Jeff, have you been to Una Pizza Napoletanna? I did find better in Naples, but this is the best I have had here so far. According to Marco the techniques and the oven are not right, but I did have an amazing couple of pizzas there. I think his pies are at around the 2 minute mark because of his oven. Unfortunately the consistency is supposedly not totally there, but I sure did get lucky. I had Patsy's Grimaldi's Totono's and Sally's (over the course of three days) and UPN had the best crust. The thing about UPN is that they are one of the only places using a starter. I have been making IDY only pies for the past few weeks just to experiment and learn. Poolish, long fridge rise, long room temp rise, no mater what I try these IDY pies are just totally bland after cooking with starters for a year. UPN is one of the only places I know of that is actually using a starter on a daily basis. It seems that even 90% of the Neapolitan places over here are not using one. The flavor is all there at UPN, maybe even too much compared to authentic Neapolitan, but if they had an oven that could cook in a minute or less the pizza would be even better.
It sounds like you are doubting the wood oven thing, but trust me, the pies in Naples cooked in one minute were very very special. If you had the same dough in your home oven, a really hot coal oven, or a real Neapolitan (1 minute pie) oven, I would bet money that you would prefer the Neapolitan oven. The problem is most wood ovens we have here in the US can not do a pie in one minute. I think the thing to judge ovens by is how fast they cook the pie. I don't care what the temperature readings are. How many minutes is the critical factor (plus to some extent air circulation), not the heat source itself. Unfortunately too many wood burning pizzerias are making 3-8 minute pies. Find a wood oven that can do a pie in 1 minute and you are going to notice a huge difference as long as the dough is right.
I think the oven heat is part of the reason, if not the only reason so many people considered Patsy's to be the best of the best. I have definitely noticed their pies to spend less time in the oven than any other coal fired pizza. That oven is cooking pretty close to the speed that a decent wood oven can do, but not as fast as the best ones. I will be back in NY next week and I hope to have time to measure it. My guess is that they are doing 2 minutes.
I noticed on your site that you brought back the temp of your home oven at one point. I think that if you had the circulation in there that a wood burning oven has, you would have preferred the higher heat.
I do think that a modified home oven can make a pie just as good as a coal oven.
