Baking Neapolitan style pizza in

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

Hello everyone!

Recently I have made a clear and ambitious goal to make good and delicious "Neapolitan" style pizza and put it on the menu of my pizza shop. But the oven is not wood type. The oven name at my store is Gam MD4+4. It's called a single block oven.

So I have developed the dough formula that suits my operational needs and have encountered several questions that I would like to address here. But first I want to find out whether it is a practical to bake pizzas directly on a pizza stone of my oven in commercial purposes and if so then I would post my formula and try to find out the answers to many question that I have! And could professionals and other experienced people post their opinions on this piece of equipment in general and in terms of baking Neapolitan pizza?

More information on my oven is here http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/110906841/PIZZA_OVEN_MD44.html

I apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is not my native language.

I appreciate any attention to my topic!

[dellavecchia]

Hello everyone!

Recently I have made a clear and ambitious goal to make good and delicious "Neapolitan" style pizza and put it on the menu of my pizza shop. But the oven is not wood type. The oven name at my store is Gam MD4+4. It's called a single block oven.

So I have developed the dough formula that suits my operational needs and have encountered several questions that I would like to address here. But first I want to find out whether it is a practical to bake pizzas directly on a pizza stone of my oven in commercial purposes and if so then I would post my formula and try to find out the answers to many question that I have! And could professionals and other experienced people post their opinions on this piece of equipment in general and in terms of baking Neapolitan pizza?

More information on my oven is here http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/110906841/PIZZA_OVEN_MD44.html

I apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is not my native language.

I appreciate any attention to my topic!

Hello and welcome to the forum. From the specifications of your oven, yes, you can (and should) bake directly on the refractory baking surface. The oven will also go to neapolitan temperatures (450 C). The only problem may be top heat, but it looks like there is a "TOP version" of the oven that places refractory surfaces at the top of the baking chamber. This will help with top heat and your goal of baking neapolitan style pies. But it will take practice and the right recipe to get it right.

John

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

Hello and welcome to the forum. From the specifications of your oven, yes, you can (and should) bake directly on the refractory baking surface. The oven will also go to neapolitan temperatures (450 C). The only problem may be top heat, but it looks like there is a "TOP version" of the oven that places refractory surfaces at the top of the baking chamber. This will help with top heat and your goal of baking neapolitan style pies. But it will take practice and the right recipe to get it right.

John

John thank you for your reply! Nice to meet you, my name is Timur.

So do you think that this oven is also suitable for baking on pizza screens? It's so great that I can post on this forum. In just a moment I will post the formula. Thank you John

Tim

[dellavecchia]

John thank you for your reply! Nice to meet you, my name is Timur.

So do you think that this oven is also suitable for baking on pizza screens? It's so great that I can post on this forum. In just a moment I will post the formula. Thank you John

Tim

Timur - I do not have any experience with baking on screens, so someone else may want to chime in.

John

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

Flour Caputo 00 1500 g   
Water (room temperature) 945 g
IDY 2 g
Salt 37 g

The hydration % is 63
I use spiral dough mixer GAM S.
The method that I am practicing Is the following:

First
I mix in IDY with water and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Then I mix this liquid with flour. When dough structure stars to form I add salt. The mixing time is about 20 minutes at slow speed.

Then I let the dough bulk rise at a room temperature for one hour tightly covered by plastic film. After I make dough balls and place them accurately in a plastic container with slightly floured surface and refrigerate for 24 hours.

What do you think of this formula and method in terms of my oven?

[dellavecchia]

Flour Caputo 00 1500 g   
Water (room temperature) 945 g
IDY 2 g
Salt 37 g

The hydration % is 63
I use spiral dough mixer GAM S.
The method that I am practicing Is the following:

First
I mix in IDY with water and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Then I mix this liquid with flour. When dough structure stars to form I add salt. The mixing time is about 20 minutes at slow speed.

Then I let the dough bulk rise at a room temperature for one hour tightly covered by plastic film. After I make dough balls and place them accurately in a plastic container with slightly floured surface and refrigerate for 24 hours.

What do you think of this formula and method in terms of my oven?

