I just feel like sharing

[f.montoya]

As the title of the thread says, I just felt like sharing today's follies.

A week ago, the forecast for Monday, March 18th, was for rain and strong wind from the South. I had already made plans with my friends, one of whom was visiting Japan all the way from Wisconsin. He was bringing cheese and I mean GOOD cheese that is not at all easy to get. So I had two 10'+ canopies/tents setup the day before, completely locked down to hopefully withstand 30mph winds and heavy rain. The day started with sunshine, and with it, false hope that the weather forecast might be wrong. At 8:30am I balled dough, that had been fermenting since Thursday, giving it a full 72+ hours. So far, so good. Caputo "00" is an absolute pleasure to work with from the making of the dough, to balling it, to stretching it, cooking it, and, of course, eating it. Needless to say I had a bit of excitement building up, along with the hope that the weather might take a turn for the best.

Just as the wind kicked up two notches, the rain began to steadily fall. I picked up my friends from the station at 11:04am. As we watched the trees bend on the roadside, I told them that if we got home and the canopies were still standing it would all be fine. We had a chuckle, but I was really quite worried.

By 12 noon, everything was ready. Rain and wind was pretty persistent but the canopies held like champions. We started baking pizzas. One by one, we cooked, sliced, ate, and gushed over the sheer deliciousness and repeated everything in that order. Garlic Summer Sausage with very small pinches of 8 year aged cheddar on Caputo Napoletana crust was one of my favorites. Something that could not be bought anywhere. It continued to rain and the wind continued to shake the canopies but we continued to endure and press on with our piiza party.

By 3:00pm, the rain stopped...and so did the wind. By 8:00pm we were all pretty full. Now, it was just a matter of finishing all of the dough and calling it a night. This was

the final pizza

on a day full of the unexpected. Oh, and sorry for standing in front of the camera. I just put it on the tri-pod and hoped get things in focus.

[Jackie Tran]

Awesome bake. Thank you for sharing.

[Jet_deck]

Sweet!

[tinroofrusted]

Great looking pizza.  I always enjoy seeing your videos.  Your oven looks like it's working really well too. 

Regards,

TinRoof

[mkevenson]

Thanks for the show. Great looking pie. I am at the Oak Airport and they don't have anything like that at their pizza shack!


Mark

[TXCraig1]

Simply beautiful!

[grathan]

Does a pizza really cook in a minute? Why not just eat it raw?

[Serpentelli]

It is great thinking that you are doing this at your house in Japan! What a small world this has become!

It seems your floor might be a bit hot? Have you tried the "floor shield" technique recently discussed by Omid and Chau (and others)? It is very helpful in balancing things out!

20 pies!!! How many friends? Three?  Or am I the only pig on this forum?

John K

[f.montoya]

It is great thinking that you are doing this at your house in Japan! What a small world this has become!

It seems your floor might be a bit hot? Have you tried the "floor shield" technique recently discussed by Omid and Chau (and others)? It is very helpful in balancing things out!

20 pies!!! How many friends? Three?  Or am I the only pig on this forum?

John K

Actually the floor was a bit too hot. The reason was because this was final pizza of the day/night and the pizza before it was baked almost 2 hours before this one so the floor just kept absorbing heat as I fed the fire to keep us warm, lol. 20 pies, 3 friends plus myself, my wife and two kids. This was lunch AND dinner and we sent the guests home with a bunch of pies too. I just can't fire up the oven and bake 5 or 6. It seems like a waste of firewood!

[Serpentelli]

I usually don't worry about the wasting of the wood. But then again you live on an island and I live in a swampland full of trees!

You should check out the discussion that TxCraig had with Omid about how the heat gets to the floor. It seems very clear to me (keeping in mind that I am kind of a moron in many ways) from their discussion that the majority of the heat comes from radiation from above (i.e. the flame) as opposed to conduction from the side (i.e the ember bed seeping its heat laterally into the bricks.)

In the same way that you (in your video) expertly shielded the "fire side" of the pizza with your banjo peel Omid demonstrates how you can shield the entire "active" cooking surface of the oven floor with a metal plate in between bakes, thereby keeping the floor at a non-inferno  temperature. Chau talked about using a simple cheap pizza tin for this purpose, and that's what I have used with great success!

