Summary

Lainox’s simple range of combis is easy to use, easy and quick to clean, and allows simple programming to streamline your kitchen. A good value purchase.

Pros

Simple to use with a nice menu system

Easy and quick cleaning methods

Good to Know

Available in 1/1 or 2/1 GN widths for all models

Lainox

Lainox is the world’s second-biggest combi manufacturer, after Rational – the Italian company is owned by the Ali group, the largest food service equipment manufacturing concern in the world. In the UK, Lainox are distributed by the lovely people at Falcon in Stirling.

Combi

Combi ovens combine dry heat and steam in different combinations to make a huge range of foods – these amazing machines are able to cook roasts, grill burgers and steaks, steam vegetables, bake amazing cakes and shallow fry. They have transformed catering since they were first launched in the mid seventies.

Lainox have two ranges for their combis – the Naboo and the Sapiens. The Naboo feature touchscreen technology and lots of automatic cooking systems. The Sapiens are Lainox’s pared back, more basic cooking experience for those who don’t want lots of bells and whistles.

Sapiens

The Sapiens is a range with lots of sizes to suit lots of different businesses. They are designed around the size of Gastronorm tray they both fit – one slimline range which takes a 1/1 tray and another, wider range which fits a 2/1 tray. The 1/1 machines’ names end in a 1 – so 071, 171, 201. The 2/1 machines end in a 2.

You can buy 7, 10, and 20 rack machines in both widths. They create a 17 in the 1/1 size by putting together a 7 and a 10 rack in one footprint which creates a very versatile and good value machine.

The seven racks are perfect for smaller businesses, the 10 racks for medium sized restaurants and the 20s for larger scale operations and food manufacturers.

All sizes are available in gas or electric – the gas just require a 13amp connection as well as the gas, the electric require three phase and 32amp minimum.

What’s different about Sapiens?

The Sapiens are Lainox’s simpler machines, perfect for chefs who understand combi cooking and are confident setting the machine up themselves.

You can create simple programs, use a probe to monitor food temperature exactly and easily control temperature, steam levels and fan speed very very easily.

Cleaning is also easy with large liquid canisters loaded permanently into the machine for both cleaning and ridding the boiler of limescale. Unlike other machines that use tablets, the liquid cleaning products mean the cleaning cycles on these machines are under an hour, or a third less than some others in the industry, meaning you can clean a combi between services if you need to.

They are well made, with good support services in the UK from Falcon – and the controls are easy to use  – with programming new recipes into the machine really easy. The Sapiens, like many modern catering equipment, allows you to download HACCP data to show you have been maintaining and cleaning the machine properly if you need to show the powers that be.

The machines also have an external probe, which is easy to use and simple to replace if it gets damaged, which can stop some very expensive call outs – because you can disconnect the old probe yourself and get a new one sent in the post  – cheap and easy!

Conclusion

These machines are great for chefs who know what they are doing with a combi, or if you are wanting to learn about the subtleties of combination cooking. Having said that, the range has very easy to understand controls and its click through screen makes programming, cleaning and other settings very easy to do.

All in all these are well made, easy to use, basic combis that will do the job no matter what the size of your business. In the current market they are a great value option whilst still offering great utility.

Learn More

If you are interested in the range of Lainox Sapiens Combi Ovens, have a look at our website. We offer a variety of flexible procurement methods meaning that whatever your situation, and whether you want to rent or buy, we will have something that will suit you.  Click on the link below to see our complete range of Lainox equipment.