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Wife is demanding deck ovens, any suggestions

I think the fear my wife and I have is from subpar experience with pizzas from a conveyor system. Locally the pizzeria doing the most business uses a conveyor and pumps out 900+ pizza a week (I asked). However the pizza has an end crust about 2" wide with the center dough about 1/8 thick. What happens when you grab a slice is the toppings fall off because the dough is so limp.

I like a pizza (not available around here unless I cook it at home) where you can grab a slice with one hand and the slice stays striaght, no Viagra needed! 😃

I am pushing around 4 dozen pizza made at home (last 60 days) and served to everyone I know and I keep hearing the same comment about the crust and the crunch and being straight not floppy.

We want to make sure we get the oven that will get this done but still provide ample output for when we open and advance into delivery.

Keept the comments coming, I appreciate everyone chiming in on this. As mentioned before I am sure I will have several more questions/post along the way.
 
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Pazzo di Pizza:
All through this project I had in mind using deck ovens for our pizzeria, but output has me concerned. We grew up eating pizzas out of a Blodgett deck oven and love the crispy crunch bottom and chewy center.

We are developing a thin americana style pizza with topping edge to edge and want to stick with the deck oven idea. However if business takes off I am unsure we will be able to keep up. I am allowing space in the floor plan for up to 2 double stacks of ovens.

Anyone want to chime in or post links of good research info I can follow up on? The only thing I really know about deck ovens is we used Blodgetts.
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I have 2 Bakers Pride y600 well whatever they are double stack deck ovens. We have no problem with keeping up volume. We are a part of a franchise and our pizza sounds simalar to yours. Toppings in everybite, thin crust. Looking around 5 min for a deluxe pizza to cook. we could hold 24 16" pizzas at one time, althouhg a little tricky in getting them all out at the same time. I have trained many employees using the ovens and it isn’t rocket science. You should have no problem with the volume and with the training. Our volume is upper 600’s and we are coasting. Other franchises are around 1 mil and have the same ovens.

Denny
 
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I have 2 BP Y600 When I first bought my store 8 years ago the were across the room from each other (dont ask me why) They only used the 2nd oven when they had really big orders but as I grew the business we started to need it every Fri and Sat so I stacked them a year later. We can get 8-14" (9 if we really cram them) in each oven and the cook time is about 7 minutesWe are doing close to 600k and yes when we really get slammed we sometimes have to wait to put pizzas in but for the most part we can keep up. I think you get a better pizza from a deck oven but I have never used anything else. I also think that is why we are so busy our pizzas are not the chain style pizza cooked in a conv. There is something about a deck oven that makes them different. I looked at the deck ovens that spin but because I cook my pizzas in the pan I think it would have to spin to slow to be avle to use my tongs and flipper to get them out on time I guess you could use a peel and take the whole pan out of the oven and place it on the counter but then you are duplicating the process. Hey all I know is it works for me and I wouldnt change it for anything.
 
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The one thing I like about the conveyors is you “know” the amount of time it will take to cook the pizza. I seem to recall on the deck ovens, of course this is a 20 year old memory, it would take around 15-20 minutes to cook a pizza. Shorter amount time when not busy so the oven did not have to recover as much.

Can anyone confirm a bake time in a deck oven? Again look to the future, if we want to have an optimal delivery time of around 30 minutes and it takes on average 3 minutes to prep the pizza, bake time of 20 minutes, this only leaves about 7-10 minutes for delivery.

I don’t mind the longer bake time for dine-in (our primary focus) as it allows more beer etc to be consumed. Just got to be careful they don’t over do it.
 
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One factor will be the BTU’s of the oven. I’ve not cooked much on decks, but if you’re not cooking a thick pizza, it won’t take 20 minutes with the proper oven. I’ve heard of people buying “baking” ovens with stones and having issues because they were only 50,000 BTU’s. I believe if you look at the Y-600’s you’ll find they are closer to 150,000 BTU’s. Keep this in mind when shopping for ovens.
 
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Well, it was a long time ago, and it took some talented crew, but I’ve produced over a million a year in a Y602 (one doublestack). Much of that volume was $1.50 at a time, selling slices.
 
