Creation – PM Sent
Fabulous workmanship, as always. Glad the IR burner is working properly and your warm-up time is so fast. You are making good progress on the pies.
We seem to have a lot it common (grill, 15min to 800F, fast bake time, etc.). Like you, I think I’ve got room to improve. A few comments from my experiences on my setup:
- The bottom of the pie is straight forward (IMO). Pick a stone temperature and bake time, then throw it and set the timer. For Neo pies, 780- 800F stone temp (measured ½ way from the center to the outside rim) seems to work best for a 1-2 minute pie. Two minutes on my stone (looks like yours) gives a slight crisp to bottom with 00 flour, and I like that. Less than 1: 45 and the bottom of the pizza gets floppy. More than 2 minutes and the bottom gets charred.
- The thickness of the pie and ingredients matter a lot. Two minutes isn’t enough time to cook a thick dough OR a lot of ingredients. A simple Margarita works well on a thinly stretched dough in 2 minutes.
- Anything with high water content doesn’t do well in quick bakes because there isn’t enough oven time (watery sauce, motz not dried by pressing in a paper towel, tomatoes, green peppers, etc.). Thin slices of motz work better for me than shredded because the shredded has lower surface area and tends get brown spots in high-heat, fast-cook environments.
- For thicker dough and/or heavy ingredients, consider a 4-5 minute bake with a stone temp around 650F-700F using regular flour (I use high gluten). Five minute pies are tasty too, I just don’t wear the VPN Chef hat when serving.
- Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never seen the need for a screen. If the bottom of the pie burns, I pick a lower stone temperature for the next pie throw. This gives me predictable underside spotting, so I can focus on char points around the upper rim and try for minimal brown spots on the cheese.
As long as you have a reasonably calibrated IR gun, you should get results nearly identical to mine on the bottom of the pie (spotted - just like many of the pictures on the forum). Also, don’t assume the restaurant temperature numbers are more than marketing. As an example, I was at well-know coal-fired restaurant sampling their 900F pizza recently. Something was amiss, and the owner seemed nice, so I asked him to gun the oven floor – 640F was the highest stone temp and that was right in front of the coals. Besides the owner, there were a handful of staff present, and I was the only one without a surprised look on my face. Hum..
