MBE (Mini Black Egg) Project

[Jackie Tran]

Thank you for the support Norma.  I hope I do get far with this pizza making business.   

I had a good bake this afternoon and posted these in another thread but needed to add the pics here as well for those thinking about making an MBE or an LBE. 

I would recommend the LBE since the MBE limits you to roughly 10-11" pies max. 

first one was made with a Canadian "Manitoba" flour around 13.7% Protein.

Flour   119gm
Water 80gm (67%)
ADY  1/4 tsp (~0.8%)
salt 1/3 tsp
oil     1/2 tsp

Method:  Dissolve yeast in water and let sit for 5min.  Mix in salt & oil.  Stir to dissolve. With a fork mix in roughly 85-90% of the flour.  Let sit for 10min.  Hand knead in the rest of the flour a bit at a time.  Should take under 5min.  don't over knead.   Divide & ball.  Proof for a total of 3+ hours or till ball doubles in size.  After 1 hour of proof, do a few stretch and folds to trap air for big bubbles if desired.  This step is optional. 
Bake: at 650F for 4 min.  Enjoy!

[RetroRayGun]

Chau,

Now that's where I want to be as a pizza chef!
"Top Job" ol' boy!

Chris

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks Chris.  With practice you'll get there soon enough.  I'm still always practicing.  Pictures can also be deceiving.    Hopefully when you have some time, I'll have you over for taste testing and research purposes.   

[gtsum2]

Thank you for the support Norma.  I hope I do get far with this pizza making business.   

I had a good bake this afternoon and posted these in another thread but needed to add the pics here as well for those thinking about making an MBE or an LBE. 

I would recommend the LBE since the MBE limits you to roughly 10-11" pies max. 

first one was made with a Canadian "Manitoba" flour around 13.7% Protein.

Flour   119gm
Water 80gm (67%)
ADY  1/4 tsp (~0.8%)
salt 1/3 tsp
oil     1/2 tsp

Method:  Dissolve yeast in water and let sit for 5min.  Mix in salt & oil.  Stir to dissolve. With a fork mix in roughly 85-90% of the flour.  Let sit for 10min.  Hand knead in the rest of the flour a bit at a time.  Should take under 5min.  don't over knead.   Divide & ball.  Proof for a total of 3+ hours or till ball doubles in size.  After 1 hour of proof, do a few stretch and folds to trap air for big bubbles if desired.  This step is optional. 
Bake: at 650F for 4 min.  Enjoy!

impressive looking pies T!  You have been a pizza cooking fool I can see!  It was a great read on the smokey joe conversion...very inventive of you and it looks like you have got it nailed!  Nice job and very inspirational!  Your pies look fantastic!

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks for the nice words Gtsum.  I can not in good faith take too much credit.  The real credit goes to member Villa Roma, father of the LBE & MBE.  If you have time and interested, here is the LBE thread. 
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4753.0.html
It was with his work and so many others that got me interested in these.   The only thing I have done differently is to add a diffuser bowl with sand in it instead of using a stone as a diffuser beneath the hearth. 

I have also found out that using a less conductive stone like firebricks or quarry tiles work better in these baking vessels.   These make great NY style pies and even Elite NY (Neo Neapolitans or as I like to call NewPolitans) but I have not found success in making Neapolitan pies.  That my friend requires some sort of a WFO. 

Chau

[gtsum2]

Hey T,

I was out in the garage looking around and low and behold I spy the necessary equipment to make one of these!  I happen to have a smokey joe and a 22 inch weber that I dont use anymore...as well I have a 180k btu bayou classic burner...I also have a propane line tied into the home tank (buried 500 gallon) on the deck.....hmm.....so, I assume  you just place the cooker on the burner (not bolted, etc)?  I am thinking of making one out of my 22inch...I assume the whole to cut out on the bottom is going to be dependent on the burner size?  So you are using a pan filled SS pan right above the burner, and then stacking 2 stones on the main cook grate?  It looks like the more space between the outer edge of the top stones and the sides of the cooker will result in a higher air temp above the stones, right?  My pizza stones are only 16 inch...might be too small to use on the 22 incher?  18 incher would be perfect I guess?  Any other tricks to go about making this?  I think I am going to do it this week and give it a whirl. 