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No way a 20 minute cook.
Decks DO change the cook time a little as they get cool when it’s busy from the door opening more (just when you wish they were hotter). But for your thin style pizza you’re probably looking at a cook time of perhaps 7 minutes or so…
 
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Pazzo di Pizza:
I think the fear my wife and I have is from subpar experience with pizzas from a conveyor system…However the pizza has an end crust about 2" wide with the center dough about 1/8 thick. What happens when you grab a slice is the toppings fall off because the dough is so limp.
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You really need to get this one straight as your wife concerns have little to do with the oven and more to do with how you make the pizza.

If your local guy used a deck oven he’d still get a lousy pizza.

cp pizza in conveyor = cp pizza
cp pizza in deck = cp pizza

good pizza in conveyor = good pizza
c**p pizza in deck (with experienced oven tender) = good pizza

I’ll go back to my previous post - you need get your wife to blind taste test from both otherwise you’ll comtinue to spend a long time debating a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exisit.

Kev
 
Gentlemen Please . You do not cook a pizza you Bake a pizza. Any professional baker would be laughing at all these posts about cooking pizza. Its not a stew its a pizza.
George mills
 
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again I state, consider a CTX or Q-Matic conveyor to equal the finished product produced w/a deck oven…(tho I’ve seen a granite conveyor…)

If I had an unlimited or a limited budget & the elec power, knowing what I know, I’d go with CTX again…we baked ours on parchment…saved a bundle not using screens…

but the final fact you must consider, if ya put it in a box 4 delivery, the crust w/b limp in minutes…its the nature of steam & delivered pies…

One oven we’ve not discussed is the new revolving deck from hickorybbq.com…it quite interesting…a 5’ or so spinning disk, gas heated & an infrared finishing on top…go to the web site for a video…may be a little inefficient and hot, but way kewl for display kitchens…
 
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I agree about the Hickory Oven. We saw it at the NAPICS show and thought it was really cool. I’m not sure how fast it could pump them out, but it would be neat to see a small place with one of those with the kitchen completely open.
 
Lehmann says that a conveyor will get a pizza 95% of the way there compared to a deck oven. I think for most operators that it would work well for them but I don’t see conveyors working out for operations such as ours who pile on the toppings. If you order 5, 6 or 7 toppings on a pizza from us you will get 5, 6 or 7 “full” portions. Our veggie pizza has five different “freshly” chopped vegetables and a layer of cheese over the top. With that amount of toppings, and the moisture content, the baking time is at least two minutes more. You can’t optimize a conveyor oven for a cheese only or pepperoni pizza and something like our veggie. There has to be a compromise. We also do a thin crust pizza which bakes a little faster and use raw bulk sausage which requires some extra baking time. Many customer ask to have their pizzas well done. Its pretty hard to accomodate for all these variables when you have a constant stream of pizzas shootin down the conveyor.

There are ten locations in our chain and two of them have Q-Matics because of limited space. We get comments all the time about the Q-matic stores. Customers not knowing anything about the ovens always comment on how the pizzas just are not the same. Many travel the extra distance to go to a store with our rotating deck ovens.

Maybe the dough formula could be reworked to make the conveyors work for us with our kind of toppings, I don’t know, but I’m not sure it would be wise to do such a drastic thing with an established chain. Like others have suggested, its probably not possible to roll out a large chain with any kind of deck oven and have consistant product.

From our experience, if you don’t go crazy with the toppings and don’t want to rely on heavy training and expertise, go with conveyors. If you aren’t planning on rolling out 100+ stores and you want to produce a more “gourmet” type pizza, go with a deck. I also think having a rotating deck or something like the Rotoflex is a lot easier to work with when it comes to volume. Our stores typicaly do 500 to just over 1 milllion with rotating decks and can’t imagine working with single decks but I’m sure there are people in these forums that make it work.
 
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“Patriot’sPizza” said:
again I state, consider a CTX or Q-Matic conveyor to equal the finished product produced w/a deck oven…(tho I’ve seen a granite conveyor…)

not equal…maybe 85% but not the same…and I am not some biased deck nazi, I have owned a Q-matic and although I do recommend if you must use a conveyor, it is not the SAME as a deck…for my operation 85% as good is not good enough
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Debate is really fun.

Comment: Lehmann says that a conveyor will get a pizza 95% of the way there compared to a deck oven.

Response: Let me state again that I converted hundreds of deck oven users to conveyor ovens. Those people did not switch to get a lesser quality pizza. Note: In Metro Detroit Buddy’s Pizza ( conveyor user) is consistently voted the best pizza in the Metro area. A top grade, air impingement conveyor oven can bake as good a pizza as any non conveyor oven.

