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[pftaylor]

The Slice,
You were an absolute joy to serve. I wish all customers could be so well informed...

On another note,
Wood Fired has now been reviewed by the editor of Creative Loafing, Brian Ries. 

Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar: A new contender for Tampa Bay's best?
Read Brian Ries' 4-star review of Wood Fired Pizza in New Tampa, and learn the fascinating story of corporate-guy-turned-pizza-chef Peter Taylor.
Here is a link to the article:

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2009/08/12/restaurant-review-is-wood-fired-pizza-wine-bar-the-best-pizza-in-tampa-bay/

[JConk007]

The best in Tampa in just 1 month Love it !Go Pete Go !!!
great Stuff
john

[widespreadpizza]

Peter,  that was a great review,  congrats on the whole operation.  The proof is in the pizza!  I wonder if you have plans to hire an assistant/b ackup pizzamaker so that you don't burn out?  -marc

[The Slice]

The Slice,
You were an absolute joy to serve. I wish all customers could be so well informed...

On another note,
Wood Fired has now been reviewed by the editor of Creative Loafing, Brian Ries. 

Wood Fired Pizza Wine Bar: A new contender for Tampa Bay's best?
Read Brian Ries' 4-star review of Wood Fired Pizza in New Tampa, and learn the fascinating story of corporate-guy-turned-pizza-chef Peter Taylor.
Here is a link to the article:

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/2009/08/12/restaurant-review-is-wood-fired-pizza-wine-bar-the-best-pizza-in-tampa-bay/

Thanks Peter. Don't forget about that coupon book I told you about. You still have to work to get your name out there. Marketing...marketing!! 
Hope to see you soon Peter... We got pies to make..  

[Barry]

Hi everyone,

I have just read the quote below, posted by pftaylor on 24 April, 2005 in a topic entitled "Re: Is Pizza.com ruining your life, or just increasing the size if your pants?"

The quote reads,

"Varasano,
Pizza wise, Tampa is probably more like Atlanta than I would like it to be. Nonetheless, when the next big fat check comes my way, I will temped to find that "perfect" location which balances the right demographics, traffic, and willingness to support an artisan shop serving just pie, beverages, and dessert."

Looks like Pete did find his "perfect" location 4 years down the line. As they say in the classics, "be careful what you wish for" !

Best wishes for your continued success !

Barry in Cape Town

[pftaylor]

I just had to share with the membership how supportive the Tampa community has been to Wood Fired.

Dennis Rinaldi is a patron who volunteered to be a human sign. He offered to do this for no monetary compensation whatsoever - just a Pizza Raquel every once in a while...How could I say no? His reasoning is that he wants Wood Fired to be a success so that he doesn't have to eat anymore bad pie. I'm inspired by actions like these and countless others which I plan to share along my journey.

If you are in the Tampa area plan on stopping by. Dennis is a real showman. The other day I saw him blowing kisses at the ladies driving by and rubbing his belly at the guys. Hilarious!

Click this link for the photos as they are too large to post:

http://wood-firedpizza.com/LatestAd.aspx

[acbova]

Work calls me back to the Tampa, .... I'm so tired of this project...

At l can look forward to great pizza.   

[pftaylor]

Talk about having a ball. Wood Fired was fortunate enough to create enough buzz to interest the local CBS affiliate. Take a gander at the rather short video from Channel 10 in Tampa:

http://www.tampabays10.com/video/default.aspx?maven_playerId=immersiveplayer&maven_referralPlaylistId=19ef553b178cf268ca5e9bb8e1ee73b5d0832d01&maven_referralObject=1248988375

Never doubt the amazing impact TV has on business. It aired at about 5:30pm last night and we were slammed ten minutes afterward till we ran out of dough. Good thing I'm an elite pizza athlete and am able to stand in front of the venerable Raquel oven and deliver the char...Ha-Ha!

