My Neapolitan Progress

[Jordan]

I've decided to change this thread for many reasons... And I will explain why as thoroughly as possible.

This started off titled "Easy Neapolitan Dough Recipes?" and I regret making such a post.. I had a long (but not long enough) conversation with Omid over the phone in which he really opened up my eyes to the philosophy and art of the Pizza Napolentana. We kept comparing the art of pizza to instruments, in the sense of using your guidelines as a tool to expand your creation within your art. I brought up the scenario; you could go out and spend thousands of dollars on a Steve Via Signature Ibanez guitar, but it doesnt mean you will play like Steve Via... Omid brought up, Beethoven could of studied Mozarts work, but If he would of copied or emulated Mozarts work, there wouldnt be any genius behind Beethoven, he would of simply been copying and not expanding on what he has learned. "Question everything" and "Never stop trying new things"... I wrote down many notes from our conversation, and although not all of my pizza questions were answered, I was schooled in the philosophy of what is the Neapolitan. "Learning to make dough is like learning to play an instrument"... I remembered a lot of what Omid said, even though his amount of knowledge in the subject would take me hours to write down all of his information, I was happy that his easy to understand explanations stuck with me.

Bob, youre right.. I re-read your post again and I agree. I may not agree on your "recipe" completely, but your outlook is genuine. I am learning that "recipe" is something you feel.. Not something you slave over with cookbooks and searching on the internet for mediocre articles on "the best dough recipe"... Its passion. "I will not be a slave to "the rules"..." I am learning that there are KEY points to focus on when it comes to the neapolitan, but its your heart that needs to go in it the most. I have found a couple "recipes" that are great guidelines and I will work on them using different hydration % and amounts of yeast and salt, ect... Until I get what works for me.

I will use this thread as my progress though understanding, learning, and creating neapolitans of my own. And use it as somewhat of a journal of what goes on between me and pizza per say. I will continue to question and use this forum as a tool in finding out more in my quest and hopefully you guys will input and make this journey pleasant.

I would like to thank Omid for his sincerity and the incredible amount of knowledge he has shared with me, and of course Id like to thank the ones who have posted in this topic and have helped me understand more about all of this.

Happy new years!

-Jordan

[thezaman]

jordan, can you afford a gram scale? it will make you dough very consistent.

[Jordan]

I actually manned up and bought a scale last night that has grams, oz., ect... But, after looking online multiple times, Im still getting confused with the recipes.. Also, For a 1 liter batch of dough it seems most people use 0.1oz of fresh yeast. 0.1oz is 2.83 grams and I dont need to make that much dough, so if I cut that in half its 1.41 grams of fresh yeast, which my scale cant even measure... So I would love to know how much that would be in teaspoons to save me time. Ive never worked with the metric system accept for science class in school, and I cant remember back then... But, If someone could help me with a solid recipe guideline I would really appreciate it!

Thanks!

[bobwatts]

I started making bread in the early 1990's using "Beard on Bread" by legendary chef, James Beard. All dough making I do today can be traced back to the knowledge I gained from that book.

I have a wood fired oven mounted on a trailer that I take to festivals, concerts, nonprofit events, catering, etc. In 2011, we made literally thousands of pizzas. I have a basic - simple - recipe I follow. I have tried different liquids, I have tried different flours and I have tried different yeast brands (including cultures), but I always come back to my tried and true "recipe".

When I started making bread years ago, I took measurements seriously. Today, I know that I can almost toss the different ingredients into a bowl and have a nice loaf of bread or pizza dough ball appear at the end of my mixing that will taste fine. I would encourage you to not take the weights and exact quantities so seriously (except for salt). Relax and enjoy the process. I love making dough for pizza and breads.

2 cups water - not hot, warm is fine. Cold will even work, it just takes a bit longer. In fact, if you are planning on letting the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight (a must for pizza dough), you need to control the yeast by using cool water, otherwise your dough will blow up like it has a mind of its own and has decided to take over your kitchen.

