TurboChef Fire

[glbradley]

Has anyone ever used the Turbo Chef Fire pizza oven? What is your opinion of it?  Is there a better countertop pizza oven out there?

 

[chefbruz]

saw one of these recently

it requires three phase power and draws 25 amps

only makes 9" pizzas

electrical elements top and bottom.

looks expensive to run.

 

[dave s]

I just bought one, we havent tried it out with a real pizza, but seems to melt cheese on a piece of bread REALLY fast. 

It can do up to 14" pizzas actually. 

 

[dave s]

Oh and to add, we are fully expecting to have to burn a bunch of pizza to dial in the time/temps for our pizza recipe. 

As far as we can tell this thing is really gonna be great for us. Well made piece of equipment. 

 

[fujiyama]

Let us know how it works long term, Dave.

The one I used started to malfunction after about a year. First the temperatures would fluctuate randomly and then it started dropping. The bottom of the pizza wouldn't finish until the top was overdone. They wanted a lot (!) of money to repair it but luckily a local electrician was able to fix it for very cheap. It's been working normally since.

It could be a rare occurrence but I'm curious what other people experience.

 

[beanisachef]

We have a Turbochef Sora oven in our kitchen it makes flatbread pizza perfect every time now that we have found the best setup for it.

 

[dave s]

Hey all, I received a PM about the turbo chef, here's what I had to say.

BTW We had the same temp drop experience too. Only during a couple of services.

Hope this helps:

We that all depends on how busy you will be. You probably already know all this stuff already but here it goes.....

The turbo chef is great - it works for us perfectly for what we do. We added pizza to our menu which consists mostly of burgers, scratch made bar food type stuff. 

Of course you can only do one pizza at a time, we sometimes get backed up. No more that 20 minutes or so. Our cook time is set for 160 seconds at 800/750 degrees. We can do 50 pizzas in one evening service without breaking a sweat. 

We have to rotate the pizza 1/2 way for even cooking, we were not expecting that. 

The heat is minimal. We have it under a hood vent. You can touch the top of the oven no problem, the sides get hot though. 

The oven is designed for thin crust artisan pizzas, we load up our toppings so the cook time for us is probably longer  than most. 

Preheat time is pretty quick. Recovery is quick but if you are opening the door constantly the cook times may need to be longer. 

I wish the unit could change temps on the fly for different products like calzones. 

We do however roast bell peppers for service. If you have a heavier topped pizza, it;s need to go longer. But once you nail down the time temps for the recipes all you have to do is set one of the 6 timers.. 

You may want to consider a conveyor type oven, turbo chef makes one too. I think ventless as well. Depends on what volume you plan to do. 

Hope this helps!

 

[ChefBruce1]

Let us know how it works long term, Dave.

The one I used started to malfunction after about a year. First the temperatures would fluctuate randomly and then it started dropping. The bottom of the pizza wouldn't finish until the top was overdone. They wanted a lot (!) of money to repair it but luckily a local electrician was able to fix it for very cheap. It's been working normally since.

It could be a rare occurrence but I'm curious what other people experience.

This sounds like a very similar problem that we're currently having. Our Turbochef Fire is just over a year old. All of a sudden, the top temperature dropped to 650 and will not return to what we had initially set it. We called the local repair techs and they said it's a control panel issue and the cost to fix the problem is replacing the panel $900 and $200 labor. I'm wondering if you were told a similar story. More importantly, what did your electrician say the problem was? Much appreciated!

 

[Cole C]

Let us know how it works long term, Dave.

The one I used started to malfunction after about a year. First the temperatures would fluctuate randomly and then it started dropping. The bottom of the pizza wouldn't finish until the top was overdone. They wanted a lot (!) of money to repair it but luckily a local electrician was able to fix it for very cheap. It's been working normally since.

It could be a rare occurrence but I'm curious what other people experience.

curious what your electrician was able to determine. My oven is 20 months old, and wont heat up at all now. I used the reset button on the bottom, but it worked one time to climb them temps, but then quickly turned off and the temp fell back to 85. It turns on, but no heat is going through the unit. Fans are working fine, everything is in order, accept the heat doesn"t work.

Would love to know what your electrician said, otherwise its going to cost 1400 to by a new control panel (computer)

 

[pete]

We have one, where I work now, that has to be about 2 years old. I really like it. We run temps of about 800°F top and bottom and turn out pizza is about 80-100 seconds. I do find that we have to rotate for totally even cooking, but even if we don't the difference isn't too bad. We recently added a pizza stone to ours (before we were cooking on screens. I like the stone. Only problem is I haven't been able to find a brush to fit in there to brush down the stone, occasionally, during service.

 

[frankie007]

We used to wrap an oven cloth around old broom handle and brush the inside with that....

 

[Boho cooks]

Has anyone ever used the Turbo Chef Fire pizza oven? What is your opinion of it? Is there a better countertop pizza oven out there?

Yes I have one paid over 6k and it lasted 18 months. Warranty is too short so I wouldn’t suggest it. The service Dept was rediculous.

 

[Chef_Hef]

So we Just purchased one of these, so far my biggest hurdle is trying to get the bottom of the pizza crisp; keeps coming out floppy. Been trying to dial in the temp. Anybody here got any pointers?

 

[Beaconpub]

So we Just purchased one of these, so far my biggest hurdle is trying to get the bottom of the pizza crisp; keeps coming out floppy. Been trying to dial in the temp. Anybody here got any pointers?

Im having the same hurdle. Were you able to figure it out?