Conveyor vs a deck oven....Is there a differnce in quality of the pizza?

[KingWing]

I'm trying to determine which of the 2 ovens mentioned would be best for making pizza using Caputo 00 pizza flour. Does it matter? I'm looking to make a good quality pizza and not the quick mass production style. Can I still get the same or better results if I use a flour higher in protein than the Caputo? I don't know much about making pizza and have little experience so a brick oven is out of the question here. 

[Pete-zza]

KingWing,

Unless you have a wood fired oven or other very high temperature oven, I would not consider using the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. You could use a blend of the Caputo and a high protein flour as Dom DeMarco does at Di Fara's in Brooklyn, using a deck oven, but I believe his deck oven runs hotter than most deck ovens. He uses a blend of Caputo flour and a high-gluten flour.

The importer of the Caputo flours in the U.S. once told me that he was receiving requests and information on how to use the Caputo flours in conveyor and other ovens, and he no doubt offered them samples of the Caputo flour to try out, but even he would be likely to tell you not to use the Caputo in other than a very high temperature oven.

Peter

[scott123]

KingWing, what style are hoping to make?

In order to make Neapolitan pies, you generally need a brick oven. NY Style is traditionally made in a deck oven.  There are some that believe that NY style can be made on a conveyor, but I'm not one of them. American style- conveyor. Sicilian- deck. Neo-NY (Patsy's, Grimaldi's, John's, etc.)- coal would be ideal, but a high temp deck oven should suffice.  Jeff Varasano seems to have a deck oven that can reproduce the temps of coal.

[KingWing]

Thank you so very much. This has answered many of my questions. I will set the menu according to the advice from both of you and go with a high temp deck oven. I will also stick to a HG flour for the pies...I particularly like Papa Johns dough, do you know what type flour they might use? And I also heard they get their flour from someplace out in Kansas, apparently many pizza makers are getting their flour from here. Would you know where or which company in KS it might be? And do you also know or have any thoughts on the type of flour Papa Johns might use as well? 

[Pete-zza]

KingWing,

I spent a lot of time researching the Papa John's basic pizza dough and trying to recreate it. You can read the bloody details in the first few posts at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.0.html. As you will see there, Papa John's uses a high protein flour. If I had to guess, Papa John's purchases its flours from different possible sources. The flour may also be a proprietary blend made exclusively to PJ's specifications. But I would say that an unbleached, unbromated high protein flour with a protein content of about 13.5-14% should work well for the PJ style pizza. Bleached and bromated flours will also work but Papa John's does not use bleached or bromated flours.

You will perhaps want to know that if you plan to purchase a deck oven, the PJ dough is not particularly well suited for such an oven. It is because of the high sugar content of the PJ doughs, as you will note from the abovereferenced thread. PJ's bakes its pizzas on screens in conveyor ovens. You would have to modify a PJ dough to get it to work in a deck oven.

Peter