Wood Oven Pizza Baking Video - Test

[Bill/SFNM]

Here is a link to a video I took of a pizza I baked today. This was the last pie of the session and I had let the oven cool down a bit so the pie took a little longer than the others. This is a test to see if it is worthwhile to take and upload these videos - even at low res the files are huge. Comments appreciated.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqlsELtZ-A" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqlsELtZ-A</a>

Bill/SFNM

[canadianbacon]

Hi Bill !

great video !

why did you lift the pizza in the air in the oven 2 times ?

[Bill/SFNM]

why did you lift the pizza in the air in the oven 2 times ?

Thanks. The top of the dome is so hot that just a few seconds up there will ensure the toppings are completely done.

Bill/SFNM

[canadianbacon]

Hi Bill,

ah, dang, that's what I thought    thanks for the info.

sorry for the late reply, I was out having a nice Montreal smoked meat
at one of the delis 

Mark

[Fio]

Pizza porn! 

I would have waited a few seconds longer between turns, but that's how I do it in my oven.

Superb video.  It's a real inspiration, and the missing link for people who don't understand what all the hoopla is about with wood burning ovens.

[Bill/SFNM]

I would have waited a few seconds longer between turns, but that's how I do it in my oven.

 

Thanks, Fio. Usually they cook much faster so I'm used to rotating quickly so all sides get evenly cooked. Actually, sometimes I place the coals/fire on all three sides of the pie and up turning very little.

Bill/SFNM

[bakerbill]

Having learned how to bake in a brick oven simply by watching one commerical video along with trial and error, (and there were lots of errors along the way), it was great to see how someone else actually does it. We need more of these videos. This is a case when pictures are worth a thousand words. Keep supply us with these and your other pizza making techniques.

bakerbill

[pftaylor]

Bill/SFNM,
You make it look so easy.

I would be interested in learning the major steps leading up to the bake. The quality of your pies leads me to believe that you have mastered the process. Do you have a particular routine or process which you could share?

[Bill/SFNM]

Do you have a particular routine or process which you could share?

Thank you for your kind words, Peter. The answer is a resounding yes. I've tried to express this in previous posts - perhaps not very well - but having an established routine (as opposed to ad libbing each time) has allowed me to focus on the nuances of the process - the little things that, when added together, can make big differences in the result. Perhaps this a just a fancy way of saying "practice makes perfect" (and I still have much to practice). 

Perhaps I should make a video of each of the steps I use leading up to the bake. The resolution of these videos might be inadequate, but I'll give it a try. I have a batch  of dough already in the fermentation stage, but I'll try to take videos on Friday of "Forming the Dough Balls and Proofing". If I can, I'll also do a sequel,  "Forming and Topping the Crust". Prequels could include "Feeding the Starter", "Kneading the Dough" and "Luke, I am Your Father  ".

I'll give these a try and see if it is feasible. What do you think?

Bill/SFNM

[pftaylor]

Bill/SFNM,
Your Jedi mind tricks won't work on me. I want to be Jaws...

Sign me up as a supporter of the tutorials you mentioned. This is just the sort of breakthrough that could take our collective pizzamaking up a few notches. A picture is worth a thousand words.

[tonymark]

Perhaps I should make a video of each of the steps I use leading up to the bake. The resolution of these videos might be inadequate, but I'll give it a try.

I know that Youtube and Google video are cool and convenient, but the resolution stinks.  Bittorrent is the best way to distribute large (i.e. better resolution) files.  Although, it's not so convenient since every downloader needs a client installed.


Bill,

Could you please outline your procedure and recipe here.  I know that most of your success is due to your oven, but your crusts always look so good and I am sure many of the people on this site could benefit from a tutorial by you.  Maybe you should put together a site like Jeff's.  I am sure you have plenty of free time for that.

TM

[Bill/SFNM]

Could you please outline your procedure and recipe here.  I know that most of your success is due to your oven, but your crusts always look so good and I am sure many of the people on this site could benefit from a tutorial by you. 