1 TABLESPOON kosher salt. Yes, I know. You won't see many recipes with this much salt, but trial and error has taught me that salt = flavor in bread and especially pizza dough. I'm not sure when I began using kosher salt, but I will not use table salt in my doughs. With salt, you need to take measurements seriously. There is a fine line between too much and too little. Too much salt yields an uneatable bread. Too little, a bland and tasteless waste of effort.

Yeast - 1 pkg if you are making pizza dough and 2 pkg if making bread (though I have used 2 pkg for pizza too).

Flour - I honestly don't know exactly how much flour I use, there are many factors that will come into play. Use enough flour to make a dough ball that you can work with. At this point, you do need to get a bit more serious about your technique. You can add more flour, but can't take it away. I like to pause around the time the dough begins to have some body. Give it 5 minutes or even longer to let the water penetrate into the flour. If you get too much flour into the dough ball, the end result will be a tougher product. Always remember, too much liquid is better than too much flour (more flour can always be added a little at a time). You can use the 00 flour if you have it, but I think you'll find that any bread flour - or even AP will work for you as well. One positive of the Cupoto 00 is it tends to be a lower rise flour. Good for pizza, but not so much for bread (but I have used it successfully in bread, you may have to adjust the yeast and rise times though). Wetter is better as long as you can work the dough and get it transferred to your cooking surface (if using your home oven, get a cast iron pizza pan and crank your oven up as hot as it will go).

Olive Oil - you can use it or leave it out. Again, I am not sure how much I use, less than 1/4 cup maybe as little as 1/8 cup. This will tend to give your crust a bit of chewiness, which is nice depending on what you are trying to accomplish.

This "recipe" will yield 3 or so 14" thin pizzas. If you need more than that, just double everything (I triple it when making for events and make multiple batches - triple is about all you can handle when making by hand).

So, I would encourage you to relax and have fun. Dough making is more about technique than exact measurements (except where noted). Best of luck, I know you can do it!

[Jordan]

Thanks for the help man! The only issue is, I am more concerned with the use of fresh yeast. And the temperate of water. Also, just a simple recipe to use, and after reading what you wrote and others, I do understand that its good to eyeball your ingredients and not be so exact when it comes to stuff like that, after all pizza is a art but a very rustic art.

I have stumbled across this recipe several times from Omid.

Flour: 1000 gr. Caputo Pizzeria (Datum Point)
Water: 610 gr. (61%)
Sea Salt: 29 gr. (2.9%)
Crisceto: 15.50 gr. (1.55%)

This recipe seems easy enough, but I do not completely understand what crisceto is.. I thought the guys in naples just used fresh yeast that they dissolved into the water they were using for the dough..

Im confused about the use of "starters" and what not.. Does anyone know if I could just use fresh yeast that I dissolve in the water Im using? If so, what temperature should the water be?

This recipe is from Giuseppe Mascoli and Marco Parente that looks very interesting too

1 litre of water
1.7kg flour
30g starter culture or 1g dried yeast or 3g fresh yeast*
3 tsps salt
*If using dried yeast or fresh yeast, mix it in tepid water, and, once mixed with flour, leave it proofing overnight.

It says dissolve the fresh yeast in "tepid" water, so about 95-105 which is the temp used to proof yeast, not exactly cold water, obviously...

This recipe above is very similar to the Roberto Caporuscio recipe which is...

3.75 pounds Tipo "00" flour
1 liter warm water
0.1 ounce fresh yeast
2.1 ounces salt
0.7 ounce sugar (optional)

1.7 kg = 3.75ibs, 1 liter of WARM WATER, 0.1oz = 2.83g (very close to 3 grams), and 2.1oz = around 60g while 3 tsp = 15 grams being the only exceptionally different thing about the 2 recipes.

All of these are becoming easier and easier for me to understand, but at the same time, theres so many holes... I wish I could just completely understand how this whole neapolitan thing works.. haha

Can anyone help?

Thanks a million!

-jordan

[bobwatts]

And one of those may work great for you. What I was trying to help you see was that a recipe will work for you today, but a concept and a technique will help you for a lifetime.

Take one of these recipes and make it yours. What works for me may not work for you. What worked for who ever wrote these recipes may not work for you either. But, if you understand the concept of how to accomplish what they are giving you the ingredients and measurements to do, then you will own them!

