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[Villa Roma]

By the way...I forgot to mention that I got two lazy susans in but forgot them at work.

Villa, refresh my memory and let me know how they worked for you in terms of lubrication and high heat?

When I first fired up the LBE with the LS it smoked like crazy until it burned off the grease used for lubricating the bearings. After that the action was a little sticky so I would suggest cleaning the grease out of the bearings with some type of solvent like mineral spirits before exposing the LS to high heat.

    Villa Roma

[Essen1]

Thanks, bro.

I have a heated ultrasonic cleaner (not the jewelry kind) and special solution I work with every day. I'm gonna clean the LS to get the grease out and see if I can get a high-temp lube somewhere. 

[Villa Roma]

I made two batches of pizza today using only the Ischia starter (no yeast). The first two pizzas are whole grain and the last three are white flour pizzas (WFPs). I let them rise at 65 degrees for 24 hours. For the WFPs I used 2/3 harvest king and 1/3 GM organic AP flour but tightened up the hydration a bit to 72%.

      Villa Roma

[Essen1]

Okay, did a second test run yesterday evening and it went fine.

I made five pies, 300gr. each, and gave three away to neighbors. Unfortunately used way too much yeast since I had to punch down the dough twice during proofing. The crust turned out fine, though, and the flavor was great. The first pie went in at around 720°. I used fresh whole-milk mozzarella and wasn't too happy about how runny the cheese turned out so I increased the temp a bit.

Here are some pics of a cheese pizza and a ham/artichoke/garlic pie. The pizza that turned out the best, a salami/pepperoni/garlic, I gave away to my neighbor and didn't take a pic of it 

[jasonmolinari]

Hrmmm...looks awesome essen!

[Essen1]

Thanks, Jason.

I wasn't too happy with the dough, though. Too much yeast by accident and it was way too much on the chewy side than crispy.

Anyway, I'll be making another batch tonight and see how it'll turn out at 800° and above.

[sourdough girl]

Mike,

Glad to see you've got the "new" lid up and running... and the results look GREAT!!  Noch ein gutest Abendessen!  Und für dein Nachbarn, auch!  I'll be watching for coming attractions!

~mots aka sd

[Essen1]

Mots,

Glad to see you're back in action. 

Yes, the "old/new" lid works amazingly well. I'm still getting accustomed to it and its little differences. So far it has been fun, though.

Yes, my neighbors loved the little Abendessen a bit too much, I'm afraid. They already put another request in for some more pizza!

[sourdough girl]

Thanks, Mike!

So, are all the mods to the lid finished?  The ones you had planned on.... other than lowering the top stone, I mean... 

And, now that I'm back in action, at least for a while, I will have to rev up the 2stone again... I'm CRAVING a high-heat pizza and your photos are making me even more hungry!!

And hey, if the neighbors are putting in requests, that means they LOVE your pizza... so you must be doing it right!  Hope the new lid continues to improve your pizzas!  And, kudos to VR for the original design!  As a chaser of high-heat, this thread is great to read!

~mots aka sd

[Essen1]

Mots,

after the second test run, I had second thoughts on lowering the top stone. The temp was a lot higher this time than during the first try-out and both stones, top and bottom, performed very well. Of course, there's always room for some tweaking here and there, but overall it works just great. The fiber blanket-lined walls make a huge difference.

In terms of improving my pies, the lid's doing a fine job but I think I should stop tinkering around with my dough formulas the way I have lately, i.e. too much yeast, too high of a hydration, shorter proofing times, etc., and get back to basics.

[jasonmolinari]

Here's how I keep my starters. I use the 1/2 cup round Glad storage containers so I don't waste a lot of flour. I feed the starter once a week by removing it from the fridge and tossing half of it and then add 1 tablespoon of water plus 1 heaping tablespoon of white flour.

When it comes time to use the starter for pizza I can increase the feedings to accomodate the amount of starter required. This starter is very active so you don't need a lot. Below is a pic after 2 feedings and 8 hours rise. I like to keep the starter fairly stiff so I can just add it to the dough and not have to adjust the hydration level.

      Villa Roma

Hey VR, do you know about Varasano's pizza excel spreadsheet ? You enter hydrations and quantities you want, and it adjusts all the inputs, including how much starter and yeast to use, taking into account the starter hydration. It's great. Find it here: http://www.varasanos.com/Dough/PizzaRecipe.xls

So you feed your starter once per week, and then it comes back and is ready to use after 2 feedings? How far apart are the feedings?

[Villa Roma]

Hey VR, do you know about Varasano's pizza excel spreadsheet ? You enter hydrations and quantities you want, and it adjusts all the inputs, including how much starter and yeast to use, taking into account the starter hydration. It's great. Find it here: http://www.varasanos.com/Dough/PizzaRecipe.xls

So you feed your starter once per week, and then it comes back and is ready to use after 2 feedings? How far apart are the feedings?

I feed the starter at about 7 am and then around noon and it's ready sometime in the late afternoon. So about 5 hours between feedigs is a good ballpark estimate at around 72 degree room temperature.

