Lead me to water...I shall drink...

[ThePizzaBiatch]

Ok, several years ago (more like 10), I made my first trip to Italy and was hooked on the pies.  Sure, each trattoria / pizzeria varied a bit...but they all had that wow factor.  I came home, and went about creating a pie as close to what I ate there as possible.  I did a relatively decent job...and was loved by my friends and family.  And then I discovered pizzamaking.com.  Since that point, I've been working on my NY style pie (more of a NY-Nea pie) and Chicago and have enjoyed it.

So, I do have a question here, bear with me.  This weekend I am going to make 4 pies...a NY Style Pie (Check), a stuffed Chicago spinach pie (Check), a cracker crust (thanks Deven) pie (Check) and finally as close to a Nea as I can get with my setup...but my note taking back in the day was terrible, and I want a Nea pie that I can make work as best as possible with my set-up.  So, would any of you pro's or semi-pro's look at what my setup is, and let me know 2 things...what formulation would you use (as well as any other technique specific advice), and secondly, how and what would you alter to make the crust perimeter a bit on the crunchy side (at least the edges a step past crisp)?  This is not a thing I look for...but everyone wants me to set the NeoNea pie apart from the others with more crunch before the chew than usual.  Any takers on this absurdly long question?

Here's my setup:

Available Flours:  KABF, KAAP, AT, CAPUTO OO
Oven, DCS convection w/ Infrared Burner:  Gets to 600ish, outfitted with two Fibrament D's separated by fire bricks for about a 4 inch height baking cavity
Would like to serve this pizza approximately 30 hours after dough made.

HELP!!

[scott123]

The critical factor in making Neapolitan pizza at home is bake time. 600 with fibrament or firebrick will never give you a sub 2 minute Neapolitan bake. At that temp and those materials, I think even Neo-NY/Coal times are even out of the question. 600 is definitely in a class by itself when it comes to home oven peak temps, but your materials lack the conductivity for quick bakes. If you're breaking 4 minutes with that setup, I'd be surprised.

Option #1

Modify your oven so that it goes higher than 600- a lot higher.  It sounds like you've got a nice oven.  If I had a nice oven, I would probably avoid mods.

Option #2

3/4" steel plate.  At 600, 3/4" steel plate will have no problem giving you sub 2 minute bakes. It's heavy, though.  If your shelf is currently supporting 2 fibrament stones and firebrick, perhaps it can take the weight, otherwise you'll need to make supports out of flat steel bars.

Option #3

Build a WFO

Option #4

Settle for only Neo-NY 3-4 minute bakes and obtain either a 1" cordierite kiln shelf or 1.25" soapstone slab.  Kiln shelves are inexpensive, easy to obtain and should have no problem hitting Neo-NY bake times at 600.

[ThePizzaBiatch]

Where would a guy buy a steel plate such as the one you're suggesting?

[buceriasdon]

All major cities will have steel suppliers. Call around and ask for hot roll as it will be considerably less expensive than cold roll steel.
Don