54 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:
You're shopping for a used oven to put where? In the commissary? In your house? Do you have commercial space of your own in the works? Nothing wrong with dreaming, I do it all the time. 'Gross'-ness aside, did the oven work? Cleanliness shouldn't really affect performance, except sometimes you'll get caked-on grunge flaking off the racks and being blown into your food.
Things to consider --
Is there already an available gas connection or appropriate power outlet? Our electric convection oven has a giant 3-phase plug. If you don't already have gas, the electrical upgrade might be cheaper than running a gas line.
What is the hood situation or hood requirements? Here, electric ovens under 6000 (uh, kw?) don't need a hood fan. Larger, more powerful, or gas ovens may need to be under a type 2 hood. Type 2 extracts air but isn't built to withstand or put out a fire. Open flame gas cooking like a commercial gas range needs a type 1 hood and fire suppression system aka Ansul. Hoods and fire suppression are another several thousand $$ each.
As for the mixer, Hobarts are generally very reliable and there are a lot of them so you'll have better odds for parts and repair. A used 20 qt table-top Hobart is on my wish list, with a budget of around $2000-2500. Most of the 20 qt seem to have a regular 3-prong plug, but the larger ones will need special outlets for their power needs. There's also the issue of weight and batch size. A 60 qt machine to mix 300 cookies all at once means over 100 lb of dough to scrape down and dig out of the bowl. Sometimes it's easier to do two medium batches instead of one huge. And of course the bigger machines are a bigger investment.
lol it's a very long story! The oven worked fine but I'll hopefully be buying one to put in my own place soon. I believe the space has gas already as it was previously a small restaurant. I will keep the hood in mind! Good to know. I like the idea of an electric oven better. It doesn't sound like there are many drawbacks of one over the other but I haven't been able to find much info. I agree about the huge mixer too and was thinking of a medium sized one. I'm mainly concerned about the experimentation potentially required when increasing the recipe. I was told the sugar and baking soda may need to be adjusted. After months of recipe testing, the thought of starting over is a little heartbreaking!
