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[MWTC]

Its been 1-1/2 hour and the plate is a consistant 700 degrees. I will do it for a total of 2 hours and shut it down till you advise. Hope that's hot enough.

MWTC

[2stone]

MWTC,

I think you should be fine, with the degassing.

The flame on the bayou just has to be adjusted so
it is burning clean, I think Mark proved that you can
turn it on full blast if you want to, (and get away with it!!)
I'm going to be out today, so if you want to reach me
I have my Blackberry on and if you email me I should be able
to get back to you. (my email is listed in my profile)
Like they say "practice makes perfect"

have a great weekend,
willard

[Pete-zza]

I see you did this once
As part of my efforts to reverse engineer the DiFara pizza, I decided recently to try to engineer a dough similar to the DiFara dough.  I have a pretty good understanding of the various ingredients of the basic DiFara pizza, but few details on the dough itself, apart from the fact that the dough is a combination of "00" flour (the Delverde brand) and a high-gluten flour.

For my version of the dough, I decided to try a 50/50 (by weight) combination of "00" flour (Delverde brand) and KA Sir Lancelot high-gluten flour...

Willard,

Thank you for reminding me of the tests I did with a 50/50 blend of 00 flour and high-gluten flour. What you quoted was from a post that I entered in August 2004, which is just far enough back to test the limits of my recall capabilities (LOL). At the time, the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour existed but was not yet widely distributed in the U.S. at the retail level as it is now. I believe that at the time only Bill of our forum members was actually using it and I was myself just in the process of trying to find it through early discussions that I had with Charlie Restivo at Naples 45 in NYC (where I first saw bags of the Caputo flour) and Fred Mortati, of Orlando Foods, the importer of the Caputo 00 flours.

The other 00 flours that were commonly available at the time were the Bel Aria and Delverde 00 flours, and the Delverde, which I was able to find from only a single online source (that shut down shortly after) was hard to come by. It would have been logical for me to try a 50/50 mix using the Delverde flour since I was trying to reverse engineer the DeMarco DiFara dough and I had been told by a source I considered to be reliable that Domenic was using a 50/50 blend, and I was either told or had read somewhere that Domenic was using the Delverde 00 flour. It was hard to find data on the Delverde flour (the labeling information on the packaging for the flour was incomplete and misleading), but I believed its protein content to be between that of the Bel Aria and the Caputo 00 Pizzeria 00 flours. It's possible that Domenic changed the flour blend when he went to the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. I don't know what he is now using. I read somewhere that he switched to the Colavito brand of 00 flour. (However, I can see how someone might get the Caputo and Colavito names mixed up.) When I spoke with Domenic, I believe he was then using the Caputo 00 flour and a 75/25 flour mix, by volume. No doubt, what Domenic told me moved me away from the 50/50 blend. I don't think the precise blend matters all that much. Using a longer fermentation is the key to getting improved results.

Peter

[golfsferr]

Willard
I too love pizza and have experimented a lot to get a light crispy (not thin) pizza dough. I felt that I would have to have a brick style oven to achieve that and finding your Invention has intrigued me. At one point in this forum you stated that you would be selling them at some point. I must have missed the one that stated that you have started to sell them and how to get one. I would be interested in buying one if that is possible. I think you have a commercial hit on you hands. If you do go commercial and build them in volumes I'm sure the price would go down but for now if you only have prototypes I'm still interested in talking to you about buying one. I really stumbled on to a great site here and have only just begun to learn from all here. I'm looking forward to digging deeper. Thanks. Steve

[MWTC]

Willard,

Ok. The question that I need answered is, is it ok for the flame to reach and touch the plate that holds the large stone? It appears that when I turn it up, the flame to high, it does touch the plate, even though I am using the 6 inch baffle.

I do hear the jet sound that you spoke of when I do turn it up. So you are saying to turn it down just to the point where the jet sound is eliminated?

Please advise.

MWTC  

[2stone]

MWTC,

I think you are taking a post I made about
being carefull with the heat too literal.
By all means turn up the heat the flames should
hit the pan and you will see a few flames licking up
the back. I appreciate the fact that you are being
carfull, but don't worry "turn up the heat!!"
(the bayou is a noisy, jet engine sounding burner)


Steve,

I am in production and you can order here
http://www.2stonepg.com/
I can recommend the oven if you want 1000+

regards,
willard

[golfsferr]

Steve,

I am in production and you can order here
I can recommend the oven if you want 1000+

regards,
willard

Willard
Thanks for the quick reply and I'm impressed with your site. The The Bayou Classic Burner, it looks like the same thing I already have for my Turkey Fryer. Is that about right? The 1000+ that you mentioned, is that the temp. you are talking about? Thanks again. Steve

PS. How far are you away from the Detroit area?

