I have been doing quite a bit of testing with different flours, cold ferment times, hydrations, cheeses, tomato products, and stones. Posting some pics and info. Style is NY thin crust.
Dough
I have been using 3.5 % Salt; 9.0 % Camaldoli Starter, and .70 % ADY. Cold ferments range from 1-6 days. Hydration has been 58% on the low end and 66% on the upper end. I’m finding that I’m comfortable with dough in the 59-60% range since it’s easier to work with, and unless you’re baking in the 700-800F temp range you don’t really need the higher hydration anyway.
Flours
Supremo 00 (Restaurant Depot) 25 kilo bags for around $30
KABF
KA Special - also Restaurant Depot 50 lb. bags for $16-17
Harvest King is next - 50 lb. bags for around $23
On the wooden peel, I’ve used cornmeal, various flours, and 50/50 flour and semolina mix. IMO rice flour is superior to all of these. White rice flour does not impart any flavor, is very 'slippery', you don't need much. Also very little burn and no bitter taste.
Tomato
Pastene Kitchen Ready
Baresi ground peeled
Supremo Italiano San Marzano D.O.P
6 in 1 Escalon
I also use fresh off the vine tomatoes from Sept. 2012. Laid these out for 5-6 days, then vacuum sealed them whole & into the freezer (we use these all winter for sauces, stews, pizza, etc.). Thaw, then into hot water, peel, grind, remove some of the water, add salt and basil. Some work involved, but these are my favorite. Summer flavor all winter long. Cost is about $25 for a 40 lb. bushel.
-Will probably do separate tomato-specific posting
Cheese
Whole milk mozz:
Saputo Mozzeria (Restaurant Depot)
Pollyo
Vantaggio (Bellissimo brand)
Have read good things about Grande - I found a local distributor that sells it, but they don’t break cases. If anyone has experience using Grande, I’d like to know your thoughts and if it’s as good as people say.
Fresh fior di latte:
Galbani
BelGioioso
Oven
Frigidaire electric with convection, approx 5.7 CF, max setting 550F. It’s a good range, but occasionally I get F10 error codes for runaway temps and it's a fairly large space to heat up. As I mentioned in another post, I have a Sage PD11-A 400 on order for home use.
Stone
The PC and quarry tile heat and bake similarly, easily achieving 650, have seen stone surface temps over 750F in the oven. (This has no doubt contributed to the error codes). These also have fairly substantial heat loss during bake. I am pleased with the soapstone, it comes up to temp quickly and if I launch a pizza on to it at 600F surface temp, (although this can vary depending on the exact location on the stone) 4 – 4 ½ minutes later when the pizza comes off, the stone is still at 565-570F so there’s not a substantial heat loss or huge recovery time. This is a 5/8” thickness tile 16 X 16, weighs about 15 lb. and cost me $25. I suspect 3/4” would be better and 10/8” better still but I didn’t want the added weight on the racks.
Stones tested on:
Pampered chef stone 7/16 thickness
Quarry tile 7/16 thickness
Soapstone 5/8 thickness
Pics attached. The pizzas here are all 4-5 min bake times.