      Villa Roma

[jasonmolinari]

I feed the starter at about 7 am and then around noon and it's ready sometime in the late afternoon. So about 5 hours between feedigs is a good ballpark estimate at around 72 degree room temperature.

      Villa Roma

wow, it comes back to life pretty fast.

[andreguidon]

yea....

once i fed the starter around 7 pm and went to the gym, wen i came back at 9 pm it was more then double..... when they are active, they are active !!!

usually wen a activate the starter at night is to make bread....

[Villa Roma]

Here's 2 pies from today's bake-o-rama. I made a few tweaks.

    Villa Roma

[Essen1]

Villa,

I'm wondering what you tweaked? The LBE or the dough formula? Either way, they are nice looking pies. Looks like one is a whole wheat?

Speaking of tweaking, I rearranged the bottom stones for last night's third and final test run. I switched the stones, put the Fibra-D on the bottom, put a lazy susan on top and then my larger cordierite stone on top of it. Even though I cleaned out the grease from the LS, the first 20 mins you could still smell the remaining grease burning off, although there was no excessive smoking involved. However, under high heat, the LS performed very poorly and seized operation at some point altogether. I think I'm just going to use it as a buffer for now until I can find some high-temp lube. Good thing is, since I ordered three Lazys, I have two more to experiment with.

Anyway, I went back to basics with last night's formula. No starters, no fresh yeast, no excessive hydration. But, I added some EVOO to the dough. The dough went through a three-day cold fermentation and a six hour RT rise before being shaped into individual dough balls. The taste wasn't as good as it is with fresh yeast or an added starter but it was still exceptionally good. The crust was light, had a nice crunch to it but also was easy to fold. I wish it would have had a bit more oven spring, though.

Both pizzas were cooked at around 800°, were rotated three times and were done in about 2.5 mins. The cheese was diced Polly-O.

The formula:

730 gr KABF (100%)
460 gr Water (63%)
11 gr Salt (1.5%)
9 gr EVOO (1.2%)
2 gr ADY (0.27%)

Some pics. The first one is a sun-dried tomato, arugula and prosciutto di parma and the second is a sun-dried tomato, arugula, salami and ham pizza.

[Villa Roma]

Essen....Nice pies, looks like that new lid is really working out nicely. I'll take a #2 to go!

I tweaked the recipe for the white flour pizza. I used GM unbleached AP flour, lowered the hydration to 69% and raised the Ischia starter to 5%.

    Villa Roma

[Essen1]

Villa,

The new lid works great so far. It seems it gets hotter with each firing. 

How was the taste and texture with the increased starter?

[Essen1]

A couple of nights ago, and after three test runs, I fired the LBE up again.

Between the latest use of the LBE and it’s last test run, I pondered over the problem of how to increase the top heat, without lowering the ceiling stone itself. First of all, the Lazy Susan elevated the bottom stone a bit and improved air flow underneath the stone, which is normally great but the bottom stone got a lot hotter than the top stone, which I didn’t really care for. I was shooting for a bottom-to-top ratio of about 650°/800° .

I found out that it was difficult to achieve with the side vent open during heat up. Plus, I don’t need the over-the-top-out-the-side-vent heat just yet. So I covered the vent with a thick layer of aluminum foil, but only during the heat up stage. I kept the flame on a medium low for the first 30 mins, monitoring the bottom & top stone every five minutes.

After 30 mins, the top stone sported a nice 750°, while the bottom was at about 620°. Another 15 mins got me where I wanted to be and I opened the side vent to allow more air to be drawn in from underneath, creating a draft. That’s when the first pizza went in.

I remembered what our member Jason said about his gig on how he bakes a pie:

“So far I’ve figured that the best stone temp is about 650. I put the pizza on, then crank up the burner as high as it'll go to really get the hot air flowing.”

I didn’t crank it up to full blast once the pie went in but I raised the temp significantly, actually so far that the hot air out of the side vent burnt off some of the hair on my right forearm. As hot as it got, I noticed a minor but fixable flaw with Jason’s procedure…the bottom stone was getting way too hot after the second pizza, due to the burner being at almost the maximum output for a 2-minute time span. Needless to say that the third pizza’s bottom was a lot more charred than I prefer.

The way I fixed that problem was actually simple. After the third pizza came out, I lowered the flame down to a minimum and opened the door for about a minute, then closed it but left the side vent open for another minute, before measuring the temp. The temp on both stones was still slightly higher than what I was shooting for, but acceptable. It meant the next pizza required a watchful eye, but would also bake faster. It turned out great.

However, I don’t think a LS is a good addition to the LBE unless you use it for increasing the air flow underneath a stone. I think the chance of burning the bottom of a pizza, when not being moved around on the stone itself, is much greater than if you lift it up and turn it because by turning it, you create new air flow underneath the skin, which increases an even bake of the crust.

I’m still working out some kinks, though.  Comments, questions and helpful tips are appreciated.

[jasonmolinari]

Essen, that's pretty much what i do. After each pizza is cooked, i lower the flame to very very low...allowing the bottom stone not overheat