The manufacturer, process engineer and Italian pizzaiolo spoke about the fundamental differences between foreign and domestic equipment for baking pizza, the nuances in operation that should be considered before buying a hearth or conveyor oven, and the features of wood-burning ovens. Look for these gas pizza ovens are available in propane.
The most important thing in a pizza oven is a long service life and low energy consumption, and the main function is to quickly gain heat and keep it for a long time. However, manufacturers continue to improve their ovens.
Choosing a pizza oven
Depending on the type of energy used, pizza ovens are divided into:
- electrical;
- gas;
- wood-burning.
Ovens by baking method:
- hearth furnaces;
- conveyor ovens.
The choice of oven depends on:
- the format of the enterprise (cafe, takeaway, delivery or their combination),
- the number of visitors and their taste preferences,
- average check,
- the level of personnel training,
- the quality of the dough and ingredients,
- availability of free space and electrical power,
- prospects for the development of the direction, etc.
Then , taking into account the size of the investment and the desired return on capital, one or another furnace is selected.
“ The first factor when choosing an oven is the pizza you want to cook: Classic, Neapolitan, Alla Pala or American. The second – the features of the premises, namely: is it possible to build a pipe, is there a permit for a wood-burning stove, what is the permissible power of electricity, – Leonardo Trappoloni shares his experience of the pizza maker of the Giotto restaurant .
If fast food and industrial production uses ovens with maximum performance in the shortest time, requiring minimum operator experience, then the restaurant needs to find a compromise between functionality and pizza quality .
“ The quality of pizza depends 70% on the dough and only 30% on the oven and the operation of the pizza maker,” says Alexey Shkapa, director of the Zharushka Pechi company . – In order to make the right choice, you need to understand what audience you are working for: a conveyor belt is better for low receipt and streaming production, for those who appreciate the taste and know what a real pizza should be, wood-fired. The golden mean is a hearth oven , which is easier to operate than a wood-burning one, but the quality of baking is higher than in conveyor ones. “
Alex Todaro , a hereditary chef from Rome who graduated from API, Italy’s most famous pizza academy, prefers deck ovens. They are more convenient to control and maintain temperature regardless of the workload, he says, and takes less time to bake pizza because the oven is always ready to go. According to the pizza maker, a wood-burning stove is more of a hassle: at the very least, you need to spend time lighting and keeping an eye on the wood. It is also difficult to comply with cooking standards, because the temperature in different parts of the work surface may differ, respectively, some pizza will burn, and some will remain raw. Alex Todaro also sees a minus in conveyor ovens : “If something needs to be corrected during the baking process, it’s not as easy as in other ovens, where there is always access to pizza – in the conveyor belt you have to wait until it comes out from the other end. finished “.
Which pizza oven to choose: European and domestic brands
Among stove manufacturers , the leading brands are Italian brands Marana Forni, Mam, Valoriani, Morello Forni, Pizza Master, Alfa Forni, Rinaldi, Valoriani, IGV.
“A good wood-burning stove in Italy will cost about 6-7 thousand euros, in Russia – already 14-15 thousand euros. Electric ones can be purchased ” Vincenzo Dilillo , the chef of the international network of culinary studios CulinaryOn , gives the order of prices .
Domestic companies have learned to produce good equipment for pizzerias , and in terms of price-quality ratio, they benefit: being approximately on a par with ordinary Italian manufacturers, ovens cost half as much due to the absence of customs duties and logistics costs.
Now there are fakes for Italian stoves , warns Aleksey Shkapa : “The brand is Italian, and the production is in China, the quality is low, the material is painted with paint imitating ceramics, the guarantee is 1-2 months.”
