Almost-WFO-politans but baked in the home oven thread.....

[Jackie Tran]

Well since I'm starting to make these pies and have no other place to put them, I thought I would start a new thread.   These are technically nearlypolitans but "almost-wood-fired-oven-politans" is much more fun to say.   

FWIW, I decided that I want a WFO so that will be my next project.  Until then though, a guy's gotta eat right?

These have been posted in other threads but I'm reintroducing them here.  These 2 were made recently.  A caprese pizza and a classic margherita.

I don't remember about the first one but the margherita was made with AP flour. 

[Jackie Tran]

Quote taken from this thread, reply #115
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11015.100.html

JT,

I think they look sweet - in a savory kind of way. Seriously, nice work - some of the best pies I've seen come out of a home oven.

What was the cook time? From the pictures, it looks like you lost a good bit of the water in your sauce during the cooking process. I noticed that when I was able to get my cook time down from 2:30-2:45 to 2:00-2:15, my sauce has a much "wetter" look which I was trying to achieve.

The crust looks great. Sorry it was "doughier" than you like. Do you think it would be better if you knocked the hydration down a couple turns? 64-65% maybe?

Craig

Thank you Craig.  You have a keen eye for detail.  TBH, I haven't even advance to thinking about the consistency of the sauce.  I've been stuck on the crust for 3 weeks now. 

The cook time is a bit hard to quantify.  With my oven broiler on, the top heat and stone heat is still quite uneven.  The bottem of the pie finishes in about 45 seconds while the top remains white, so I have to pick up the pie with the metal peel and rim it against the broiler to finish it off.  I have to rotate the pie 4-5 times to accomplish this and it takes around a little more than a minute I think. 

I'm not sure "doughier" was the right word.  Perhaps "had more chew than I like" would have been more appropriate.   With the margherita, I had room fermented the dough for about 8 hours, divided and balled, into fridge for 9 hours until I got off of work, proofed for 3 hours till bake.   I was attempting to overproof the dough to see if I could force more leoparding pocks to appear, but to no avail.

I believe that the dough had sort of a dense chew to it b/c it was overproof.  The acids undesireably strengthened the dough.    As a test, I repeated the same recipe (AP flour, 69% HR, same kneading technique), but this time upped the yeast and feremented/proofed the dough for a total of 4 hours.   The texture (IMO) was much improved.   The pie was excellent.  The dough had a very tender consistency to it and gave way to the teeth easily.  Almost a melt in your mouth texture.  It was so good, I almost wondered if I had just tasted something very close to a "real" NP pie.   This is the only picture I have of this pie as I did not have intention of posting it.  I will try to recreate it in several days. 

Out of curiosity I will repeat the bake but I will lower the HR by about 4% to see the difference.  I'll report back later.

Chau

[hotsawce]

The spotting on that margherita looks divine. Has your cooking method changed at all? Looks like your pizzas are truly evolving!

[andreguidon]

NICE !!! 

those pies look SO GOOD !!!

[Jackie Tran]

Thank you guys, but to be honest I'm very far from knowing what I'm doing.   I'll keep working at it...

HS to answer your question, not really.  I have cook pizza in the home oven, the MBE, and the primo ceramic grill.  These were done in the home oven.  I can't produce this look in the MBE, it won't get hot enough.  I will attempt to capture this look using my primo ceramic grill but that is another topic. 

In the home oven I can make these pies and NY style pies.  Both require different stone setups.  To do this, I have the stone about 2.5" under the top broiler.  I don't believe my Viking oven has a bottom broiler at all.  I believe it heats only from the top down.   It heats for about 30-40min.  I load the pie once the stone temp gets to be about 850F.  I don't do the typical 1 hour preheat times as I would when doing a NY style pie. 


Chau

[Matthew]

Chau,
Great job, very impressive. Since your venturing into Neapolitan style pizza you may want to consider changing the spelling of your name from Chau to "Ciao". 

[Jackie Tran]

Chau,
Great job, very impressive. Since your venturing into Neapolitan style pizza you may want to consider changing the spelling of your name from Chau to "Ciao". 

Thx Matt and I will certainly consider that.  Thanks for any help you can provide.  My biggest challenge right now is to find the right WFO.  I can't decide between a poor man's tester WFO or just to go all out and go big.  There are so many to choose from.  I need to sit down and re-evaluate my needs and usage.  You all have definitely pulled me to the darkside! 