Comment: I think for most operators that it would work well for them but I don’t see conveyors working out for operations such as ours who pile on the toppings.

Response: Pizza Uno Piles on the toppings and they use conveyor ovens.

Comment: You can’t optimize a conveyor oven for a cheese only or pepperoni pizza and something like our veggie.

Response: A double deck conveyor oven with split belts can have 4 separately timed belts for four vastly different products. A triple deck unit can have 6.

Comment: Many customer ask to have their pizzas well done.

Response: That comment was and is common from non conveyor oven users. I have heard that hundreds of times. That comment is one of the proofs of my position. Once the operator switched to conveyor ovens the comment went from many to almost none of the customers requesting well done pizzas. Customers do not really want well done pizzas they want pizzas baked correctly. The reason they were ordering well done was that they in the past had gotten under baked pizzas.

Comment: There are ten locations in our chain and two of them have Q-Matics because of limited space. We get comments all the time about the Q-Matic stores. Customers not knowing anything about the ovens always comment on how the pizzas just are not the same.

Response:The Q Matic is not a high quality air impingement type oven.

comment: Like others have suggested, its probably not possible to roll out a large chain with any kind of deck oven and have consistent product.

Response: Of course not. Large chain or small operator, with a good conveyor oven you can push through 100 pizzas in an hour and every one is baked to the exact same level of perfection. Usually if a non conveyor oven punched out that many pizzas there would be substantial variation of product.

Comment:I also think having a rotating deck or something like the Rotoflex is a lot easier to work with when it comes to volume.

Response: Easier to work with? What can be easier to work with than a conveyor oven? You put the pizza down at one end and it comes out the other baked just the way you have programmed the oven to bake every time. With deck or rotating oven an oven tender must watch the product lake a hawk. He must remember when he put each individual pizza in the oven, he must guesstimate how long each pizza has been baking, he must be able to tell, by looking at the outside, if a pizza is baked to perfection on the inside. No wonder so many customers ask for well done pizzas. They have no doubt gotten under baked ones before. And that’s not to mention over baked or burnt pizzas. A distinct possibility with non conveyor ovens. The oven tender gets distracted (easily done) The pizza goes around a couple of extra times, whoops an over baked pizza. Does he toss it out and bake another (best) or push it out on a customer who will be dissatisfied.

My contention is that any oven that does not know when the pizza is baked to perfection and then expels the pizza at that point cannot have consistency of product. Once you are dependent on a human to judge by site or mental computation the degree to which a product is baked you will not have consistency and a lot of customers will ask for well done pizzas because they often get under baked product.

George Mills
 
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You can’t tell the difference in a pizza coming out of a deck oven vrs a CTX…you can “fine tune” 8 temp zones…no other oven can make that claim…cook on parchment paper and your cooking on a deck…

But, it has several disadvantages as well (no window, so no 1/2 entry…only 20" belt)

A trick most conveyor operators use is to put an empty screen after a pie that has xtra toppings or is requested well done…gives the cut table guy a chance to push it back for additonal heat or cooking time…

but again I state, once you put in a box, steam destroys any crisp crust…
 
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Pazzo di Pizza:
All through this project I had in mind using deck ovens for our pizzeria, but output has me concerned. We grew up eating pizzas out of a Blodgett deck oven and love the crispy crunch bottom and chewy center.

We are developing a thin americana style pizza with topping edge to edge and want to stick with the deck oven idea. However if business takes off I am unsure we will be able to keep up. I am allowing space in the floor plan for up to 2 double stacks of ovens.

Anyone want to chime in or post links of good research info I can follow up on? The only thing I really know about deck ovens is we used Blodgetts.
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Do not listen to us !.. too seriously anyway. An oven is only partially an intellectual decision.

I have and use both, love them both for the same and different reasons.
I recomend going to a pizza convention, see them all, check them all out, make up your own mind. they will be glad for you to test their ovens

BYW, there are more than just deck and conveyor ovens, ie Roto-flex, would love to use one, Picard, great concept, that new hicorybbq rotating one

hope this helps,
Otis
 
wife is demanding…pffft :roll:

when we bought our oven about 10 years ago, we went to a test kitchen to try it out first.

It would be worth your time and effort to see if the dealers around you offer this. You take your own ingriedients, dough, sauce and toppings, and pan or screens. and bake in their oven. You know how you want your pizza to come out, and this is the best way to judge what oven will work for you.
 
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