I am at the point where my main problem is overcooking of the pizza bottoms, especially when I have my neighbor as the pizzaiolo. The metal shield really takes the "overcooking anxiety" almost completely out of the picture. And as a result, my pizza therapist thinks that I can come off all of my meds!

John K

[Serpentelli]

The discussion they were having is in Omid's "Philosophy of Pizza...." thread.

Starts with Reply 1940 and TxCraig comes in at Reply 1947

1940 has the pic of the shield.

John K

[Steve]

Starts with Reply 1940 and TxCraig comes in at Reply 1947

1940 has the pic of the shield.

This link will take you directly to Reply #1940:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,14506.msg240182.html#msg240182

[f.montoya]

I usually don't worry about the wasting of the wood. But then again you live on an island and I live in a swampland full of trees!

You should check out the discussion that TxCraig had with Omid about how the heat gets to the floor. It seems very clear to me (keeping in mind that I am kind of a moron in many ways) from their discussion that the majority of the heat comes from radiation from above (i.e. the flame) as opposed to conduction from the side (i.e the ember bed seeping its heat laterally into the bricks.)

In the same way that you (in your video) expertly shielded the "fire side" of the pizza with your banjo peel Omid demonstrates how you can shield the entire "active" cooking surface of the oven floor with a metal plate in between bakes, thereby keeping the floor at a non-inferno  temperature. Chau talked about using a simple cheap pizza tin for this purpose, and that's what I have used with great success!

I am at the point where my main problem is overcooking of the pizza bottoms, especially when I have my neighbor as the pizzaiolo. The metal shield really takes the "overcooking anxiety" almost completely out of the picture. And as a result, my pizza therapist thinks that I can come off all of my meds!

John K

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Usually, when I am truly taking care, I keep the oven floor between 750 to 780f. After I finished baking that last one, I checked the temp and the floor was at 860f...after that pie was baked! A week and a half ago I baked 70 pies for a pretty big party of 48 people. Each and every one of the pies I did that day came out with spotty blisters instead of the char streaks I got under yesterday's last pie. As long as the floor is in use it seems to regulate itself just fine. It's when I let it alone for an hour or so that it gets extra hot. Before my first pie on any given day, I damp-mop the floor. I should really do that for my last pies too...but I just couldn't be bothered after 6 beers and half a bottle of Toscana. 

[f.montoya]

Just had a party with a total of 22 people(10 adults and 12 kids). 30 pies in all. Here are two that I made toward the end. All 3 are 10 inch pies. I have since gone with a bit of a smaller doughball for the experience of dealing with stretching less dough and felt pretty good about the results for being the first time at these weights.

[Serpentelli]

Fidel,

Beautiful Pies! I notice that your cornicione (which looks puffily delicious) is larger that your previous pies. Is this intentional?  Just curious. Must have been a great party!

John K

[Morgan]

Pure quality What is the dough size and diameter ?

[rockmes]

Just had a party with a total of 22 people(10 adults and 12 kids). 30 pies in all. Here are two that I made toward the end. All 3 are 10 inch pies. I have since gone with a bit of a smaller doughball for the experience of dealing with stretching less dough and felt pretty good about the results for being the first time at these weights.

Hi Fidel
Fantastic pizza mate. Still using Caputo flour for these ?

[f.montoya]

Fidel,

Beautiful Pies! I notice that your cornicione (which looks puffily delicious) is larger that your previous pies. Is this intentional?  Just curious. Must have been a great party!

John K

Actually, the cornicione is smaller than my previous pies but it may not appear so because the pies are about an inch in diameter smaller. If the pies were 11'' (as my previous attempts at getting to 12" were), the cornicione would probably look to be in better proportion. I went with dougballs that were between 20 to 30 grams smaller than before and my final diameter goal  was 10". I am currently discussing the possibility of selling pies here in Japan, and working on getting a license to do so, and I need to get my pies to a "paper plate" lunch take-away size.

[f.montoya]

Pure quality What is the dough size and diameter ?

240g and 10".

[f.montoya]

Hi Fidel
Fantastic pizza mate. Still using Caputo flour for these ?

Yes, sir. And started using Caputo Semola for my work surface and dusting. Never going back to the old supermarket stuff.