Ciao

[BrickStoneOven]

I will certainly consider that Matthew.  Thanks for any help you can provide.  My biggest challenge right now is to find the right WFO.  I can't decide between a poor man's tester WFO or just to go all out and go big.  There are so many to choose from.  I need to sit down and re-evaluate my needs and usage.  You all have definitely pulled me to the darkside! 

Ciao

Go big or go HOME!

[brayshaw]

  I can't decide between a poor man's tester WFO or just to go all out and go big. 

GO BIG! GO BIG!

[Jackie Tran]

Go big or go HOME!

As in go HOME oven..

David, I hate to say it but you were right! It has been less than a month!

[BrickStoneOven]

I told you you would want one sooner rather then later. Tell your wife I said sorry for the pain she is about to go through.

[PizzaSean]

Wow Ciao/Chau!

Those are awesome!  just wanted to say how good they look... Also, I can't wait til I can start experimenting with all different kinds of pizza making including those nearlypolitan types, too.

Just curious - when you said you were doing 2.5" with the broiler - are you using the broiler for all of your heat?  Or also oven heat?

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks for the kind word Sean.   The oven set up can be seen here in reply #24 of the linked thread below.  With this oven set up pic is one of my first experimental pies using the technique I describe below.  You can see the skin is very thin and I tore a hole in it.
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10514.20.html. 
The stone is about 2.5" from the broiler.  It is a 16" Primo Ceramic stone.  These come glazed on one side and I went ahead and had the other side glazed with a food safe glaze as well. 

I'm using the broiler for all the heat.  I'm pretty sure my oven doesn't heat from below.  The broiler is also the source of heat for the entire oven.  If I turn the oven to 400, the same burner kicks on but the heat output is not as high as if I turn it to broil. 

Basically, the heat is concentrated at just the top of my vast oven.   The stone absorbs much of the heat coming down from the broiler and reflects part of it back up.  I basically just turn the broiler on from a cold start and when the stone temp hits 850 I load the pie with the top broiler running.  I can stick my hand into the middle of the oven when all this is going on without risk of burning myself. 

The only thing to watch out for is the top inside of the door.  It gets HOT!  B/c these types of pies bake so fast, many times after I load the pie, I shut the door for just 30 seconds or so.  I then open the door and check the bottom for charring/burning.  I'll monitor the progress of the pie with the door open as if I'm at the entrance of a real WFO. 

After about 45 seconds or so I pick the pie up with the metal peel and hold the edge of the rim against the running broiler to brown the edge.  I then pull the peel out and carefully rotate the pie and repeat.  Occasionally the pie will want to stick to the metal peel and if I'm not careful about peeling it off to turn i can tear a hole in the bottom of the pie.   I will likely play around with transferring the pie to a wire rack before rimming it to avoid this.   

One of the issues is that I'm dependant on the heat bouncing off of the peel to evenly brown the outer perimeter of the crust.  To make this successful with the wire rack, I would likely have to put a band of aluminum foil around the outside edge of the rack.  It should work but I need to test it out. 

Chau

[dellavecchia]

I got rained out yesterday, and had to go back to my home oven. I tried Chau's patented technique. I have real admiration for Chau in getting those beautiful results - mine were not so good. This dough was the exact formulation I use for my WFO (caputo 00). The cook time was around 3 minutes. My stone would not get past 650 degrees, no matter how long I left it under the broiler. I have a heavy duty Wolf oven, so I am pretty sure it was the stone. Anyway, I did the rim lifting but did not get any leoparding. The taste was great, but somewhat tough (although not as tough as I thought it would be.) I need some more practice or a change in my formulation/proofing, as I need to use my home oven during the cold winter months. In fact, I may start to learn a NY style so I do not have to kill myself trying to make a neapolitan!

John

[scott123]

John, was your vertical opening 2.5" or less?  Did you see the broiler kick in/glow red? Sometimes the oven gets so hot, the broiler never turns on.

Do you think you can dependably hit 650 every time?  If so, I think you're set for NY style- should you ever decide to take that route.

[BrickStoneOven]

John the pizza looks good. That toughness is the reason why I think Caputo shouldn't be used at lower temps, the longer it cooks the tougher it gets. The reason for that 60-90sec mark is so that the crumb and crust stay stuff.

