Pizza Screens--What's the Deal?

[linguafood (Natascha)]

This site is a treasure trove <3

[bmorecupcake]

@kaleokahu

So the oven operates as a convection oven, and the screen merely provides the hot air easy access to the bottom dough?

Yes, exactly. Additionally, a conveyor oven offers a forgiving workflow. In a deck-style situation, our workers would often forget a pizza was in the oven, let alone remember to turn it. In fact, we didnt even have the clearance to open the oven and use a peel to launch, turn, etc. Furthermore, with a peel, if you had to step away from an opened dough for a while, it would stick and not launch. With a screen, it would easily come off 99% of the time after cooking. In cramped quarters where everyone is multitasking, the screen/conveyor setup worked well.

@kaleokahu

This may be different than using a screen in a solid-floor oven (or on a steel or stone) in order to slow the bottom cook so the toppings finish before the bottom scorches

I have seen these, but only for very high temp bakes, with deck-style ovens intended for Neapolitan pizza.

[HappyOnion (Tom)]

the ‘conveyor broiler’ method - popular lore - harks back to Burger King - “Broiled, not fried!”
and is a viable method for high production.
as may be obvious, plunking a big round chunk of dough on a roller conveyor . . . might no work out so well - so “screens” came to the rescue.
there are flat belt type conveyors - but they just don’t git it for pizza…

[bmorecupcake]

@vinouspleasure

A way to mass produce mediocre pizza?

Hey, that oven is like my kid at this point! Joking aside, this is an extremely lengthy discussion. I’m team Neapolitan through and through. However, based on my experience I predict in a few years American chain pizza will return to the limelight and we’ll see “elevated” Pizza Hut and Domino’s styles.