4 pies in 30 minutes

[juniorballoon]

This summer I’ve been working towards this goal. Ultimately to make pizza nights more like a regular meal where the food is ready and we all sit down to eat.  To get there I’ve built a double-decker pizza stone for my charcoal grill and that has allowed me to get north of 600 degrees and get more top browning. Still the fastest pie I’ve made is 8-9 minutes. Making the pizzas one at a time also slows things down. I tried making one on the counter and slide it onto the peel and that was a near disaster. So I came up with the idea to make the pizza on a doubled over piece of lightly floured parchment paper. I moved that to the peel and with a helper we slid the parchment out from under the pie by gently pulling on the bottom sheet. It worked and it allowed me to pre-make two pizzas. It also had the benefit of reducing the amount of time the pizza was on the peel and thus there was no sticking issue when launching. On this night I also tried cooking two pizzas at once, one on the top stone and one on the bottom. The bottom pizza cooked a bit faster, which was fine. The top pizza was the bacon and egg and after the other was done I moved it to the bottom for a few more minutes and that worked great as the eggs were cooked perfectly.

The dough was a slight variation on what I’ve been working on. I used more flour as I wanted to increase the weight of each dough ball from 240 to around 260. I actually ended up with 3 260’s and a 290. I also added 2% olive oil. These were balled right after mixing and hit the fridge for 48 hours. Gave them 3 hours at room temp on the day of the cook. Here are the numbers

Flour 650g
Water 390g
ADY 2.6g
Salt 13g
Oil 13g


 All in all these 4 took a bit over 40 minutes. I had the oven set for 175 and as the pies came off the grill I popped them in the oven to keep warm. It did keep them warm, but the crust lost its crunch and was, not exactly soggy, but a bit chewy. Is there a better way to keep pizza warm for serving? And lastly, while I’m very pleased with where my pizza progress has led, I would like to get a better, higher crum. Not sure why mine isn’t. Guess I’ll need to do some more reading.

Thanks,
jb

[juniorballoon]

Some more pics.

[mkevenson]

JB, quite an accomplishment and what a variety of toppings. Man, you must feed a few mouths at your place! I will be interested in the reply on holding the pizza to keep the crust from loosing it's crunch. Who knows I may have to feed any army one day myself.
Thanks for sharing.

Mark

[TXCraig1]

And lastly, while I’m very pleased with where my pizza progress has led, I would like to get a better, higher crum. Not sure why mine isn’t. Guess I’ll need to do some more reading.

They look pretty nice. You might try giving them a little time at RT - maybe an hour? - before going into the fridge.

[lennyk]

well done,
what size were these pies ?

[juniorballoon]

Mk, Actually it's just my wife and I  . But these pies will make a couple of dinners and lunch for most of the week.

TXCraig1, From reading it seems the high crum is also related to oven temp. I'm not likely to get much over 650 without burning the bottom as I don't get the top heat for the quicker cook. I'll try giving the dough a bit of room temp before they hit the fridge.

Lenny, These are 14 inch pies.

jb

[TXCraig1]

TXCraig1, From reading it seems the high crum is also related to oven temp. I'm not likely to get much over 650 without burning the bottom as I don't get the top heat for the quicker cook. I'll try giving the dough a bit of room temp before they hit the fridge.

It's a matter of rise in the dough too. How big would you say your dough balls are just before you open them relative to when you balled them? How much have they risen?

[juniorballoon]

That's an interesting question. I pulled them out of the fridge 4 hours prior to cooking. I left them in the plastic bags. After just one hour they were getting quite active and I could see more bubbling and they had risen about 1/4 of their original size. I felt this was going to fast so I put them back in the fridge for an hour. At that point I pulled them out, gently balled and placed them on some parchment paper. By the time I started making pies they had risen another 1/4. How much rise are you looking for after you've pulled the dough from the fridge?

Thanks,
jb

[TXCraig1]

I'd say mine are probably 1.8-2X their original size when I bake them.

[juniorballoon]

Interesting. Next time I will not fear the activity and let them go for 3-4 hours and see how it goes.

Thanks,
jb