TM,

I would have to disagree that most of my results are due to my oven. I've had the brick oven for over 5 years, but it has only been in the last year or so as a result of reading posts on this forum, especially those of marco, that my efforts have shown a really significant improvement. I still have a long way to go (I don't post photos of the failures, but I can testify with great authority that it is very easy to bake crappy pies in a wood burning oven), but I would say the following items are just as important as my oven:

1. Switching to the Camaldoli starter from my old wild starter which was weak and needed  help from commercial yeast. There is even reason to question whether what I have is actually marco's culture or a local culture that contaminated the starter during the initial activation.  Whatever the case, it is awesome.

2. Switching to a fork mixer from a KA Artisan c-hook mixer that was not reliable for wet doughs.

3, Rejecting the mindset that says that pizza dough is just a subset of bread dough.

4. The use of varsano's spreadsheet that has allowed me to better tweak the recipes and determine which changes to make to improve the next batch.

5. Several hundred practice pies!

I will post my recipe and briefly document my procedure below, but there is one caveat that I have mentioned in many previous posts - I am at 7000 feet above sea level. What I do here will very likely produce very different results at other altitudes. For example, both marco and Pete-zza talk about doughs with natural starters becoming overfermented if allowed to rise too much. My doughs have doubled and even tripled with no ill-effects. At this altitude, it takes less gas released by the yeast to produce the same rise as at sea level, but there also seems to be a much bigger window up here for successful fermentation.

Formula (use with varsano's spreadsheet):

Caputo 00 Pizzeria Flour: 100%
Camaldoli starter which consists of 54% flour: 10% of total dough weight
Water: 62-64% including starter
Salt: 2.5%


Procedure:

Mix in 3/4 of the flour with all other other ingredients and allow to rest for 5 minutes.                                           
Sprinkle in the remaining flour and knead for 5 minutes. Let rest for 20 minutes and then knead for few more turns..                                           
Room temp bulk ferment for ~8 hours                                          
Bulk retard in refrigerator for 36 hours                                          
Form into 300g balls and proof at room temp for 4-5 hours                                          
Fire oven for 4-5 hours                                           
Top with 90g of fresh Mozzarella di Bufala, and 80g of crushed San Marzano pulp with sea salt,                                          
Bake for 1 minute                                          
Scatter a few pieces of basil leaves and drizzle with some olive oil.


Bill/SFNM

[Pete-zza]

Bill,

Do you have the preferment stated as a percentage of flour rather than the total dough weight? Thanks.

Peter

[Bill/SFNM]

Peter,

The preferment consists of 54% flour and 46% water by weight. The preferment is 10% by weight of the entire dough. The hydration of the dough is 62%-64% which includes the water in the starter. Not sure if this answers your question.

Bill/SFNM

[Pete-zza]

Bill,

I was looking for the weight of the preferment and the weight of the flour that you use to make your dough batch. I have been working on a new dough calculating tool with Boy Hits Car and would like to play around with some numbers. In that vein, I assume that you start out with an intial hydration percent and then adjust it to reflect the hydration of the preferment. Is that correct?

You indicate that a typical dough ball weighs 300 grams. Maybe you have said it before, but what size pizza does that make?

Peter

[Bill/SFNM]

Peter,

Here are the weights for the batch I have inprocess:


00 Flour:  1,024
Water:       612
Starter       185
Salt:            28
   
Mixer Residue:    48
Grams/30cm Pie:    300
Number of Pies:    6

I simply plug my desired total hydration percent (62%) and the ratio of flour in the starter (54%)  into the varsano spreadsheet and it does all the rest. I can't stress enough how useful it. I hope your new tool will do something similar.

Pies are about 30cm.

Bill/SFNM

[Pete-zza]

Bill,

Thank you very much. The additional information should come in handy.

I am not exactly certain what the new tool will be able to do in terms of mathematical gymnastics. It appears at this point that it will be possible to treat a preferment as just another ingredient irrespective of its composition. Whether it will be possible to specify total desired hydration and the desired composition of the preferment is unclear.