Keep digging Jordan, put the work into it trying it a few times and you'll figure this out!

[dellavecchia]

Jordan - Crisceto is starter, or specifically natural/wild yeast that has been cultivated and fed water and flour over a period of time. You can easily substitute fresh yeast, which is used by most pizzerias in Naples. Starter is used by a few places that adhere to the traditional methods of pizza making, but is by no means a necessity in Neapolitan pizza. Use the Mascoli/Parente recipe:

1700 grams of 00 flour
1000 grams tepid water (80 degrees)
30 grams starter culture or 1g dried yeast or 3g fresh yeast*
48 grams salt

This will make 10 270 gram balls. Dissolve the yeast in the water, then add the flour. Add the salt on top of the flour, and mix until combined. Let sit for 20 minutes, then knead by hand for a minute. Let sit for 15 minutes, then knead again by hand for a minute. Let it sit at room temp, covered, (68-70 degrees) for 12 hours. Ball, and then let rise, covered, at room temp for up to 12 more hours, or until the dough is almost doubled in size and has flattened out.

If you want to scale the recipe down using the dough calculator on this site, here are the percentages:

Flour (100%)
Water (59%)
Salt (2.8%)
Fresh Yeast (.17%)

John

[etheil]

When I started making bread years ago, I took measurements seriously. Today, I know that I can almost toss the different ingredients into a bowl and have a nice loaf of bread or pizza dough ball appear at the end of my mixing that will taste fine. I would encourage you to not take the weights and exact quantities so seriously (except for salt). Relax and enjoy the process. I love making dough for pizza and breads.

Jordan,

Bob makes an excellent point here: It's hard at first to anticipate what will happen when mixing these ingredients together until you've actually mixed them all together, several times, and experienced the results. Chances are excellent that you'll make some pretty bad dough at first, but that seems to be what teaches you the most about this process.

Anyway, my suggestion is time. Experiment with using as little fresh yeast as possible. As a reference, I use .05% fresh yeast for an 18-24 hour bulk rise at about 64-68 degrees (maybe 12-18 hours at a higher room temperature,) 2.8% salt and, depending on the flour, about 62-64% water (cold from the tap.)  The percentages are based on the flour weight, so:

32 oz flour
19.85 oz water
.016 oz fresh yeast (might have to eyeball this instead of weighing)
.9 oz salt (use kosher or other non-iodine salt)

dissolve the salt in the water and then dissolve the yeast. Add about 40% of the flour and mix for a few minutes until a majority of the lumps are gone, then mix in the remaining 60% of the flour.

This is the process that I've settled on after a few years of experimentation. But as Bob pointed out earlier, what works for me, might not work for you.

Good luck!

Eric 

[alex_chef2000]

I suggest to use Bread Flour, Sea salt ( never Kosher or regular from grocery stores ), fresh yeast, filtered or bottled water and a starter.

I tried last week with all purpose flour, it was OK, but I PREFER bread Flour ( King Arthur ) big difference.

My recipe is simple and it works for 2 pizzas 12":

3 Cups of flour.
1 Cup of cold water.
1/2 Cup of starter.
1 Teaspoon of sea salt.
1 Teaspoon of dry yeast or 1 Tablespoon of fresh.

1. Mix all ingredients and wait 20 minutes.
2. Knead dough for 10 minutes with spiral dough hook.
3. Rest for 24 hours in a gallon zip lock with EVOO ( Extra Virgin Olived Oil ) at room temperature in a fresh spot.
4. Divide in two and form 2 balls.
5. Bake in a cast iron pizza skillet for 5 minutes at 550 F. 
6. When in the oven I use the broiler.

Optional. Put a SS box with pre soaked wood chips on the bottom of the oven to improve smoky taste.

ENJOY THE BEST PIZZA EVER.

With my culinary regards,


Alex.:

[thezaman]

alex, why not kosher salt?

[dellavecchia]

I suggest to use Bread Flour, Sea salt ( never Kosher or regular from grocery stores ), fresh yeast, filtered or bottled water and a starter.