[gtsum2]

I just measured the burner..I have a 6 inch burner (big one!)...I am thinking the 22 incher would be better suited to hack up then my smokey joe.  Any recommendations on how big a hole I should cut out of my 22 incher?  Also, how are you getting the alum foil to stick and not fall off the sides of the weber?

[Jackie Tran]

Score on the weber sitting around!  I bet you didn't know you had a pizza oven in parts laying around.  Here's the quick and dirty...

MBE:  good if you are only feeding 2-3 ppl.  Max pizza size will be around 11".  I can eat about one and a half of these myself.  11" because you need about 1" airgap.  Functional diameter of the grill is really 13.5" or so.  Stone will be about 12".  Max pie size you can load without making a mess is 11" unless you build the pie on a 12" pan.  Down side is that the lid slopes a bit.  Pies can rise too close to the lid and cut off some valuable airflow.  This results in a white ring around the top.  I talk about this earlier in this thread.

LBE:  18" is perfect for a 16" stone but these are harder to find.  The dome is a good height and won't likely have the same problem as discussed above in the MBE.  max size pizza will be 15-16".  Downside again is that you'll really be limited to NY style pies or elite NY at best.  I've only seen one member make a pie that resembles a NP (Neapolitan) and that's member 8 slice on page 40 or 41 I believe in the LBE thread linked to earlier.   It's just hard to get the temps way up there.  Well you can but the bottom gets much hotter than the top and that results in burning issues.   To get high top heat you need refractory cement on top.

LBE 22" This is the size you need for making NP style pies.  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10057.0.html  If I wasn't going forward with the WFO, I would consider making one of these.  Used 22" webers are all over craigslist and refractory cement is cheap.

Chau

Also I do not use aluminum foil on the walls.  They disintegrate after a few cooks.

[buceriasdon]

I can't get heavy duty aluminum foil here in Mexico, tried using regular foil and just gave up, too much hassle changing it out every few burns. Your mileage may vary. Good luck on your LBE.
saludos, Donaldo

I just measured the burner..I have a 6 inch burner (big one!)...I am thinking the 22 incher would be better suited to hack up then my smokey joe.  Any recommendations on how big a hole I should cut out of my 22 incher?  Also, how are you getting the alum foil to stick and not fall off the sides of the weber?

[Jackie Tran]

Made some changes to the MBE.  Member jet-deck suggested that I moved the stone forward to block the air flow from the front.  Even though I had some foil down in that area, this stirred me to revisit Essen1's metal disk mod for the LBE found here...

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4753.msg57620.html#msg57620

To see if a version of this mod would increase my heat output, I pulled the stone forward and layed down some foil to block the airflow from the sides.  Immediately I notice an increase in the heat and airflow out the front vent of about 30-40%.  With 2 test runs so far, I noticed the heat up times have decrease between 25-50% depending on the size of the gap in the back.

Previous heat up time: 20m to ~700F
Current heat up times with the sides blocked off: 10-15m to 700F.

I also pulled the sand bowl towards the front.  Here are a few pics of the current setup and a pie I made last night.   This pie was a 50/50 blend of AP/BF.   It was baked at stone temp of 700F and baked for 2 min.  I did notice that the rim was charring faster than before, so all in all I would say this simple mod is a functional improvment over my old setup.

I would like to reiterate Mike's tip on turning down the burner a bit after the pie is loaded to control the amount of charring.  You can also load the pie closer or further from the back edge to control how fast the rim chars as well.

[Jet_deck]

If you black egg users could just put a couple hinges on the lid, I would guess that you could load the pie, and turn it when needed much faster.  I would think that it would save a ton of lost heat, instead of completely removing the lid, and setting it aside.  But maybe you can hold the lid in one hand and turn the pizza with the other?  Oh, good looking pie Chau.

Just a random thought.

[Essen1]

Chau,

It looks like you're having a field day with your MBE. Great pizza!!

I'm glad the little adjustment turned out well and cut heat-up time in half and improved the airflow.

