Regarding reverse engineering the sauce...well...I'm up for it. If we can get the sauce, too, we'd have the perfect clone. Except for the toppings and the amount of cheese, that is.
Mike,
Thank you also for the kind remarks. Now, back to the business at hand…
I believe that the large sauce container shown in the Luigi video and also those shown in Reply 161 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,14928.msg151733.html#msg151733 are translucent Poly (polycarbonate) containers such as the 22-quart capacity storage container as shown at the Cambro website at
http://cool.cambro.com/Poly_Rounds_Round_Storage_Containers_and_Lids_Storage.ashx. You will note that that container has a height of 15” and a top diameter of 14 7/8”. The Cambro website does not say whether the top diameter is with the lid on the container but, according to
http://www.wasserstrom.com/restaurant-supplies-equipment/Product_281739, a typical lid for a 22-quart storage container has a diameter of 14 7/8” That suggests that the storage container itself has a slightly smaller diameter. Maybe you can recalibrate your eyeballs to view the markings on the sauce containers and tell me if I found the right size container.
With respect to the types of Stanislaus tomatoes that Luigi used at the time of the video shoot, which was in the fall of 2008 (
http://pizzerialuigi.com/about.html), I looked at the photos that Norma linked to at
http://edwinreal.posterous.com/pizzeria-luigi-golden-hill, and the only photo I see of tomato cans is the one to the Stanislaus Full Red Extra Heavy Tomato Puree. The photo is the first one in the next to the last row of photos. However, when I looked at the yelp photo at
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ieatOFaTeDqXEV01_GT5_Q?select=NoF5rhJu-yyOQ7AiJ4RjBw, which shows cans of the Stanislaus 7/11 Ground Tomatoes, I saw that the photo was uploaded to yelp on September 10, 2008. So, it looks like Luigi may have been using both kinds of tomatoes for his pizza sauce at the time of the video shoot.
According to Stanislaus, at
http://www.stanislaus.com/, a #10 can of its tomatoes is a gallon. However, the weight of the contents depends on the type of tomato product in the can. For example, according to the nutrition data at the Stanislaus website, the contents of a #10 can of the Full Red Extra Heavy Tomato Puree weighs, by my calculation, about 8.47 pounds. The corresponding number for the 7/11 Ground Tomatoes is about 8.82 pounds.
I am not a tomato expert, but to my way of thinking, a tomato puree is ground tomatoes. In the case of the Full Red Extra Heavy Tomato Puree, the product is made without seeds or skins. Stanislaus says that the 7/11 Ground Tomatoes are made from chunky fresh-ground unpeeled tomatoes fresh-packed in combination with puree, and contains bits of skin and more tomato pectin (for a "homemade" texture). Not surprisingly, Stanislaus frowns upon its customers diluting their tomato products with water (they claim that the water dilutes the tomato flavor), preferring that they combine different ones of the Stanislaus tomato products, as many of their customers do. However, there are Stanislaus customers who do dilute Stanislaus tomato products with water (Jet’s Pizza in one such customer). I did not see anything in the Luigi video to suggest that he dilutes the tomatoes used to make his sauce. There is also nothing to suggest that Luigi is combining different Stanislaus tomato products.
Based on the photo that you provided in Reply 161 referenced above, showing all three containers with the same amount of sauce in them, I would say that the amounts shown may be the standard amounts. Quite possibly, four #10 cans of tomatoes are used in making the sauce shown in those containers.
Turning now to the ingredients added to the tomatoes to make the sauce, I believe that the bowls holding those ingredients may be the same type of bowls as were on the table next to the mixer, with the exception that the container holding the garlic powder, at 4:18, and the one holding the grated cheese, at 4:20, look to be larger or else they are distorted up-close camera shots. The bowls shown in the frame at 4:17 and the one for the basil at 4:22 seem to be alike. One with ample quantities of the various additions to the Stanislaus tomatoes to make the sauce would have to conduct some weighings or else just eyeball the amounts as shown in the video and scale down the total weight to correspond to the number of #10 cans (or smaller size) used to make a clone sauce for a home setting. For example, if four #10 cans of Stanislaus tomatoes are used to make a standard sauce batch, one using one #10 can of tomatoes would divide the total weights of ingredients (red pepper flakes, Greek oregano, salt, pepper, granulated garlic, grated cheese and fresh basil) by four. For someone using a 28-ounce can of ground tomatoes, I think a divisor of about 20 should come pretty close.
Peter