I tried last week with all purpose flour, it was OK, but I PREFER bread Flour ( King Arthur ) big difference.

My recipe is simple and it works for 2 pizzas 12":

3 Cups of flour.
1 Cup of cold water.
1/2 Cup of starter.
1 Teaspoon of sea salt.
1 Teaspoon of dry yeast or 1 Tablespoon of fresh.

1. Mix all ingredients and wait 20 minutes.
2. Knead dough for 10 minutes with spiral dough hook.
3. Rest for 24 hours in a gallon zip lock with EVOO ( Extra Virgin Olived Oil ) at room temperature in a fresh spot.
4. Divide in two and form 2 balls.
5. Bake in a cast iron pizza skillet for 5 minutes at 550 F. 
6. When in the oven I use the broiler.

Optional. Put a SS box with pre soaked wood chips on the bottom of the oven to improve smoky taste.

ENJOY THE BEST PIZZA EVER.

With my culinary regards,


Alex.:

Alex - I just wanted to confirm your recipe uses 1 TABLESPOON of fresh yeast plus 1/2 CUP of starter? That seems astronomically high, even for a same day dough - let alone 24 hours at room temp. And just so we are all on the same page, a neapolitan recipe, the subject of this thread and section, is assuming you are cooking at high temps - 750 or greater.

John

[buceriasdon]

Neither kosher or sea salt have additives and are interchangable except for the size of the grains. I do grind my sea salt finer.
Don

[Jordan]

Just to let everyone know, thank you so much for the feedback! You guys are awesome!

Also, I changed the first post in this thread and Id really appreciate if you read it and let me know how you feel in regards to the post, I would love the feedback.

dellavecchia, I saw a couple pics of your pies and they look incredible! I overlooked the recipe and after learning how to use the percentages I saw the recipe Mascoli uses has 59% hydration which is lower than what Ive been testing out, so I will def try a small batch of this soon and give it a go. Thanks for writing the technique for me too, this is a little different from what I have done currently so its def worth a go!

Etheil, thanks for the feedback man! Your recipe has 62% hydration which is similar to what Ive been working with, and Ive also read that less fresh yeast is better especially for colder rooms and a longer rise period. But, you only use like half a gram of yeast which is very hard to weigh out, which I see you noted I might have to eyeball, and thats completely understandable. Hopefully one day I can get good enough to do that haha. I will write about my last batch near the end of this post so you can see what my latest trial is.

Alex, I use Caputo 00 and Fresh yeast. No starter. You use a starter and fresh yeast?! Wow, maybe you made a typo or, I dont know.. It also says 3 cups of flour using about a tablespoon of fresh yeast.. 1 Tbs of fresh yeast = 9.35g (I googled "How many grams in a tablespoon of fresh yeast" and got this answer in a conversion chart) If 3 cups of flour = 11.25Ibs and youre using around 9g of yeast + a starter... I would love to see how your dough looks, because it must blow up like a hot air balloon... Wow, your dough must be ready in like 10 min with that much yeast activity. Yet again, Im not sure if this was a typo or If Im misunderstanding something, but according to most recipes Ive looked at, theres no where near this much yeast in the dough. I used about 14Ibs of flour in my last batch with only 2.8g of fresh yeast, and even that much yeast seems to be pushing it after reading so much on this forum. But yet again, theres more for me to learn and also, what works for you could be delicious! Im sure your pizzas are tasty!!

thezaman & buceriasdon, I use fine sea salt, but Ive read that kosher isnt bad for pizza and some of the people on the forum use kosher from what Ive looked at. Id love to know a good salt to use! Any suggestions?

What Ive been up to lately... Well, I made a half batch of the Roberto Caporuscio recipe, which is...

3.75 pounds Tipo "00" flour
1 liter warm water
0.1 ounce fresh yeast
2.1 ounces salt

I just halved the recipe and mixed and kneaded it the normal way I used to do it before really researching anything, and the outcome was nice! For me at least.. It was the first official step in the direction I wanted to be heading toward. It was the first time my pies had leoparding and a nice puffy crust around the edge. I still need to fully understand how to push out the dough balls correctly. I read somewhere that you could practice the slapping technique with a damp towel, which sounds like a great idea and when I found out where I read about that I will make note of who wrote it and credit them of course. Anywho, my first batch of neapolitans using a recipe where decent for sure. By the way, I only hand mix because I cant afford a mixer right now, unless someone knows a good mixer thats not to costly! Any suggestions?

