Bakers Pride oven--electrical advice?

[PizzaBrewer]

Anyone here an electrician or know something about electricity?  I recently bought this item at an auction:

(http://members.aol.com/usedcdguy/private/oven)

It's electric powered, the back specifies "208 volts, 7200 watts":

(http://members.aol.com/usedcdguy/private/oven1)

The plug looks like this:

(http://members.aol.com/usedcdguy/private/oven2)

Now according to the Bakers Pride website, this model comes in 3 different electrical configurations:

208 volts,
220-240 volts single phase, or
220-240 volts 3 phase.

What's the difference between 208 volts and 220-240 volts?  Is the 208 single phase or 3 phase?  Do I stand any chance of being able to use this at home?

Thanks for any advice!

---Guy

[Steve]

208V is the voltage of a 3-phase Y-circuit.

Your home is supplied with single-phase (split-phase) 120/240V only. So, to answer your question, no. You cannot use this oven with a residential power feed. 

[Nathan]

They make a converter you could buy, but I have no idea what the cost would be or what you'd need to get. 

[Bubba Kuhn]

Hey I own these ovens and have them installed in my "home". You will need a device installed called a buck and boost or phase converter to get this to work. An electrition to install it is recommended as you will need wire pulled from you box to the place you want to install it.
Price for the converter is about $500.00

Check out http://www.homespunpizza.com I use these for this shop.
If you need any more info please write me personally at admin@homespunpizza.com for any more help.

[Nathan]

Hey Bubba, are you related to the Kuhn's in Michigan? They had a pizza joint in Flint.

[Bubba Kuhn]

No relation. My family name is Chiofalo. Kuhn by marrage. My mothers not mine! How is it going with the oven?
Be careful installing commercial equipment into a residence. It can void your home owners insurance and in some areas you can get nail for abusing a residential zone. That is why there is no commercial power in residential neighborhoods.

The oven is realy great though. And by the by I read a lot on this board about trying to attain the magic temp of 600 to 800 degree oven temp. That is a falicy. The core heat in a pile of burning coal or wood but the oven cooking temp is a lot less about 550 is just right for most application. Remember Aluminum will liquify at 750 degrees and most themomiters will not read past 550 becouse of the ecessive heat is hart to get the materials to work in that thermodynamic enviorenment. ie the dial faces warp ect.  Trying to upgrade a home oven by replacing the thermocoupler with a high temp coupler is a great way to burn your house down. Please do not try that little trick.

[Steve]

And by the by I read a lot on this board about trying to attain the magic temp of 600 to 800 degree oven temp. That is a falicy. The core heat in a pile of burning coal or wood but the oven cooking temp is a lot less about 550 is just right for most application. Remember Aluminum will liquify at 750 degrees and most themomiters will not read past 550 becouse of the ecessive heat is hart to get the materials to work in that thermodynamic enviorenment. ie the dial faces warp ect.  Trying to upgrade a home oven by replacing the thermocoupler with a high temp coupler is a great way to burn your house down. Please do not try that little trick.

Just to clear up some confusion, several people have used non-contact infrared thermometers (e.g. Raytek) to measure the heat characteristics of a coal-fired oven and they found that the oven's deck run at 675° F., the oven's back wall at 770° F., and the oven's ceiling runs at 950° F. The floor of Lombardi's coal oven runs at 850° F. measured approximately one foot from the burning coal.

Regarding aluminum, its melting point is actually 1220° F (660° C, 933° K).

And, any home oven with a self-clean cycle is designed to run at such high temperatures or it'd burn down the house every time you tried to clean it! 

[varasano]

I'm not telling anyone to burn their house down, but on the separate issue of the perfect temp for a pizza, I can tell you for SURE that a true Neopolitan pie does not cook at 550F.  The rules for certification passed recently by law in Naples puts it at 750 or higher.  You don't even need a thermometer. You can tell by how fast the pies cook. A 2 minute pie = about 825F for example.  A 3 minute pie is about 760, etc. At 550, you can't really cook a thin crust at all. It would take over 15 minutes and dry into a cracker. The only solution at that temp is to make the dough thicker and put oil in to it. So you see all these pies here that cook at that temp, and they are never really thin or charred. True NYC 'street pizza' is different from Neopoitan pizza. Many of the "Ray's Pizza's" of the world are much thicker and never char and probably are baked at 550-600.  If that is what you are going for, then by all means reproduce those lower temps.

The coals of a coal oven approach 2000F and the floor of an oven like Patsy's is at least 750, based on bake times.

