small commercial bread oven recommendation? doyon, pavailler, bongard, picard?

Hi,

I haven't heard of unisource at all; they appear to primarily be a distributor of other company's equipment though.

You may want to look into the Belshaw family of the companies - Belshaw as a whole owns 6 - 8 bakery equipment manufacturers and their products are high quality. 

Amanda

I'd love to have a Doyon electric single deck, 2 tray oven,with steam! In fact, I'd give my eye teeth for one!

Although, it would have to go in the basement, which isn't a problem. As it would be next to the electric service box and close to the incoming water.

The only draw backs are things like converting a 100 amp service to 200 amp. The factory up charge to convert from 3 phase to single phase. And then the cost of the unit itself! It's a case of, I don't need one, I just want one! Even the wife is in favor of it, but the guilt of a home baker having a Doyon deck oven for bread baking......seems over the edge!

I do know that there are a few Freshloaf folks that do have these ovens. It would be great if they could tell us all about their experience with their ovens, how nice and to what level their baking skills have advanced to using them!

What's the old saying....a champaign taste on a beer budget!

The oven comes in three versions: 1,2,3 deck. It is a steam heated tube oven, made in the USA (!) and competitive to the better artisan ovens from Europe. You can find specifics here: http://www.unisourcefoodequipment.com/pdf/baby_rembrandt_hearthoven.pdf 

Conveniently, it has many standard parts which are locally available from typical commercial supplies. Maintenance & repair should be less than its imported brethren.

Featurewise, I think I would be happier that a pig in poo with one of these. But, at nearly 800lbs it is probably too heavy to go down my stairs. It's dimensions are nice for getting through doors and it runs on gas, but this is really a full blown commercial oven, especially when price is entered into the equation. The single deck model is about $US15,500+shipping. The cost per square inch of cooking deck decreases greatly with deck count. If you're really up for one of these, give Darren a call (360-876-7250), he is a nice guy, a baker, very well informed and can answer all your questions about this oven.

A bakery equipment rep. once recommended Tayso ovens. They have ones which are gas-powered (through a house gas line or a propane tank) with steam (through a garden hose attachment). There are two models, TG4 and TG8, but they're not cheap. A used TG8 in good condition was quoted to me at $15,000.