If you are getting good rise from .13% yeast, then the formula and workflow looks great. Be sure to bring your dough up to room temp before baking. Let us know how your pizza turns out.

John

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

If you are getting good rise from .13% yeast, then the formula and workflow looks great. Be sure to bring your dough up to room temp before baking. Let us know how your pizza turns out.

John

John, actually a proper ball rise and oven spring are one of the problems that I face with this formula. I am little bit confused with what IDY amount to use using 24 hrs cold fermentation. I do bring  the dough temperature up to room temp before baking. But after refrigeration my dough balls look like pancakes and a bit sticky and flat? I have read the some forum members use so called "sourdough starter". Maybe I need to try it too? is it better for dough rising?

[scott123]

Timur, while it's possible to get Neapolitan bake times out of electric ovens, I think the odds are low that you'll be able to achieve them with this particular oven. Assuming the specifications you linked to are correct, you should be fine on the hearth heat, but, as John pointed out, the top heat is questionable. I would probably go as far as to say that the top heat is very questionable.

In order to know, for certain, if this oven can bake a pizza in 90 seconds or less, we need considerably more information. Overall wattage, broiler wattage, broiler arrangement/number of passes, distance from broiling element to refractory hearth, refractory material composition, weight and thickness.

Even if the broiler is strong enough to give you Neapolitan bakes, you're going to have to raise the hearth to fully utilize it- to within 3".  That in itself, for this kind of oven, is especially difficult, because you basically have to weld a new frame to support the stones.

Lastly, you're also talking about something that I've never seen done in this kind of deck of oven.  This is completely theoretical.

This oven is made for NY style pizza.  With practice, it should be able to handle just about any possible NY style bake time, from 2.5 minutes up to 10. Instead of trying to convert it for Neapolitan use, I'd use it for what it's made for.

[dellavecchia]

But after refrigeration my dough balls look like pancakes and a bit sticky and flat? I have read the some forum members use so called "sourdough starter". Maybe I need to try it too? is it better for dough rising?

I would say then that you are not getting the correct rise. At 63% hydration with Caputo, you will see some slumping of the dough balls. But you are also mixing for 20 minutes. I would try upping the IDY to .3 and lowering the hydration to 60%. Make sure your water temperature is 26 degrees C when you mix the dough.

The 20 minute mix is a bit much, but I do not have experience with a spiral mixer to know if it is too much. If your dough is totally smooth and bright white when you are done mixing, you may have gone too far. My gut is telling me to cut the spiral mixing down to 5-8 minutes, but someone else who has experience with it can comment.

John

[BurntFingers]

I noticed in the specifications that there is a steam port.  Typically, injecting steam into an oven is for bread baking.  It gives the crust a nice patina and crispness. 450C is plenty hot for pizza - if it is electric it would depend on where the heat source is located and how many coils there are.  My pottery kiln is electric and it gets plenty hot enough to melt glass if I wanted to .  So I wouldn't worry too much about top heat at that temperature.

[jeffereynelson]

My pottery kiln is electric and it gets plenty hot enough to melt glass if I wanted to .  So I wouldn't worry too much about top heat at that temperature.

I think the concern with top heat is that there is enough in proportion to the floor, so the top and bottom will cook in the same amount of time. I'm sure it's hot enough to cook the top, just is it hot enough to keep up with the bottom?

[BurntFingers]

Another note:  Once the flour water and (yeast)sour dough starter is added and starts to stick to the dough hook we start timing the kneading. We knead our batches of dough for four minutes in a Hobart at #2 speed and then bulk ferment  over night - too much kneading makes the dough tough. In the morning before baking we make up the 250 gram balls and dust them with 00 flour.  Sometimes the bulk mix will sit in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before making the balls.    

[BurntFingers]

I think the concern with top heat is that there is enough in proportion to the floor, so the top and bottom will cook in the same amount of time. I'm sure it's hot enough to cook the top, just is it hot enough to keep up with the bottom?

There could be coils in the floor, sides and the top to give a surrounding heat source.   I don't know for sure. Only one way to find out.
 