You are unique in that you actually know the composition of your preferment in terms of the amount of flour and water (54/46). I sense from my reading on the forum that a lot of our members just rely on feel and experience and don't actually weigh the flour and water for their preferments, either at the start or for subsequent maintenance purposes. Also, I have seen where someone will use, say, a half cup of flour and a half cup of water, both by volume, thinking that the hydration of the preferment is 100%, whereas in fact it is over 170%. As you know, bakers will often get around this type of problem with preferments like bigas and pate fermentee by using the same hydration for the preferment as for the underlying dough into which the preferment is to be incorporated. That way there will be no change in the overall hydration, no matter how much preferment is used. I believe Jeff and scott r use a 50/50 preferment (I assume by weight), which is more like a poolish, but with both natural yeast and commercial yeast in Jeff's case, and with only natural yeast in scott's case, I believe.

Unfortunately, a tool cannot distinguish between rational dough formulations and irrational ones that are likely to lead to poor results. It's the classic "garbage in garbage out".

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Bill,

Out of curiosity, I took the numbers you gave me and calculated the specific baker's percents (all as a percentage of the weight of flour) and the thickness factor, TF.

You indicated that a dough ball weighing 300 grams is used to make a 30 cm. pizza, which is equal to 11.81 inches (30/2.54 = 11.81), or roughly 12 inches. I calculated the thickness factor to have a value of 0.0936 [(300/28.35)/(3.14159 x 6 x 6) = 0.0936]. For the baker's percents for your specific dough formulation, I arrived at the following:

100%, Caputo Pizzeria 00 flour
18.07%, Camaldoli Preferment (185g./1024g. = 18.07%)
62.1%, Water (612g. + 85.1g.)/(1024g. + 99.9g.) = 62.1%
2.5%, Salt (sea salt)
TF = 0.0936

I then plugged the thickness factor and baker’s percents, along with the desired number of dough balls (6) and pizza size (12”), into the Lehmann dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/dough_calculator.html. Since the Lehmann tool is not intended to be used with preferments, I simply entered the 18.07% number in the box where the percent is normally given for the IDY. Assuming that all my numbers and calculations are correct, and stripping out the unnecessary information, I got the following list of ingredients and quantities:

Flour, Caputo Pizzzeria (100%):                   985.75 g  |  34.77 oz | 2.17 lbs
Water (62.1%):                                             612.15 g  |  21.59 oz | 1.35 lbs
Sea salt (2.5%):                                            24.64 g | 0.87 oz | 0.05 lbs | 4.42 tsp | 1.47 tbsp
Camaldoli (18.07%):                                     178.12 g | 6.28 oz | 0.39 lbs | (% entered into IDY box)
Total (182.67%):                                          1800.66 g | 63.52 oz | 3.97 lbs | TF = 0.0936
Single Ball:                                                    300.11 g | 10.59 oz | 0.66 lbs

The numbers are a little bit off because of my rounding out the pizza size to 12” and the fact that the tool can only accept whole numbers for the pizza size (i.e., 12” instead of 11.81”). But, as you will note, the "mixer residue" of 49 grams is no longer included. And I believe that you should be able to change the number of dough balls desired and the size of the pizzas and get the corresponding ingredient quantities, again with no mixer residue.

Of course, if you change the composition of the preferment, and/or its amount, the numbers will change again and require recomputation to get the proper set of baker’s percents. This is where your use of Jeff's spreadsheet offers an advantage. But so long as the 300 grams remains the same and the pizza size remains the same, the thickness factor will not change.

Peter

[scott r]

Peter, I was using a more batter like starter for a while.   At one point Marco mentioned that the starter he usually uses for pizza was a more of a dough like consistency. After doing experiments with a more sturdy starter I have come to the conclusion that the dough tastes better.  I never knew why this was the case until I read the recent post of Bill's with the link to the sourdough information.  Now I know that I preferred the less hydrated starter because it promotes the production of acetic acid over lactic acid.  So, I guess I like acetic acid in my dough.

[Bill/SFNM]

Here are some still photos of my process. The first one shows the dough after a bulk fermentation for about 6 hours at room temp and 30 hours in the fridge. The rubber band marks to starting point.

The second photo shows a formed dough ball.

The third photo shows three formed balls at the start of the room temp proof

Bill/SFNM