I made the same recipe last night, but I made a full batch.  After watching all of Pizzaiolo Pasquale's videos (the japanese guy) I got so many questions answered from watching his hand mixing videos!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjG37hlpxpE&amp;list=UUp8KOZeW_QqR9wTzwCIayZQ&amp;index=31&amp;feature=plcp" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjG37hlpxpE&amp;list=UUp8KOZeW_QqR9wTzwCIayZQ&amp;index=31&amp;feature=plcp</a>

I followed all of his steps, even when he mixed in a pinch of flour with the fresh yeast before he started the dough; which was unusual to me, because I remember seeing most people dissolve the yeast into water, but, I wanted to give it a shot! I mixed in a majority of the flour until it didnt mix anymore and then I hand kneaded it using my knuckles just like he did. I let it sit in bulk for an hour at room temp and I had an incredibly soft dough... It was so smooth and I was so happy! I made balls about 250-270g just so see which ones I would like more, I know the standard for the neapolitan is 250g but Omid told me Da Michele probably uses 270-280g and I would love to make a pizza that mimics what they do! After I balled them I put some flour on the bottom of a couple containers (I dont want to use any oil and I remember seeing pictures of Da Michele dough balls sitting on top of flour; so I wanted to try that out) and currently the balls are sitting at room temperature. I havent learned much about this process of how long the balls should sit for. Its odd because I watched some videos and a lot of people put there dough balls in the fridge after they let it bulk rise, but some guys on the forum do everything at room temperature.. Any body have any thoughts they would like to share with me on this? Because Im still confused about it.. But, yesterday with my first test dough I put a couple balls in the fridge and 1 sat at room temperature the whole time before the bake, and my favorite one was the room temperature pizza.. So Idk if it was just odds or what, but Im sure theres explanations.. Anywho, now I will wait.. And research and learn in the process! I would love for you guys to keep posting feedback and by my next bake I promise I will have pictures up!

Thanks so much guys! And please let me know your feelings on my first post that I edited!

Ciao!

[bakeshack]

Jordan, in your quest for the neapolitan pizza recipe, I believe the one provided by John, in general, will give you the best results.  It's something that you can start with and modify based on what type of workflow fits into your time and schedule.  I guess the more important question is, how do you intend to cook them?  Any  recipe won't do you any good if it will not be designed to work in your own oven, be it a modified home oven, LBE, or WFO.  I believe this is the more challenging aspect in your quest for the Neapolitan pizza.

Marlon

[johnamus]

I like the thread change, it will be interesting to follow your results and learn from the advice of the great membership of this site.  

One piece of advice, instead of relying on volumetric or eyeball measurements for yeast and salt I think its worth buying a .01g scale.  This will help you replicate results and make it easier to make adjustments from one batch to the other.  A high precision scale won't handle anything heavier than 100-200g, so the scale you currently own will still be useful for heavier ingredients such as water and flour.  You can buy a well-reviewed .01g scale from Amazon for $12.  http://amzn.com/B0012LOQUQ

Also, if you don't already have an infrared thermometer you can buy one at the same time for $16.  Both items will set you back less than $30, and if you buy both you'll get free shipping to boot  . http://amzn.com/B002YE3FS4

What type of oven are you working with?

[Jordan]

I just picked up both of those! Thanks for the links! Amazon just emailed me and they should be at my door in the next couple of days!

My oven...

Well, Im using a home oven. And its highest temp it gets to according to the oven display is 550. Which is by no means the temp I need for neapolitans... What I do for my pies is preheat to 550, then leave it heated at 550 for an hour or so, turn the broiler on for 20 min+ and start cooking my pie under the broiler and they finish in under 3 min. But, obviously this isnt good enough... Im sure this method gets my oven pretty close to 700 deg though, maybe? I dont know, possibly this thermometer I ordered will help me know the highest temp.