Tonight I've made 300 dough balls and very well may run out. We're up to 152 reserved dough balls and counting...Might be time to tap Pete-zza on the shoulder for an emergency dough formula. Then again there is nothing like demand outstripping supply.
Ciao
pftaylor

[pacoast]

Congratulations on your continuing success!

Perchance when it calms down a bit, you can find a few minutes to tell us what changes (if any) you've found yourself making in your dough for a commercial setting as opposed to cooking for a dinner party at home?

Cheers

.

[Pete-zza]

Might be time to tap Pete-zza on the shoulder for an emergency dough formula.

Pete,

If you feel that it would be useful to make an emergency dough from time to time, let me know--either on the forum or via PM. The practice that is most commonly used by pizza operators to make emergency doughs is to use the same dough recipe but with much more yeast and using much warmer water. Ideally, the emergency dough should be usable within a few hours. However, all of the emergency dough formulations that I have seen and used to make emergency doughs call for using commercial yeast, not a natural starter/preferment, and the doughs are kneaded by machine, not by hand. There can also be crust coloration issues because of the short fermentation times.

A few months ago, I created a compilation of emergency dough formulations/recipes that I found on the forum, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8297.0.html. Most of the emergency dough formulations won't apply to your situation but you can get a pretty good feel for the principles involved by looking at Item 1 under New York Style and Item 5 under General. The challenge is how to apply those principles to a dough that uses a natural starter/preferment while still using your basic dough formulation and ingredients.

Peter

[andreguidon]

Congratulations Peter !! best of luck !!!

the video was very nice !!!

[pacoast]

I'm not Pete-zza of course but as we don't seem to have many emergency recipes for preferment based dough, here is mine. If anyone is interested, this could be a base for further experimentation. This works well, but never quite achieves the full complexity that a regular preferment based dough has.

Emergency dough
100%  flour, Bel Aria 00 or A.P.
 65%  water
 15%  preferment, fully active
1.75% salt, kosher
 0.6% IDY
Final dough temperature 30 - 32C
Proof for 90 - 120 minutes, ideally in a proofing cabinet @ 32C/75% RH


Emergency preferment
(not required if your preferment is already fully active)
100% preferment
 25% water, mineral, 31C
 21% flour, Bel Aria 00 or A.P.
  4% flour, rye
        q.s.
        Mix & place container in a 31C water bath. Allow to rise at least 50% before incorporating into above emergency dough

Note that I don't usually use Bel Aria or rye flour in my pizza dough. Also the amount of preferment used is large to compensate for the short fermentation time. The rye flour & mineral water strengthen the preferment flavours. And the use of weak flours is to aid the digestibility of a quickly fermented dough. Possible additions, which I have not tried yet would be adding diastatic malt for enhanced colouration and/or a tofu based cream cheese e.g. "Tofutti better than cream cheese", which adds a generic butter/nutty flavour to the crust (thanks November). Not as good as good as the flavour from a regular preferment, but the results are immediate.


edit: corrected typo

[Bill/SFNM]

pftaylor,

So very, very pleased that your dream is coming true to plan. Can't wait to reserve a few dough ball and "darken your doorstep".

Bill
 

[Pete-zza]

pacoast,

My first thought was to forego the natural starter/preferment altogether and to use commercial yeast. That would perhaps be the easiest and most direct approach and is pretty much in line with what most pizza operators use anyway. I might prefer using fresh yeast for its artisan qualities but since it has such a short shelf life, it perhaps would be more practical to use dry yeast. But, either way, pftaylor would have to be satisfied that the emergency dough produces a good enough product to warrant its use. Otherwise, it might be better to run out of dough and leave it at that. There seem to be quite a few places that run out of dough yet seem to thrive.

My second thought was to supplement the natural starter/preferment with commercial yeast. However, my concern here is that the commercial yeast, especially in the quantities that would be needed to make a dough fast, would act too fast and prevent the enzymes in the dough (in the flour and in the yeast) from acting fast enough to produce the sugars that fermentative bacteria use to develop organic acids in the dough. If the acid levels are too low, they might not contribute enough to the flavor of the finished crust. In my experience, when I have combined commercial yeast with wild yeast in a dough, the flavor profile suffered to the point where I couldn't detect the usual contributions of the wild yeast. However, there might still be some effects, such as textural ones, that might warrant using a combination of the commercial and wild yeasts.

