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Scale for toppings

G

Grokster

New member
There was a post within the last 3-4 months about scales and everyone somewhat agreed on one scale that was the most cost effective and most durable scale… For the life of me I can’t find the post now that I am in need of new scales!

I can’t remember the exacts but for some reason the name reminded me of star trek… “Ship” something or other.

In any case, if you would be so kind to let me know what scales you use, or if you know which star trek scale I’m referring to I would appreciate it greatly!

Thanks.

PS: We will be using the scales for dough balling as well as toppings on the line, cheese included.
 
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I really like the oxo scales. They are very reasonably priced. The only bad thing is they are battery operated but they don’t go through a lot of batteries as long as you don’t use the back light that you can turn on
 
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I need to get a scale that integrates with our POS for other things, but we have had great success using volumetric measuring system.

The cheese cups from Grande, and I learned about the “Poppa Johns” portioning cups available on eBay.
We measured and weighed product to price items, and portions have been nice and tight since that time. For our fresh sausage, I weighed out what I wanted, and the guys have been decent on portioning by feel.
I spot check occasionally, and they are always within a few hundredths of an ounce,
So thank to the person who posted the eBay link a while back
 
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We bought one of the Ultra Ship scales. It is a nice scale, low height and versatile compared to our previous pelouze analog scale. The drawback is the time that it takes to register the weight change of the item / topping on the scale. When you grab some topping and then need to add more, it makes you hesitate and wait until the scale updates the display. We have another digital scale - taylor I believe - that is MUCH faster than this one, although it only weighs ounces / grams up to 2 #.

Dan
 
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Dan buy the ac adapters and use the Auto-on function. Ultraship scales are the bomb

Wrap the read out in Saran Wrap to prevent dust sauce etc from getting in it
 
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I’m buying 4 more as we speak from amazon I started using them
4 months ago the amount of money I saved from portioning the chicken steak tips cheese and bacon paid for it self in a week!

Not to mention how much easier it is to make it black and white for the employes. I had a chart laminated and taped to the wall at each station
 
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We just opened but have been portioning the cheese in bags 5 and 7 oz 12 in gets 5 oz 14" gets 7 oz and deep dish gets 2 of the 5 oz bags, we keep a small stainless bowl on the line to break up clumps. Been working so far. Any thoughts on this system everyone?
 
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I tried doing that, it didn’t work for me. I spent a few hours getting the bags ready for the next day.
Literally the second order was a special request they wanted pizza cheese on their salad (there wasn’t a proper portion for That)
Next order “can I get extra chicken on my sub?” I ended up with a bunch of half bags here and there making it confusing and a waste of time and labor.
I know a few places that do it like that so it does work just not for me
 
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What’s the secret to using the scales during the Rush? How do you guys that are doing 1200 pizzas a day portion on the fly? I’ve tried even the high dollar scales and it slows production down too much for us. I’d love for it to work though.
 
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I think the difference is in the oven type- with a conveyor oven, it’s easy enough to put the pan on the scale, tare, and just put the cheese on until the number on the display reaches the target amount.

That doesn’t quite work if you’re using a deck oven… (a bit harder with a peel)
 
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OSV said:
I think the difference is in the oven type- with a conveyor oven, it’s easy enough to put the pan on the scale, tare, and just put the cheese on until the number on the display reaches the target amount.

That doesn’t quite work if you’re using a deck oven… (a bit harder with a peel)
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Yeah, we’ve always used deck ovens. Kind of tough with the peel on top of the scale. The scale system we used before worked, with the foot pedal and all, but it would kill our fast guys. They just hated taking the “time” to scale everything when there were 40 tickets that were hanging from the printer. Not as consistent though of course.

Might have to try again at our new place since it isn’t quite as busy yet.
 
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I use Globe portion control scale. Every pizza we weigh the cheese. Any chicken items we also weigh. I have been weighing pepperoni lately and it seems weird but it actually seems to make it faster for me personally. I also occasionally weigh other toppings just to make sure my eye is accurate. I initially chose it because it is only $45 at Rest Depot. It’s a little higher other places online. We don’t do 1200 pizzas a night, but it works great for us. It’s at the beginning of our prep table and has a small enough footprint to stay out the way.

When we took over, one of the biggest complaints was the inconsistency of things like cheese. Their instructions called for things like “a handful of cheese”. Who’s handful? The petite 17 year old girl, or my dad’s massive bear paws? People noticed the difference almost immediately.
 
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The only thing we weigh on the fly is cheese. We weigh it in the cup before it goes on the pizza so that ads about 3 seconds to the make time. Since we make more 16" pies by far than anything else, we use a cup that, when full, is just about right for the portion on the 16".
 
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I’ve been playing with setting my bin of pizza cheese atop my ultra ship scale with the read out on top of the salad bar unit. I tare the the weight on every pizza. I just started doing it yesterday, the reason I’m trying it is bc I want to buy block cheese and shred it myself to take advantage of the savings(I buy diced currently) diced is more consistent in weight when using the cup method. I use a deck oven no screens so it might work for me and noreason. And I can make a chart for cheese portions for quantities of cheese for specialty pizzas (they need less cheese, than a cheese pizza) after all we are all in the “cheese buisness”
 
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@December you are keeping the cheese refrigerated while on the scale, right?

We have 3 scales and a bowl for each topping and scale everything that goes on the pizza. We can do a pizza every 30 seconds from start to in the oven with the right staff.
 
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December said:
I’ve been playing with setting my bin of pizza cheese atop my ultra ship scale with the read out on top of the salad bar unit. I tare the the weight on every pizza. I just started doing it yesterday, the reason I’m trying it is bc I want to buy block cheese and shred it myself to take advantage of the savings(I buy diced currently) diced is more consistent in weight when using the cup method. I use a deck oven no screens so it might work for me and noreason. And I can make a chart for cheese portions for quantities of cheese for specialty pizzas (they need less cheese, than a cheese pizza) after all we are all in the “cheese buisness”
Click to expand...
My supplier hosed me last week by not having my Diced Grande LMWM in stock, so I got shred, and block. I ran the block through my meat grinder with a 1/4" plate and got a very usable product close to diced in usability, but the weight to volume ratio was off
Using the cups, it weighed the same as shredded does, so we went up with our cup sizes across the board to hit our target weight
My point; If you have the time and a sturdy #22 or #32 grinder, you get consistent weights using cups, but the volume is not as dense as the true diced, so check your target weights and adjust accordingly to compensate.
I will most likely continue to get diced because the labor costs involved with grinding the cheese will probably outweigh any savings I may see. And less chance for screw-ups and waste that will end up costing me even more.
 
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