I have read a lot about clipping the lock on the oven door so I can run my self cleaning cycle and use the oven at the same time. But, I dont know too much about this, so I dont want to do it just yet. Does anyone know how I can go about doing this? Safely... Ive read that the self clean cycle can get your oven close to 1000 deg which is def good enough for the neapolitan, so I am very interested in making this happen!  The lock on my oven also doesnt look hard to modify, so I just want to know what else I need to take into consideration and need to do to my oven in order to make this happen.. Any help?

This is something I would love to do in the next couple of days, because I have about 10 dough balls waiting for me and I would love to test them out at these high temps some people are achieving in there home oven.

Thanks!

-jordan

[johnamus]

I also have a 550° electric oven and although I'm not trying to make a Neapolitan per se, I am trying to achieve a Neapolitan bake time.  I've already received a lot of good advice in this thread here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,16379.0.html.  My goal is to achieve a fast bake time without using the clean cycle.

[buceriasdon]

Jordan, I think you would have to be ready to cut the latch with a sawzall while in self cleaning mode with the door closed. I don't know, will the latch come out if the door is open and you switch to self clean? If so you can use a dremel with a reinforced fiber cutoff wheel. I would take what ever measures you can think of to protect the finish, how I don't know. Sorry, I've never owned a self cleaning oven.
Don

[scott123]

Jordan, first of all, I've never seen anyone do a cleaning cycle hack that resulted in a 1000 deg result.  I think 800 is more typical.  And I think 800 is reserved for people that really don't care if they trash their oven, because it's quite a bit hotter than an oven is rated for. I'm not saying 800 will kill your oven, but, when you're dealing with temps that high, you need to be prepared for the possibility.

Not to mention that cleaning cycles almost always involve bake (bottom) elements.  Bottom heat is never an issue for Neapolitan in a home oven, it's top/broiling heat.

Neapolitan in an electric home oven without extreme mods is very feasible, but it all hinges on the strength/wattage of your broiler element. The bottom heat takes some work, but it's doable.  3/4" steel plate is heavy and requires support for the shelf, but that will give you sub 90 second bakes at 550-575.  Silicon carbide is a bit expensive, but it's relatively light, and at the right thickness (3/4") will do Neapolitan bake times in the 500s.  Salvatore has had some beautiful undercrusts with soapstone at 585, although, in my experience, soapstone can vary a bit too much in composition and is a bit of a gamble. None of these are super easy or cheap, but they will do the job on the undercrust.

As far as getting leoparding on top, you need a strong broiler with tightly arranged coils and the skills to be able to launch a pizza in a very tight vertical space. You also need to be able to pre-heat the oven to a pretty high temp and then to be able to turn on the broiler and have it remain on for the entire bake.  Since most oven thermostats will turn broilers off when the peak temp is reached, you might need some sort of mod. If, say, your broiler cuts out at 550, and you're using 3/4" steel, you might need an oven trick to get you to 600 in order to keep the broiler on for the duration of the bake. Probe condoms of varying materials fit the bill, although we're in the process of finding the ideal material.

At the end of the day, though, there's always a chance, with the right hearth and an oven mod that keeps your broiler on, that you broiler might not have enough umph to give you sub 90 second leoparding on the top of the pizza. Salvatore found this out with his gas oven broiler. 

I guess, in theory, one might be able to use the cleaning cycle in combination with the broiler, but to be honest, I'm not really sure what a non red hot 800 degree ceiling, farther away from the pizza than the broiling element, will give you, since top browning relies entirely on infrared and infrared depends on distance and, to an extent, the redness of the material.  And, like I said, 800 deg temps are really pushing the modding envelope and putting your oven in potential jeopardy, so I tend to not recommend them.

[buceriasdon]

Scott, Are you positive that both elements do not come on during the clean cycle? I would bet Jordan will say upper and lower elements do opearate during cleaning. To me it only makes sense, granted I've not owned one but I recall reading somewhere they both are on and self cleaning ovens are better insulated to handle the heat. We'll have to see what Jordan's reply is.
Don