Peter

[pacoast]

As you have well sketched out, there are many considerations in play when one might decide to use an emergency dough. Ultimately, only Pft can decide if a given emergency dough comes close enough to his usual standard to employ when the need might arise or whether the most viable option is indeed to close his doors for the remainder of the evening.

The most common practice is of course to not use preferment in an emergency dough. However all such emergency doughs that I have tried remain easily discernible from my regular Ischia dough. There is a textural component to this, but it mainly a flavour profile. On the basis of limited experimentation, it does seem possible to bring out much of the Ischia flavours on an accelerated basis. But the Ischia leavening power always falls short on an abbreviated time scale. Hence the attempt at a hybrid IDY/preferment recipe. Which seems to work reasonably well. Of course whether to demo any emergency dough recipes and whether any such dough meets a given standard remains an operator decision.



edit: perhaps leavening makes more sense than leaving?

[Mo]

My second thought was to supplement the natural starter/preferment with commercial yeast. However, my concern here is that the commercial yeast, especially in the quantities that would be needed to make a dough fast, would act too fast and prevent the enzymes in the dough (in the flour and in the yeast) from acting fast enough to produce the sugars that fermentative bacteria use to develop organic acids in the dough. If the acid levels are too low, they might not contribute enough to the flavor of the finished crust. In my experience, when I have combined commercial yeast with wild yeast in a dough, the flavor profile suffered to the point where I couldn't detect the usual contributions of the wild yeast. However, there might still be some effects, such as textural ones, that might warrant using a combination of the commercial and wild yeasts.

Peter

pete,
Remembering back to my bakery days, I recall some formulas using both starters and yeast. The bulk rise times were longer than 90 minutes and I can't recall the kinds of dough that used this combination, but it's not unheard of. What value any of this has for pizza dough, I cannot say...

pftaylor, many congratulations  on your success, now shouldn't you be getting back to work? Keep your head down, Keep smiling and Keep slugging. Feed the Masses!

[Pete-zza]

Remembering back to my bakery days, I recall some formulas using both starters and yeast. The bulk rise times were longer than 90 minutes and I can't recall the kinds of dough that used this combination, but it's not unheard of.

Mo,

Your memory is good. French bakers used a hybrid leavening system (levain de pate) to make bread during the cool months, typically between September and May. This method is discussed in Prof. Calvel's book, The Taste of Bread, as I noted in Reply 9 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3220.msg66414/topicseen.html#msg66414. Also, some bakers use commercial yeast with a natural starter/preferment, as somewhat a belt-and-suspenders approach in case the starter/preferment doesn't perform as hoped for and to get more "puff" in the dough. Several years ago, I had a discussion with one of the bakers at the Sullivan St. Bakery in New York (run by the now famous Jim Lahey) and he told me that they used both commercial yeast and natural yeast starters/cultures for their doughs. For years, I would buy breads from the bakery to take back to Texas and the breads had a very mild flavor with little acidity. That gave me pause to wonder whether the commercial yeast overtook the wild yeast.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Thanks for the suggestions on emergency dough. I ended up making enough to satisfy the hungry throngs of Tampanians...

On another note, I am honored to write that Wood Fired just won Creative Loafing's Best of The Bay Award, Critics Pick, for BEST ARTISAN PIZZA 2009. We also won another award for being one of the top NINE NEW RESTAURANTS WHICH OPENED THIS YEAR.

Pizzaiolo Bavaro (an authentic Neapolitan pizzeria) was one of the top nine new restaurants as well. Congratulations to Dan Bavaro for his accomplishment. Pizza is finally coming of age in Tampa.

[widespreadpizza]

PFT ,  thats some strong work,  congrats!  -marc

[pftaylor]

Attached is the irrefutable visual evidence as they say.