Pizza hot press

Alitech manufactures pizza presses for both american style pizza and classic style pizza applications.

For the former, normally the dough balls are pressed, proofed and baked into baking pans greased with a thin oil film. This gives the classical “fried” consistency to the bottom of the pizza base. The baking is soft (few minutes at moderate temperature), and typically takes place in an indirect heating oven.

A more recent variant of our pressing technology allows instead to produce classical Italian style pizza, with a distinguished character. The dough is fermented few hours and after division and rounding is proofed in the Italian traditional way. After proofing, the dough is hot pressed into the final shape on a heat resistant belt, without using pans. The pressed pizza is proofed again for a short while before going through the high temperature stone oven for quick baking. This process results in a very soft, “meaty” base, with a thin crisp and crunchy crust.

The press consists of:

- A metal support structure;
- A conveyor belt with gear motor;
- The pressing head, placed in the central part;
- A reinforced surface plate, also heated.

The structure is made of stainless steel in the part of the press loading and in aluminum plates for the press. The conveyor belt is coated with teflon certified for food use and resistant to high temperatures.

The pressing head is actuated by a pneumatic cylinder. Above the cylinder, a handwheel with indicator allows to adjust pressing height. The two pressing plates, which are located over and under the product pressing area, are heated by means of a "heating pack" consisting of electrical resistances positioned inside in receptacles suitably "excavated" in the aluminum plates. Temperature sensors allow to read the temperature of the plates.

The forming molds, machined into the desired shape, are stainless steel and have containment rings which close the chamber of pressing in order to avoid material leakage.
The upper plate with the forming mold can be removed and replaced, in case of change of production, with another plate mounted with a different diameter forming mold.