My first sourdough Nearlypolitan in my homemade WFO

[Michael130207]

Tried a sourdough starter for the first time today. Baked them in a mortarless temporary WFO I recently built in my backyard. For the dough I combine a recipe I found in the forum, I apologize I cannot remember who i appropriated it from. I then made the dough in a style i copied from Verasano.

Made Levain with 185g flour and 135g water plus 50g sourdough starter from Finland, Sourdo.com Let ferment 24 hours.

The Finland culture gave the dough an almost vanilla cake batter aroma.

770g KABF 
460g water
23 gram salt

63%dough
Mixed levain, water, and 550g flour let rest 20 minutes
Mixed 5 minutes with hook
Added rest of flour and salt over 5 minutes
Let bulk rise 20 minutes
Divided into five 315g Balls.
Let rise 20 minutes and put in fridge. two nights.
Next day pulled out of fridge and let rise 4-6 hours.
Baked in around 90s, sorry did not time these exactly.

The pies had a nice egg shell crunch and soft pillowing crumb but a little too chewy, will try OO or AP flour next time.

[Jackie Tran]

Michael.  I like your mortar less oven and the pies look good.  This starter from Fineland sounds really interesting.  Was there any sourness?

Chau

[TXCraig1]

Those are some of the very best looking makeshift WFO pies I've seen. Nice work.

Craig

[scott123]

I'm with Craig. For all the pizzas I've seen come out of mortarless ovens, yours are definitely the best.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with Caputo.  Any chance you could try an IDY only batch?  A non sourdough version would be a good comparison to the typical non sourdough Neapolitan pizzeria offerings.

Also, what size pizzas are these?  With the oven spring you're achieving, I think you can lower your dough ball weight a bit.

Lastly, I can't tell from the photos, is the back of the oven insulated?  This isn't hugely important, but I'd insulate the front, and, if it isn't insulated, the back.

Edit: I've been thinking about this a bit lately.  I should have mentioned this when you were soliciting advice, but a chimney is a critical component in the thermodynamics of an oven. The chimney heats, draws air, and this air flow fosters better combustion. You're making beautiful pies, but if you want to kick this mortarless oven up one more notch, add a chimney.

[Michael130207]

Thanks so much for the kind responses.

The sourdough from Finland has been a nice experience. I have to admit the aroma of the fermenting dough is very appealing, I can't get vanilla cake batter out of my mind when I smell it. The taste it gives to the dough is not what I would call sour, to me it tastes like a very mild baguette. The chew the bread flour yields reminds me of a baguette as well, and it is too toothsome for my taste. I am not sure if this is a result of the sourdough or not. I did a batch in the same way at 63% hydration with ADY and 2% oil and the crumb was more tender and less chewy.

The pizzas are 12 inch. Please see pictures below of ADY only batch.

I agree the balls could be smaller. I tried 280g in my kitchen oven and the spring was a lot less so I misinterpreted that to mean I should go back to 320g. But I agree the cornicione is too large. I will probably go to 300g.

The oven is insulated on the back as well. In fact I covered the door with firebrick after I was done at 8p and measured the temp the next morning about 12 hours later and it was around 250F.

A chimney would be nice but I am a little burnt out on modifying it for now. I easily get 900F+ on the ceiling and 700F+ on the floor consistently without adding more than a piece of wood every 30 minutesor so. It is 27 inches square so the 12 inch pies are pretty tight to the coals.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Michael

[David Deas]

That chew will disappear once you actually switch to a pizza flour.  

King Arthur flours when baked at high speed do not do a great job of opening up with the crumb.  They tend to give a soft chewy crust under those conditions, which although ain't half bad, may not be what you're looking for.  For better results, try extending your bake time a little when using that brand.

[scott123]

Michael, I think you misunderstood me.  When you get a chance, if you're up to it, I'd like to see a <90 second Caputo pizzeria flour (blue bag) IDY bake.

Also, I think you're probably getting faster leoparding with the malted flour at 700.  For Caputo, you'll need at least 800 on the hearth, 1000 on the ceiling.

Don't get me wrong, these are beautiful pizzas, but I think, with a few tweaks, you could coax a Craig pie out of this oven, which would be an incredible coup.

[Michael130207]

Oh sorry, you are correct, I definitely did misunderstand. I am planning on doing just as you suggest. Will try to post pictures next week.

[shuboyje]

Doubt you are anywhere near Detroit, but I have the perfect chimney for that oven sitting in my backyard, lol.

[scott123]

Actually, I've got a 6" square terra cotta chimney liner (maybe 3' tall) in my backyard, which I think would also fit the bill quite nicely.

[thezaman]

 those are nice looking pies. do you have any more pics of your oven build? most of  the time the top bake suffers but you got great results !!

[Michael130207]

Thanks for the offers of chimney materials, I live in the Annapolis area.

I agree with you all that a chimney might help, but because it is mortarless it is also fairly leaky which allows it to naturally circulate air and bring in fresh combustion air. I was intentionally keeping the temp a little low as the pizza seemed to cook to fast. This makes a little more sense to me now after Dave pointed out that the flour I am using is malted. Also the dough was too thick at the edges. I can easily get the ceiling temp above 1000F where my IR thermometer can't register. I am excited about try the 00 flour.

I have included some pics of the build as requested.

Because it is mortarless I sometimes move around bricks and slightly reconfigure so some of the pictures don't reflect my current configuration. Currently the floor bricks all face the same direction. There is an additional layer of half thickness brick over the ceiling brick oriented the opposite direction as the ceiling brick to cover the seams.


Thanks again for the kind thoughts and suggestions.

[rcbaughn]

That is one awesome oven, and I take it that they aren't extremely expensive to build. That sounds like something that could work for me if it isn't too costly. I need to go price fire brick at my local Home Depot or whoever may carry them. Be nice to be able to up and move the oven on a whim. Is that a big gray slab of concrete in the middle of the last picture, or is that some kind of filler below the floor fire brick?

[Michael130207]

It is perlcrete (mixture 1:6 of portland cement and perlite).
Whole thing cost about $400 to build.
Firebrick cost about $1.46 each.
If I were to do it again I would not build it on the ground. I may move it onto a stand built of 4" x4".

[jeffereynelson]

It is perlcrete (mixture 1:6 of portland cement and perlite).
Whole thing cost about $400 to build.
Firebrick cost about $1.46 each.
If I were to do it again I would not build it on the ground. I may move it onto a stand built of 4" x4".

Why the perlcrete base?

[scott123]

Insulation.  If you don't insulate the hearth, you lose a lot of heat.

[dzpiez]

Hey Michael, great lookin' pies and oven!!!!!

[dimitrios]

Hi Michael, I love your oven! How many bricks did you use in total? Did you make them yourself (the bricks)

[buceriasdon]

Michael, I also want to say I admire your ingenuity you used in building your oven. Well done.
Don

[Michael130207]

Thanks, I derived most of the design from others especially "Bread, Earth, and Fire". My contribution was the large cast perlcrete insulation panels and cage. I think I used about 120 full size fire bricks and 30 splits. Probably didn't need the splits on top of the ceiling, could have sealed it with some sheet metal on top of the firebricks. If anyone intends to reproduce it , I will repeat working at ground level sucks, would (will) build a stand to raise it off the ground.