Regarding the burner control, I have had too many black Frisbees coming out of mine when the burner was left uncontrolled so now I'm just turning it down to low and increase it when needed, see the temps dramatically drop or when it's breezy outside. But other than that, dialed in to low keeps it at a nice ambient temp for the pizzas.

[Jackie Tran]

Thx guys I have some work to do yet to dial in the new settings.   When I varied the space between the back wall and the stone from 1" to 2" there was a marked increase in heat up times (25%). 

My old set up was working fine, but this gives me more flexibility.  I have a wider range of heat to utilize and take advantage of.  I was impress that I could get the entire rim charred via rotation and have a finished pie in 2 min.  I think that is about the upper limit on bake times for a NP pie.   

I think the right thing to say about the MBE/LBE is that like recipes, it really does take some tweaking to optimize the end result for each user.  I'm not sure one setting or recipe will work for everyone. 

I will definitely be doing some more testing with AP/caputo flour in the MBE in an attempt to make something close"r" to a NP pie.  I will keep you guys posted.  For now I'll have to put my WFO plans on hold.   

JD - I like your ideas.  Without a doubt a hinge lid would improve efficiency.  As it is, it takes the MBE very little time to recover once the lid is off and on again.   With the 2nd and 3rd turn, the puffed up rim goes from white/light color to char in about 15 seconds.  Since I'm not too hand with the tools I'll save it for a possible later project.  I bet it would be a piece of cake for you.     I kinda wish we lived closer so you could help me put a heat source in the lid.  That would really be ideal IMO. 

Chau

[dmcavanagh]

Tran Man-nice looking pies. I haven't gotten around to modifying my Weber yet, but I'm doing a lot of experimenting with a cast iron griddle and the broiler and recently cooked some pies that are amazingly similar looking to the ones in your pictures. BTW, do you like pizza?

[gtsum2]

Looking good!  I made the same mods to mine and heat up time was definitely faster....as well as my top heat was quite a bit hotter (800 or so).

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks Guys.  I'm always trying to improve.  David let's see those pies. 

Gtsum, I'm glad those mods inspired by Mike's disk mod helped.

Here are couple of 8 hour pies made in the MBE this morning with Ischia starter.  Getting a bit better with the leoparding but still contending with that white ring on top. 

Also FB is too thick in my set up and the QT (quarry tile) is in 4 pieces and shifts too much.  Had to go back to the 12' stone from Sears.  This thing conducts heat too well so for future bakes I have to load it at a lower hearth temp like around 600F.  Anyways these were made with AP flour. 

[Jet_deck]

...  Getting a bit better with the leoparding but still contending with that white ring on top.... 

I bet i know where the ring is coming from.  Hint: In the mountains that surround you, do you see where the snow drifts on the leeward side of the mountains?

[Jackie Tran]

I bet i know where the ring is coming from.  Hint: In the mountains that surround you, do you see where the snow drifts on the leeward side of the mountains?

That's a good analogy JD.  I had the same problem when I was doming the pies too much by using the thick firebricks, but now there is sufficient room on top for the airflow and still this happens.  The problem I suspect is that the airflow is much great now from front to back due to the recent changes.  This causes the leeward side from getting sufficient heat.  To fix this, I'm planning on plugging the front airvent, and opening up the original top vents.  I'll also have to remove the disk in the lid since it's block the top vents. 

I hope this will create some turbulence causing the air to swirl around the lid a bit before exiting the top.   I'll report back. 

[buceriasdon]

I've been reading with interest the latest posts on the MBE, which I have realized size wise what my little oven is. 17.5 inches in diameter. I however do not use a high pressure burner in mine. Not really a MBE, but a hybrid. Takes 20 minutes to reach 700.  I thought I should  post some pics of my configuration. Lid open showing the chains on both sides with foil blocking all but the open back edges on the tile. The hinge showing the upper half, similar below and the chain showing one side. I do need to fabricate an easier to use towards the front lid handle.
Saludos, Don

[buceriasdon]

Same day Mexican AP and cake flour. 3 to1. Ran out of panela. Walmart mozz. Nice and light pizza with spinach and cherry tomatos.