That's a sweet WFO. You make it look so easy. Simply drop in a pizza and out comes a leopard coated in saucy cheesy goodness. That setup is dialed in!
Dan,
As you can see in the different pizzas I made in Steve’s WFO, they all look somewhat different. I don’t like a lot of char and trying to time how long to bake and at what temperatures the oven are at is more difficult than it looks. From the last pictures I posted, those were the first pies I baked. I found out if I didn’t stretch the pizzas as big, I had better results. In the formulations I did for my doughs, I had only used the dough weight in the dough calculating tools, so I really didn’t know how big I wanted to stretch those doughs, but had an idea. Also in using the Ischia starter I only used 2.7% preferment by the total water weight, and wasn’t sure if I had room temperature bulk fermented and controlled temperature fermented the doughs right. The temperature of a WFO can change quickly and luckily I had Steve knowing when to throw the wood in the oven so the temperatures would stay about the same. Since I don’t make Neapolitan doughs that much and also don’t bake in a WFO that often, it is all tricky for me. Steve told me anytime I want to bake in his WFO even if he isn’t around I could, but there is no way I would even try to do that.
From trying to light a fire, getting the oven up to temperature, trying to keep the oven up in temperature, learning when to dome and so much more I believe you need to practice a lot in a WFO to be able to get the results you want. Steve’s WFO is sweet and I am lucky to be able to practice in it.
Norma