I have cooked at all temps. As high as 860 and as low as 400.  Putting aside thick crust or oil based pies, I can tell you that I've never really cooked a great pie at less than 725. Maybe now that i have more dough experience I could but it would be a different style of pizza. My best recommendation for a Patsy's or Grimaldi's or Sally's style pizza is 780-790F for the floor and about 900F for the ceiling, as measured with a digital thermometer. Digital thermometers do not need to be heated, they work on radiant energy bell curves (the "black body effect"), so they never warp etc.

The melting point of aluminum is 1220F  I think you got confused because it's 660C.

[Bubba Kuhn]

Thanks for the info. There is a always a great drift of temperatures across any fire box driven ovens. Coal wood no matter as shown by the temps taken from the lombardi oven ranging from 950 at the ceiling to 675 as a brick temp average with a high of 850 and a low of  well  we don't know but I'll get the brick furthest away in some where around 500 550 degrees. Of course the brick is hotter by the fire.

By the way the trick in working a fire oven is not how hot you can make it.
The art is rather in how even a heat you can make.

These Electric  Bakers Pride oven use high temp thermostats that range to 700 degree. When I turn them up to that setting I get every bit of 700 degree and some. Remember ceramic kilns are also electric. Because there is no fire box and therefore no uneven induction to create uneven hot spots is a good thing.  In truth these electric’s work as well for high temp pie work at a nice even 675 if you want them to. Coal and wood though they have a better recovery time for volume at those higher temps. You can essentially create the same pie in all three mediums.

Also it is not imperative to hit this temp to make a truly great pie.
Reasonably 550 to 575 work very well in most cases.

About "home style" and "high temp and low temp" thermo couplers.

So you have an oven. The same one your neighbor has. You have had yours replaced three times in ten years and his is still the original one. You really don't get it. He doesn’t even take care of his where as you religiously use the self cleaning maintenance feature at least once a month.

Well even though offered as a feature your home oven is really not designed for high temp work. So if you "clean" it regular. That is run it at high temp it quickly ruins your oven.
It will warp the door and oven bottom and burn the contact from the elements. This by the way is only a surge heating to clean it never mind trying to hold that temp for a period of time. Don’t take my word for it ask any small appliance maintenance guy about ovens that use high temp cleaning.

Now as to high and low temp thermo couplers. Even in the commercial equipment for restaurants there is a distinction. Equipment that is high temp is out of the ordinary.
A high temp oven works like crap if at all set at 350 degrees the most needed baking temp.
They really become usable and stable at about 450 degrees and above.

Low temp range are from 100 degrees to 550 degrees and like the 325 to 475 range the best.
High temp are from 350 degrees to 700 degrees. True for gas and electric.

So if you are trying for high temp pies and are using one of these oven you can recreate for all intense and purposes a lombardis type pizza.

[varasano]

I have been baking hi temp pies in my kitchen aid oven for 2 1/2 years. I may very well be burning it out.  I wouldn't be surrised. Kitchen Aid is more made for looks than performance (this is what their own rep said to me on the phone when I called for a 9th service visit on my kitched full of KA appliances).

Frankly though, I need the heat to make the pizza, so when it burns out, I'll just buy another one and do i over again.

[Steve]

Bubba,

You bring up some very good points. Yes, I agree that running a home oven on self-clean will ultimately destroy the unit. I have noticed that my electric heating elements are "sagging" slightly after having used the oven at such high temps. Heating elements are cheap, so I'm not too concerned. Jeff mentioned that if sauce contacts anything glass (door window, bulb cover, etc.) at high temps, the glass will shatter. Ouch! 

My current trick is to let the oven heat to 500-550F using the regular bake cycle. Then, about 5 minutes before the pie goes in the oven I'll pop it over to clean cycle and let the stone get up to the 650-700F range. I'll leave the oven on self-clean during the pizza baking because it helps with the temperature rebound plus it keeps the broiler element activated which creates some nice heat above the pizza to help cook the toppings and brown the top of the crust.

But, like you said, I'm probably slowly destroying my oven. 

[varasano]

Anyone cooking a super high temp should read my site about how to protect the glass with layers of loose fitting foil.

[Bubba Kuhn]

I admit that I am more a Ray stlye New York Pizza Gut then a Napoli come to the Bronx man.
The reson is that I have found that out side of the region the Rays style pizza is far more saleable to the rest of the country. They want toppings up to 10 of them ect. The Rays new york style pizza lends it self to this.

When I try to sell the napoli style what I get is why did you burn it and where is the cheese? There is a narrower market for napoli style but a large demand nation wide for the American New York Style Pizza "Rays Style".

You are right about the aluminum I did confuse the scales.

Point being you can play on the fringes of high temp with counter top electric ovens.

Have to go make some more pizzas so bye for now.