CONVEYOR OVENS Pros: Conveyor ovens are widely used for a reason. Because this oven type’s speed and airflow are fixed, every pie is baked the same, ensuring product consistency. They’re also essentially idiot-proof, ensuring fast workflow in the kitchen during busy hours. They don’t require an experienced, keen-eyed pizzaiolo to peel them in, pull them out and move them around to find the sweet spots. You can place multiple (similar) pies side by side on the line and watch them come out perfectly baked on the other end. They’re assembly-line marvels that just about anyone can learn to use in little time. Finally, they preheat quickly, hold their temperature well and cool down quickly. How sexy is that? Cons: A faulty conveyor belt can throw everything out of whack. If there’s a malfunction, the pizzas won’t move along and everything can go into shutdown mode faster than the
Conveyor ovens are essentially idiotproof, ensuring fast workflow in the kitchen during busy hours. U.S. government. Also, remember that you must do your part to ensure consistency—with conveyor ovens, it’s hard to add or subtract a minute to the baking time of any one pizza to get it just right.
DECK OVENS Pros: You have to play your deck oven a bit like a delicately tuned musical instrument, but the result is pizza with amazing flavor. The deck itself may be made with ceramic tiles, large bricks or sections of stone. These surfaces bake the bottom crust differently from a conveyor oven, and, since they’re usually coated with flour or cornmeal to prevent sticking,
the crust comes out with a distinctive and wondrous texture, appearance and taste. Stone decks yield a nice, crispy crust, absorbing the oils and moisture released from the pizza to ensure a drier final product. Tiles, although not as thick as stone, also absorb oils and moisture, and they’re less expensive. Cons: Deck ovens tend to release heat as the doors are opened and closed and pizzas are inserted, shuffled and removed. They also require a skilled operator who pays close attention and knows how to consistently get the optimal bake for each pie.
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