[scott123]

I'm sure it's hot enough to cook the top

It's not. Ask any wood fired oven owner what a 842f dome will do for them and they'll tell you "very little."

842 hearth (conductive heat transfer), should be okay, depending the hearth material. 842 dome (IR transfer) will never leopard.

The peak temp will dictate how long the broiler stays on/red for, but it's the element that's doing the lion's share of the work, not the 800ish steel ceiling. If the element is pumping out enough watts/has enough coils/passes, then you can put a pizza 3" below it and get leoparding. If it doesn't have the wattage, then an 842 f. peak temp is meaningless (for Neapolitan).

For NY, though, it's a no brainer. Sometimes, in these separate thermostat equations, the broiler will push the temp of the hearth too high, but that can generally be adjusted for.

[buceriasdon]

Dave said it first, 20 minutes is way to much kneading/mixing time.
Don

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

Thanks to everyone for your replies.

Concerning the oven, the wattage 9.6 Kw. It has a coil element underneath the baking stone and the space between the stone and the top heat element is about 25 sm. The temperature of the stone and the top element can be adjusted individually. I am not sure whether it has a broiler, because I don't quite understand how it looks in the oven )

Tim

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

I would say then that you are not getting the correct rise. At 63% hydration with Caputo, you will see some slumping of the dough balls. But you are also mixing for 20 minutes. I would try upping the IDY to .3 and lowering the hydration to 60%. Make sure your water temperature is 26 degrees C when you mix the dough.

The 20 minute mix is a bit much, but I do not have experience with a spiral mixer to know if it is too much. If your dough is totally smooth and bright white when you are done mixing, you may have gone too far. My gut is telling me to cut the spiral mixing down to 5-8 minutes, but someone else who has experience with it can comment.

John

John you are right about slumping of the dough balls when they are ready to be used. But do you think it occurs because of the mixing time or because of the hydration percentage?

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

Timur, while it's possible to get Neapolitan bake times out of electric ovens, I think the odds are low that you'll be able to achieve them with this particular oven. Assuming the specifications you linked to are correct, you should be fine on the hearth heat, but, as John pointed out, the top heat is questionable. I would probably go as far as to say that the top heat is very questionable.

In order to know, for certain, if this oven can bake a pizza in 90 seconds or less, we need considerably more information. Overall wattage, broiler wattage, broiler arrangement/number of passes, distance from broiling element to refractory hearth, refractory material composition, weight and thickness.

Even if the broiler is strong enough to give you Neapolitan bakes, you're going to have to raise the hearth to fully utilize it- to within 3".  That in itself, for this kind of oven, is especially difficult, because you basically have to weld a new frame to support the stones.

Lastly, you're also talking about something that I've never seen done in this kind of deck of oven.  This is completely theoretical.

This oven is made for NY style pizza.  With practice, it should be able to handle just about any possible NY style bake time, from 2.5 minutes up to 10. Instead of trying to convert it for Neapolitan use, I'd use it for what it's made for.

Scott if the temperate of the stone is set up to possible meaning 450 C then in within less thatn 90 seconds the bottom of the pizza gets completley burnt, even though I rotate it several times while baking.

[dellavecchia]

John you are right about slumping of the dough balls when they are ready to be used. But do you think it occurs because of the mixing time or because of the hydration percentage?

I actually think it is because your yeast level is too low or your yeast is inactive.

John

[osipov.tima@gmail.com]

John I tried my formula today using your suggestions. So I increased IDY amount to 0,05 % and reduced hydration level down to 60 %. The mixing time was 8 minutes. The dough was easy to work with. elastic and it was not stick att all. The paneli (pictures are attached) looked nice, they were pretty form. I made several of them, each about 270 gr, three of them were refrigerate and six were fermented at a room temperature for about two hours.

So they didn't look pancakes anymore when I started to work them. Tomorrow I will find out how the other balls turned out after cold fermentation.

So I can say that the one problem that I has is solved, my dough balls look good to me.. I appreciate any suggestions and opinions.

My formula looks like this for now after suggestions made by John:

Flour 00 Caputo 100 %
Water 60 %
IDY 0,05 %
Salt 2,5 %