[2stone]

Hi Steve,

Yes thats right....it is sold as a kit (turkey fryer) or stand alone SQ-14
16x16 frame. Yes the 1000+ is one thousand degrees F. If you go back a few
pages on this thread Scott and Mark both have some impressive temp reading
setups.

willard

[golfsferr]

Willard

We live in Troy, Michigan. How far way are you?
Thanks.
Steve

[2stone]

Steve,

You are about 3 1/2 hrs away by Detroit I think.


willard

[golfsferr]

Willard
As you might already know, I just ordered the grill version. Can't wait. Steve

[2stone]

Steve... thanks for the order,

You will have a lot of fun and If you hang around
this place you will definitely pick up a lot of info on
high end pizza making!!

regards,
willard

[scottfsmith]

I wanted to pick up the topic awhile back about possibly adding more thermal mass on the top of the 2stone.  Tonight I put my big square pizza stone on top of the top stone, so I had more than double the "brick mass" up there -- a 3stone!  I had alu foil shiny side down on the top, and then for good measure I put the 2stone alu lid on top of that.  I didn't plug in my logger to show you a graph, but I did have the air temp probe in and I was clearly noticing less temp drop upon putting the pizzas in, more in the 50-100F range instead of 150-200F.  So I think a bit more mass on top may be a good thing, as we were speculating awhile back.  The pies came out the best I have ever had, WoW!  The taste could also have been helped by the fact that I finally started weighing ingredients and learned I was making the dough much drier than I had thought, more like 50%.  These pizzas tonight I made at 60% hydration and it was a totally different pie.  The only downside is one stuck on my alu paddle since I am not used to the wetter dough.  However I think I am now completely converted to the 2stone, so I can take my circular saw to my wood paddle and make it fit!

Scott

[2stone]

Scott,

I left enough room at the top to double up on the stones, if any one wants to.
Did you have any info on how much longer it took to heat up the top? or was it
unnoticeable. (I'm still envious of your temp reading abilities!!!)

willard


I just read this  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8514122/ (interesting)

"But if great bread is a slow, deliberate process, pizza is baking on steroids:
hours of preparation, yet just a few minutes of oven time to nail perfection"
                                                                                             Jon Bonné

[scottfsmith]

Did you have any info on how much longer it took to heat up the top? or was it
unnoticeable. (I'm still envious of your temp reading abilities!!!)

It seems to be taking a touch longer.  Now that I have "set" my pizza making process to a routine I will start logging the temps every time and hopefully getting some graphs I can lay over each other for comparison.  It is still hard to do completely reliable comparisons due to variables out of control, e.g. the amount of sauce on the pizza (more cool sauce will likely cool things down more), the outdoor air temp and windspeed, etc.

Scott

[mmarston]

Scott,

How big is the stone you put on top?
I have some 8" quarry tiles that I have used for pizza baking and I was thinking of using four of them in the same way.

Michael

[scottfsmith]

How big is the stone you put on top?
I have some 8" quarry tiles that I have used for pizza baking and I was thinking of using four of them in the same way.

Michael, it is around 14x16.  That is four of your tiles.  Make sure it is under the alu top.  If you can cut the tiles you may be able to make the top fit back on.

I am going to do some more careful measurements of how much longer the heat-up time is and how much less the drop is, I need to run my logger on several more pizzas to be sure of the pattern.  I am also going to be trying out other different kinds of arrangements to fine-tune it.

Scott

[chrishay99]

Are you guys still using the 2stone for NY style pies, or has it pretty much shifted to Caputo 00 traditional neopolitan pizzas?  I was really excited early on to see/hear the results for NY style, but it seems to have progressed way beyond that now.  I'm very interested in what the 2stone can do, but I'm not trying to go to college or import flour to get there.  I'd just like to make a great NY style pie with fairly readily available ingredients.  Does the 2stone offer a better alternative than my oven if I'm not trying to replicate Naples?

I would appreciate any comments from those who are using the 2stone to get NY "street" style pizza, as opposed to elite/neo pies. 

Thanks,
Chris

[canadianbacon]

Hi Chris,

I ordered the 2Stone, and will be using regular all purpose flour, and am interested in just
regular ol' pizzas ( which I really love ) I have no clue what NY style pizza even is though, so I'll let
others answer that question.

keep a watch for my up coming thread, where I'll be doing pizzas with it.

I'm thrilled, I got my confirmation from the UPS store that my new 2Stone pizza oven
shipped today ! yah !

Anyway, yes, I did notice many of the people who bought the 2Stone are using it for different
styles of pizzas, but me.. I just bought it to kick my regular pizzas up a notch.

Bam ! (oops am I allowed saying that ?  )

[scottfsmith]

Are you guys still using the 2stone for NY style pies, or has it pretty much shifted to Caputo 00 traditional neopolitan pizzas?

Chris, I am not making a NY style pie but my impression is that is what Willard designed it for, and is what it does the easiest.  It should be able to do a great NY pie on any grill, but I don't think it will do a good Nea pie on any grill since it may not get hot enough.  I have to push my 64K BTU grill to its limit to get it.  So, I would say the sweet spot is in fact for NY style, not Nea.  NY style is "600-750F" and Nea is "800-1100F", right? (experts please correct me).  I guess there are just more of us Nea's interested in it now in this forum.

Scott