New Oven and New York Pizza

[vitoduke]

We just finished our new pizza oven and did 6 18' pizzas. It was a forno bravo oven and worked perfect.  We'll send more pictures at a later date... Mel

[chiguy]

Hi, Vitoduke
 Congradulation on a great looking oven and pizza. I bet your neighbors never imagined it was for pizza making.  My envy i am feeling is unexplainable. What type of wood did you use to fire it? Chiguy

[vitoduke]

Hi Chiguy--- I use seasoned oak. The deck of the oven is 800 plus degrees and the dome is 900 plus degrees. We live in the Napa valley and do a lot of outdoor entertaining---It's  a great way to get your guests  involved in helping dress the pizza.  Thanks---Mel

[CaliforniaPizzaGuy]

vitoduke if you dont mind me asking how much did it cost to construct such a nice oven, i am sitting here wishing i had the same oven in my back yard

[vitoduke]

CaliforniaPizzaGuy---If you go on the Forno Bravo web site you can check all of the prices. Our particular oven is the Premio 100 which lists for about  $3200.00  plus the cost of assembly --block wall stand, refractory cement, vent pipe, stucco, etc. I did most of the work and it turned out to look the way I had hoped. The web site has all the info for asssembly and was a tremendous help. Besides pizza you can cook almost anything else once the oven cools down. Where in california do you live? If you're  near Napa, let me know and you can come over and check it out. Thanks---Mel

 P.S. The oven would be of no use with-out all of the great info on this site. My wife thought I was crazy with the amount of time I was spending on this site and experimenting with the different Lehmann recipe's. We were using the kitchen oven and the pizza was  coming out better than any pizza we could buy. With the wood fired oven we can see the difference that high heat makes. The crust has a totally different taste and texture.

[Pete-zza]

Mel,

As you know, everything I have done with the Lehmann doughs has involved a standard home oven. As you gain experience with using your Forno Bravo oven to make Lehmann pizzas, I hope you will share your experiences with the Lehmann doughs with other members who have similar ovens. I know I would really enjoy reading about what you learn along these lines, including favorite Lehmann dough recipes, tricks and tips for baking the Lehmann doughs in an oven like yours, crust/flavor characteristics, pros and cons, etc. You might post under the Lehmann NY thread if you'd like.

Peter

[canadianbacon]

wow, that's really beautiful ! - I am so envious ! 

Right now, we are hovering just above the freezing mark here in Canada, and by the time Halloween night is here, we will have already had snow flurries.
Boy oh boy that is a beautiful oven you have there.  I also love the pizza it looks amazing !

what kind of recipe did you use for your dough ?

We just finished our new pizza oven and did 6 18' pizzas. It was a forno bravo oven and worked perfect.  We'll send more pictures at a later date... Mel

[Pete-zza]

Mark,

It's an 18-inch Lehmann recipe set forth at Reply # 279 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.260.html.

Peter

[vitoduke]

Peter---How much starter would I use in this recipe, and what adjustments would I make to the other ingredients for it? I want to see the difference in taste and dough structure the starter makes. I will post pictures of the 2 pizzas' next to each other [as soon as the starter arrives and is ready] THANKS---Mel

[Pete-zza]

Mel,

I commend you for having the courage to use a natural preferment with a Lehmann dough. My experiments doing this taught me a lot and provided some of my best pizza eating experiences.

For an 18-inch Lehmann dough, I would use 20% preferment, by weight of flour. For the recipe you previously used, with 16.10 ounces of flour, the preferment would come to 3.22 ounces. Of course, the nature of the preferment, the hydration ratio of the preferment, etc., will be material, but not insurmountable in the least. It will also matter whether you choose to use cold fermentation (refrigeration) or room-temperature fermentation. You are likely to get a more pronounced crust flavor using a room-temperature fermentation. Fortunately, when I did all my experiments, I reported on them at the Lehmann thread and, hence, have them available to refer to them when I am in the mood to make a naturally-leavened Lehmann dough or to answer questions such as you asked.

As a homework assignment to help you sort things out, that is, whether you should go with a cold fermentation, room-temperature fermentation, use an autolyse, how to adjust the other dough ingredients, etc., you will perhaps want to read Replies ## 151, 161, 165, and 175, starting at page 8 of the Lehmann thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.140.html. Reading those posts and you will know as much as I on the subject .

Peter