I'm ready to spend my hard earned cake money on a commercial convection oven. Don't know which one to buy? Seems DeLuxe is suppose to be a great one for baking since it is convection and radiant heat and elements are in each rack. No adjustable racks though. Of course there is Vulcan, Blodgett, Duke etc. Anyone have pros or cons on this subject? Anyone with the DeLuxe. They offer a great discount for ICES members so it's very enticing. But I don't want to make a several thousand dollar mistake! Thanks in advance for any help!

Anyone using a commercial oven out there???????? Anyone one using a DeLuxe oven out there???????

I have used Hobart ovens in cuilnary school and i have also used Lang proofers and ovens while i was a baker at a grocery store. I like both rather well. Hope this helps.
Goodluck,
Mrcake01

Thanks MRCake01. Much appreciation.

Yes, I have a DeLuxe CR2-3. I've had it for 8 plus years. I bake wedding cakes and cupcakes every week.
I am getting ready to open a second shop which will be cupcake only and I am trying to decide if I want another CR2-3 ( 3 shelves) or a CR2-4 (4 shelves). I will probably get the 3 again! I like the space it has inside.

DeLuxe designs and builds these ovens for cakes. I love my DeLuxe oven!

LOVE my Vulcan!!

nesweetcake,
Another thought that may help you. I would go to the websites for all of the popular brands and find some real customer reviews. All of ones that were mentioned in this topic are well known brands meaning they are all good and have stood the test of time. Also since you are going to spend a lot of money on an oven you may want to consider this. A lot of new business owners will try to find a restaurant that is going out of business; you can find some good deals on quality equipment and save some money.
Good luck,
Mrcake01

i too am looking for a new comm oven, and am hedging towards a Deluxe. one thing i have noticed is that the blodgett and vulcan are very deep i think about 40" and then once the doors are open another 15or so inches. so they acutally take up a lot of space, the deluxe is only 29" i think and 15" or so on the door a little less space. I almost bought the cr2-4 but when i actually viewed it found i could just get 2 fingers between the element and rack below, too small for my 3" pans. so ill probable go with the cr2-3.

I have the Deluxe CR2-3 and love it. Best money I spent.

Thanks all for the great info. I truly appreciate it. I was looking at the Deluxe CR2-4 and also use a lot of 3 inch pans. How much room do you have between the racks and elements in the CR2-3? I was hoping to have more racks be able to bake more at one time? How many pans do you get in your CR2-3? Verse as 4 does anyone have input. Thanks again.

Great thread!

To those of you who have ovens, what (cost, referrals, reputation, etc.) influenced your decision to purchase the one you have?

I've got the cr2-4 and I LOVE it. It never has a problem and I rank it with my top 2 purchases ever - my Deluxe oven & my Hobart mixer. I use mostly 2" pans since I do mainly wedding cakes. Each one bakes up perfectly no matter what shelf it is on. We converted our downstairs into a bakery/ wedding showroom where most people would have a family room. We didnot have to have a 3 phase outlet to run this AND it will fit through a regular doorway. Make sure you measure any other ovens you may be looking at, you don't want to purchase it and then have to take out a wall just to get it in place.

I'm so pleased to hear that everyone loves their Deluxe Cconvecta-Ray ovens as I'm just about to purchase two of them. (When I finish typing this I'm calling Russ at Deluxe)

The only thing I can't decide is whether to get the CR2-3 or CR-2-4. The CR-2-3 has a 7 inch crown space and the CR2-4 only has 5 inches. They are actually both built in the same frame, but the CR-2-4 has an extra shelf added. I'm somewhat worried that since the shelves are not adjustable, the smaller space between racks will be a problem if I need to bake tea loaves or hemispheres or decide to bake bread or something. I do have some 3 inch pans, so thanks, sweetcakes, for the heads up on that! I am leaning more toward the CR-2-3 (And maybe I'll price the CR-2-6, but I don't think I have the room)

I currently have a regular convection oven, where I share space, that doesn't allow one to turn off the convection feature when the oven is on. It is a huge hassle to put in the cakes, turn off the oven, wait a few minutes, turn it back on, turn the pans around. Ugh. I have to say that I hate it. At home I have a double convection oven which I love for meat and for bread but I never use the convection feature when making cakes, because, at least for me, convection causes the cakes to rise unevenly, and not as tall. The pastry chefs at school also avoided the convection ovens. We used the hearth oven, the rotating ovens, and even the oven in the gas range before we used the convection ovens.

The Deluxe Ovens do have "gentle convection" but they are designed for cakes and there is radiant heat above and below each rack, hence the non-movable shelves

I have never heard anyone who said they didn't like their Deluxe so I hope I won't be the first!

edited to say I just talked with Russ and I'm going to get two CR2-3's