As long as its not snowing I am going to be using the oven.

[Jackie Tran]

John, thank you for posting your results with a picture.   I couldn't ask for better feedback.  I know you mentioned this already but I wanted to be sure.

This is the same exact formula you use each time with your WFO with the same fermentation times?  The only thing that has changed is the oven?  If so, I'm not surprised by your results.  I did an experiment just last week and got similar results.  I made the same dough and baked one pie under the broiler and the other in the MBE.  Pictures are below.  One looks more like a NP and the other a NY style pie.   So heat differences for sure will give different results.

John, you may be partially correct about the stone differences.  My experiments were born out of trying to replicate the look of Toby's nearlypolitan pies.   From what I can remember he uses a cheapy $10 stone.   I have also gotten hearth temps of 800+ using natural stone tiles like travertine and slate from Lowes.  Although I don't recommend these types of stones.  Just because they can reach high temps doesn't mean they can retain heat well, and then there is the issue of cracking and rupturing.

I have some experimental dough that needs to be baked tonight.  If the dough is still good after  I get off of work, I will be happy to run an experiment for you.  I have firebricks, quarry tiles, and a cheapo $12 pizza stone I can try to make an A-WFO-P pie with.   Let me know what you would like to see me try with.  I may even bake one pie with the Primo stone and another with a different material just to see.

The pies I posted above are very experimental in nature meaning I have just started discovering them myself.  I have the formulas and techniques documented but I haven't made a ton of them either, so replicating them at this point isn't actually quite as easy as pie...yet.

Chau

Pictures below.  Same formula and ferment times.  First pie baked under the broiler, and 2nd pie in the MBE.  The taste and look of the 2nd one was drastically different from the first.   

[dellavecchia]

John, was your vertical opening 2.5" or less?  Did you see the broiler kick in/glow red? Sometimes the oven gets so hot, the broiler never turns on.

Do you think you can dependably hit 650 every time?  If so, I think you're set for NY style- should you ever decide to take that route.

I think that the gap was closer to 3in - but I did make sure the broiler was on during the whole time. I am definitely going to try a NY soon.

John the pizza looks good. That toughness is the reason why I think Caputo shouldn't be used at lower temps, the longer it cooks the tougher it gets. The reason for that 60-90sec mark is so that the crumb and crust stay stuff.

Yes, I agree. I am going to try some All Trumps next.

I have some experimental dough that needs to be baked tonight.  If the dough is still good after  I get off of work, I will be happy to run an experiment for you.  I have firebricks, quarry tiles, and a cheapo $12 pizza stone I can try to make an A-WFO-P pie with.   Let me know what you would like to see me try with.  I may even bake one pie with the Primo stone and another with a different material just to see.

Chau - I am just going to buy what you use. Can you re-fresh my memory on what stone you use?

John

[Jackie Tran]

Sure John.  I use a Primo Ceramic Stone.  It is glazed on one side.  The material is very porous and light but can tolorate high heat.   It is made from the same refractory cement/clay material they use on their Primo Ceramic cookers.   The side that is not glaze can powder off if rubbed against a hard surface.  It's not strong like firebrick is.  I went ahead and had the 2nd side glazed as well.

You may be able to find The Big Green Egg and it's accessories easier locally than Primo products.  I would imagine the BGE pizza stone is very similar to the Primo's.  Before you order one though, let me see if I can't duplicate my results using different types of stones.   I may try quarry tile this afternoon. 

My dough this afternoon is the Arrowhead Mills organic BF.  Should be interesting to see what  I get.

Chau

[Jackie Tran]

Well I got home at 230pm and the dough was overblown.  As in collapse under it's weight.  i decided to bake anyway, but used 2 layers of quarry tile under the broiler.  The distance between the broiler and hearth is now 2".  I was able to get the temp to 800F in about 20m.   I decided to go ahead and load the pies instead of waiting for 850F+.   They had a similar look to the above pies.  Not as pretty but similar.   The BF was doughy.  I'm not sure if that was from being overfermented or if it was the extra protein in it.  It was likely the combination of BF, plus thicker rim, plus short bake time as S00da talked about in different thread.  Anyways the quarry tile worked well in my oven.   

Chau