Great resources

[jhacker00]

A lot of you may now about Jeff Varasano's original website.  I stumbled upon it during my first few searches for great pizza recipes and information on how to make better pizza.  The site should be considered a pizza makers bible: http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

It has the right information, is well organized, and what I really appreciated was the education it provides.  It doesn't simply tell you what to do, but why its important and how it impacts the final product, your pizza.  With that said, I feel indebted to Jeff.  I don't know him personally, but have spent hours staring at his website and while my pizza making skills aren't perfected, his site has really helped me. The bad news is, the website is kind of old, dated, and has funny formatting.  The good news is, they are updating the site, but in video form.

Check out the youtube link for some educational and also funny videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/arcconyc?feature=watch

I've had some communications with the folks behind this project as it recently has been to be on hold.  They have been really great, and open, and I really appreciate the work they are doing.  There hasn't been any videos uploaded in a while, but have been told a new video will be up tomorrow, and have even been given a sneak peak to the latest video.  Im going to share the link they sent, but am not sure if you all can see it now, or will have to wait until tomorrow to view it:

<a href="http://youtu.be/2dUxVhvH_A8" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://youtu.be/2dUxVhvH_A8</a>

Check out the videos, I think if you are a pizza geek like me, you'll love em.

Disclosure: I am in no way part of the production team or being ask to promote their work and videos.  I am simply a fan of Jeff Varasano and the new series/documentary videos being uploaded on youtube.

[David Deas]

Varasano is a long time member of this forum who posts now only occasionally since he has his pizzeria currently taking up all his time.  This forum is part of where he got his start, so we are all very familiar with him and his techniques.

I frequent his pizzaria and I can definitely tell you that webpage of his, although informative, is nowhere near enough to replicate his pizza.  It just doesn't work like that.  You will find this forum much more useful.

[jhacker00]

I can definitely tell you that webpage of his, although informative, is nowhere near enough to replicate his pizza.  It just doesn't work like that.  You will find this forum much more useful.

Besides practice, I've always kind of assumed that.  What topics are not covered by his site, that maybe would be worth me poking around and finding out a bit more how to make a consistent fantastic pizza?

[scott123]

I think the biggest topic missing from Jeff's site is advanced oven thermodynamics.  While Jeff was/is an important pioneer in understanding the importance between short bake times and great pizza, his website dates back to 2007, and what was known then is a fraction of what's understood now.

Cleaning cycle hacks, for instance, are widely considered to produce inconsistent results and to be potentially oven damaging and unnecessary. We're still a long ways from an easy, foolproof sub $1000 approach that will guarantee 60-90 second Neapolitan pizza, but, for the NY style pies Jeff was making in 2007, there's plenty of oven setup options and devices.