Tried using a “spoodle” once but everyone wanted to kill me. Once you’re use to something, change is just too tough I suppose.

We use a standard ladle and have for almost 50 years… Might not be the best route if you’re going for that perfect to the ounce accuracy on your sauce, but it works very well for us.

 

[GotRocks]

I’m sure it has to do with the extra labor involved with fresh. Also, the added steps required when working with raw pork around pizza toppings. Being in BBQ, you have a pretty good setup for that I assume…

We are little tight on room here too, so to keep cross contamination from happening, we just have very stern rules for “Raw Only” & “RTE only” locations in the coolers. and specific areas for prepping each.
Pork is not as (do I say “Dangerous”) as it used to be 50 years ago, I do not know of a single case of trichinosis found in domestic commercially raised pork in like forever, cooking temps have even been lowered a few times over the last decade.
Raw pork on the line does not concern me, there is a good amount of separation between our “RTE” area, and the pizza make line.

 

[Home_Town_Pizza]

Yeah, I have the do the same when we are roasting chicken or turkey. I basically do it at a time when I can shut down a stainless table to everythign else and pan and season it up there so I can then clean and disinfect it before we need it for random stuff.

In thinking about it, every other item in the section of my make line where my sausage is, would also go into something that I serve raw in a salad or something. It’s all essentially RTE. That said, I still probably couldn’t mentally get past it. Even if I knew it was getting cooked completely, it would weird me out. And if customers saw it on our line, (we don’t have an open kitchen but people can still look over the prep table) the perception might be bad enough to worry them.

 

[Home_Town_Pizza]

Piff, I’m sorry. I just realized how far off topic we have sidetracked your thread. Sorry. We tend to go off on tangents apparently. Maybe we should just leave this for spoodle talk.