With the dough boxes, you wil put the dough balls into the boxes, oil them, and cross stack them in the cooler for 2-hours, then down stack and nest them. With the sheet pans, you will lightly flour the sheet pans, place the dough balls onto the pans, and place them on racks in the cooler (uncovered) for 2-hours, then you will wrap in Saran (a parasitic cost) or you can slip each pan of dough into a plastic bag, sized just for this application. You will probably be able to reuse the bags several times to help defray their cost. In both cases, with sheet pans, you will need to have an extra rack outside of the cooler to place the pans of dough on for tempering at room temperature prior to use. Two hours tempering is about right. If you opt not to allow the dough to temper, get ready to use your bubble popper. Pans and racks are cheaper than dough boxes, but in the long run, they will be cheaper as they are self nesting and don’t require plastic wrap or bags to cover them with, and they also don’t need a rack as they can be stacked one on top of another.
That’s the down’n dirty between pans and dough boxes.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor