My Primavera 70 Experience

[rrweather]

Thought I would begin sharing my journey with my Primavera 70...

A few months ago my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Half-jokingly, I sent her the link to the Primavera 70 with stand. She quickly replied with something along the lines of "keep dreaming." A few weeks later, she wrapped a pizza box with a note in it saying we were going to pick my oven up when we returned from vacation (we live 2 1/2 hours from FB). I have an awesome wife...

I found a discussion about getting pizza tools from John. We traded PMs. He answered all my questions. I ordered a set of tools.

Neighbor's cousin owns an almond orchard. Negotiated a deal. Had a 1/2 cord of dry almond wood delivered that weekend.

While we were away, FB e-mailed her and said there was a delay in our oven being ready so we wouldn't be able to pick it up on the scheduled day, but it would be ready 3 days later. I took the day off from work on the new scheduled day, eager to go get it. As I was pulling in to the local u-haul to pick up a trailer for hauling the oven, my wife called me and told me to not go, as FB dropped my oven while crating it. It cracked. Obviously, I was a little frustrated. They told her they would have another oven ready in 3 days we could have. My wife and I decided to explore having the oven delivered. The lady my wife dealt with at FB was awesome and immediately suggested she speak with her manager about covering the costs of delivery since there had been multiple delays. The manager agreed and FB had the oven delivered a week later.

Using an engine hoist, beer, and lots of cussing, we got the oven installed on our patio after two days of trying to figure out how to maneuver it. We let it sit for a painful week. Like a newborn baby, I checked on it hourly, as if someone was going to walk in my yard and walk out with a 700lb pizza oven it took me two days to move.

While waiting the week, I got a hold of a couple different propane burners. I found a post from a while back about using the burner for the first few days of curing. Swapped out an empty propane tank with a fresh one. I was ready to begin curing...

Day 1, I dialed the flame down very low. I was shooting for 300 degrees in the dome above the flame (per the instructions). Once I had it set, I let it go for 14 hours. Again, I had to check it almost hourly because I am somewhat obsessed. After 14 hours, I took the burner out, closed the door, and let it sit for about 18 hours.

Day 2, I set the burner back up and adjusted for 350 degrees in the dome. Once set, I let it go for 18 hours (mainly due to work schedule). At the 18 hour point, I again removed the burner, closed the door, and left it for 18 hours or so.

Day 3, I opted for using wood (couldn't resist). Found out how hard it is to light a fire with a specific temperature as a goal. Finally got the dome to hit 400 degrees. Let the fire burn out, closed the door, let it cool.

Day 4, same as above but 450 degrees.

Day 5, same as above but 500 degrees.

According to the instructions, my oven was now ready to use. I no-longer had an excuse for why we couldn't make pizzas in it...

Unfortunately, life did not allow me a whole lot of time over the last week to figure out what dough recipe I would use for those first pizzas. So, yesterday, we found ourselves ready to make pizzas with no homemade dough ready to go. We were going to have to commit a sin with our first pizzas by using Trader Joe's dough! We used their dough, canned plum tomatoes (run through a food processor since my friend hates chunky sauce), fresh mozzarella, and a few vine ripened tomatoes. We used basil from our garden, pepperoni from another store, and pesto sauce from Costco.

I will continue the experience in the next post (with photos).

[Jackitup]

Sounds like some of my stories! Hope it goes great from here on out Looking forward to your results and pics!

jon

[rrweather]

So we pulled the TJ's dough out of the fridge for an hour (in the package). Then unwrapped them and let them sit on a floured surface for about another hour. We lit the oven and waited.

Lessons learned from day 1:

-Oven takes longer than 1 hour to get nice and hot. In fact, it was more ready for pizzas when we were done cooking than it was when we started cooking.
-TJ's dough was tough to get evenly thin along the edges without the middle getting overly thin. Our first pizza had two areas that the cheese fell through the crust while cooking.
-TJ's dough bakes up to very thick crust, at least ours did. It may have to do with my inability to work the dough thinner or the fact that we let it sit before using.
-Making round pizzas is harder than it looks!

We made a margarita, a pepperoni, a pesto with fresh tomato, and then another margarita as a redemption for the first pizza! All in all, they tasted good. We are not crazy about the thickness of the crust. We had used TJ's dough before when making pizzas on the grill and the flavor from the dough is ok, nothing to write home about. Ultimately, it allowed us to try the oven so we can't complain.

We picked up a few bags of "00" flour today. I now begin my quest of looking for dough recipes while waiting for my wife to agree to having pizzas for dinner again in the next day or so!

Besides looking for a dough recipe to try, my next two pizza-related projects are to install a double-wall chimney that will carry the smoke up above our patio cover and to build a prep stand/table as soon as I find a cheap granite or marble remnant slab I can use for a top.

Thanks for everyone that participates in these forums. Even though I have just started, I've already learned a lot from what I've read here.

-Randy

[red kiosk]

Congrats on the new oven! If you ever find yourself needing to use Trader Joe's dough again, let it set out for four (4) hours before using it. It's much easier to handle. Hope this helps and take care!

Jim

[rrweather]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm sure we will use it again so I will give it a shot. I also think we will add a little salt.

[JConk007]

and it was the best you ever had  right Randy ? have fun enjoy the tools !
simple dough recipe for you use 00 flou  60% (water) hydration  , .16-.2 IDY and 2.7-2.8% salt  thats all you need !
John

[jsnack]

I'm in the curing process with my Primavera 70.  I've noticed 2 or 3 tiny holes on the inside of the dome.  They are not cracks, but holes...about 1/8 to 1/4 inch in size...maybe 1/4 inch deep.  Have any other Primavera owners developed these?

[rrweather]

I haven't come across anything like this. Perhaps you can contact FB or post a photo of the holes...

[rrweather]

Round two of the pizzas from yesterday. I made two doughs from scratch--one with AP flour and one with 00 flour. Both were made with instant yeast, as it's all I had available. I made the dough Thursday morning and we made the pizzas Sunday evening. We also had some TJ's dough as a backup in case my dough bombed. We ended up with more company than planned so we blew through 3 of the 00 doughs, 4 AP doughs, and a TJ's dough. The consensus was the 00 flour made the best texture and flavor. The only objector was my elderly neighbor who loves thick crust. Again, the TJ's dough blew up while cooking.

The 00 flour was the easiest to work and gave me the fewest problems. I used Jeff Varasano's spreadsheet to keep notes on what I did.

My sourdough international Italian starters arrived in the mail today. Unfortunately, I leave on Wednesday to go out of the country so I can not start them until I get home. I am going to DIY (read: "jerry-rig") a cooler into a proofing box tomorrow. My house temperature is anything from 65-85 this time of year. I figure the cooler will allow me to maintain more control over the temps my starters are at.

Having the 3 doughs to compare side-by-side was cool. Alone, any of the 3 would have been considered good. Directly compared, the differences were obvious. Unfortunately, the TJ's dough tasted lousy after eating a dough made with 00 flour.

I would like to try a side-by-side with bread flour and the caputo next time. I imagine the higher protein content impacts the ease with which the dough is worked???

I look forward to getting the starters going when I get home in a few weeks. I also read the sourdough international book last week. I am now eager to make some homemade cinnamon rolls or bagels the next morning with the still-warm oven!

The pizzas in the pics are a white sauce with pepperoni for my picky friend and a pesto with sliced heirloom tomato. We tried burrata cheese on the pesto. Tasted good but added way too much moisture to the pizza.