Author Topic: Little Black Egg (Read 268030 times)

Villa Roma · « **Reply #220 on:** May 17, 2008, 07:41:08 AM »

Essen1....The griddle held up well on it's maiden voyage and I didn't notice any difference between it and the stone I had in there previously.

Here's a couple of shots of the pizza I made this morning plus a whole grain beagle. The first pizza is made with Gold Medal unbleached AP flour and the rest are 100% whole grain.

Villa Roma

cd1168 · « **Reply #221 on:** May 17, 2008, 08:26:06 AM »

villa roma, those blisters in your raw dough look perfect... i am envious

Villa Roma · « **Reply #222 on:** May 17, 2008, 08:51:18 AM »

Thanks CD.....That dough had more spring than most dudes on prom night!

The whole grain was no slouch either. Here's another from the same batch. Big bubbles are no trouble even with supermarket AP flour.

Villla Roma

Essen1 · « **Reply #223 on:** May 17, 2008, 10:04:02 AM »

Villa,

I could imagine that the heat-up time for the skriddle

, is significant less than for a fat stone like the BGE?

The pies look excellent. I'm wondering about the bagels, though. How long do you bake them and at what temp? I have a recipe for a great european country bread and am still contemplating if I should try to bake it in the LBE or just my regular oven. Have you given baking a bread in the LBE a shot before?

Mike

Villa Roma · « **Reply #224 on:** May 17, 2008, 10:56:29 AM »

Essen.....I baked the bagels at about 600 degrees. I bake them as the LBE is heating up as they require less heat and longer bake time. It takes about 5 minutes for a batch.

I haven't tried bread in the LBE since there is only 2" of clearance. I could easily remove the skriddle and one of the bottom stones and then give it a try. That would give me about 4 inches of head room. Whole grain French bread sounds real good. Hmm, maybe next time.

Villa Roma

Essen1 · « **Reply #225 on:** May 20, 2008, 12:43:25 AM »

Villa,

thanks for the info on the bagels. Hopefully I'll get to try them over the Memorial Day weekend.

But I wanted to run something by you, getting your input on this idea...

The LBE is simply an ingenious design and comes very close to simulating a pizza, baked in a wood fired oven without the "smoky" flavor, however. Tonight I was surfing around on the Weber site, to see if they have any accessories that might be useable and could perhaps get the LBE another step towards the holy grail of the amazing taste of a pie made in a wood-burning oven.

I found this below.

Now, imagine the gas burner in the middle, heating the pizza stones, while one ignites one layer of charcoal briquettes, topped with some Hickory or Oak chips in each compartment. Or maybe in reverse order. Don't wanna get burned $:-\$ While the burner is blasting away at an obviously higher temp than the wood & coals, the heat would suck up the moderate smoke, distributing it evenly over the pizza and out the side & top vent, giving it a nice and, hopefully, subtle smoky flavor.

Any thoughts on this?

Mike

Essen1 · « **Reply #226 on:** May 21, 2008, 09:59:03 PM »

Here's a new addition/mod to my LBE.

I noticed that after a few uses, the grate which holds the two stones started to warp and bend. So I thought perhaps a 1/4" thick solid metal plate would be better.

My buddy cut out three long holes, for the lack of a better term, for the air flow but left a solid part in the middle and up front, which in turn, eliminates the additional foil to block air flow from up front.

I use the Fibra-D stone on top of the plate. The Fibra stone is a tad wider than the solid part of the plate in the center but since it has slanted edges, air flow should not be affected by it. I have yet to give it a test run, but since I'm out of propane, it'll have to wait until the weekend.

I'll report back on how it turned out.

Villa Roma · « **Reply #227 on:** May 22, 2008, 10:50:45 AM »

The steel bottom plate looks real nice. Looks like it was cut with a plasma cutter. Let us know how it turns out.

Villa Roma

Essen1 · « **Reply #228 on:** May 22, 2008, 12:02:22 PM »

Villa,

It wasn't a plasma cutter. My buddy did it with a water jet cutter. That's why the edges are so sharp and defined.

I'll let you know how it turns out. Hopefully it won't be a total bust.

Mike

Pizza_Not_War · « **Reply #229 on:** May 22, 2008, 12:46:51 PM »

Mike,

You are getting close to Willards 2stone design. The 2stone has a curved metal disk that allows for a pocket of air beneath the stone. I assume that was done for a reason that I have no clue about.

Good luck with your trial.

PNW

Essen1 · « **Reply #230 on:** May 22, 2008, 03:52:11 PM »

PNW,

It could be, that he installed a curved plate to prevent it from warping in the first place, depending on the thickness, and perhaps for even heat distribution from underneath. I don't have a 2stone so I don't really know, just thinking out loud.

The plate I installed is a 1/4" thick and flat. The stone sits flush on top of it. I could imagine that the plate would heat up very evenly, distributing the heat right into the stone. I guess we'll see how hot it gets, and how fast.

Mike

Villa Roma · « **Reply #231 on:** May 30, 2008, 11:21:29 AM »

Here's my latest experiment. I took a sheet of .125" thick aluminum and cut it to 17" diameter. I mounted it to the lid. I'm not sure what effect it will have on the finished pizza but I guess I'll find out this weekend.

Villa Roma

Essen1 · « **Reply #232 on:** May 30, 2008, 01:49:29 PM »

Villa,

It looks like you're on to something. I can imagine that the plate inside the lid would compress the heat and provide better baking from the top. Let us know how it turns out.

I fired up my LBE for the first time after installing the metal plate. The air flow was unreal. You could feel the heat coming out of the side vent more forcefully then before. I had three of the four vents of the chimney closed, so only one was open. The LBE heated up to a whopping 900F in about 20 mins. The pie turned out great and the new modification made a huge difference, in heat-up time, air flow and baking.

Nice charring around the crust and leoparding on the bottom.

Mike

ehanner · « **Reply #233 on:** May 30, 2008, 09:57:11 PM »

Villa Roma,
It looks like the top vent is closed off and the total combustion gasses are vented out the side port. I'm anxious to see how this works for you.

Essen1 that looks like a smooth outfit! Do you get an even heat distribution across the stone? Do you need to rotate the pizza?

Eric

Essen1 · « **Reply #234 on:** May 30, 2008, 10:21:43 PM »

ehanner,

Thanks.

I had to rotate the pizza twice. I noticed that the crust, facing the back of the LBE (top vent side), browns a lot faster. But that's due to the air flow. Next time I'll try to close off the top vent all together and see how the heat distribution is then. Or perhaps close it off until the LBE has reached its desire temp and then just open one vent.

The stone itself got extremely hot and I had to turn the burner way down so that the bottom of the pizza wouldn't turn into charcoal before the rest was done.

Mike

Villa Roma · « **Reply #235 on:** May 31, 2008, 03:12:48 AM »

Essen....Looks like you have the "hot setup" there. Your pizzas look fantastic. How long did it take to cook those pizzas at 900 degrees?

Villa Roma

MTPIZZA · « **Reply #236 on:** May 31, 2008, 08:50:23 AM »

Villa, I'm sitting here on the sidelines watching all the great improvements to the LBE everyone is making.. great pictures too... I was wondering though-- you took a picture of your raw dough recently and I noticed how nicely the raw dough looked -- a lot of air bubbles throughout the dough...Would you mind sharing your raw dough recipe for a white pie (I think you gave your recipe for the whole wheat recipe already) ... I'm not sure if you had imparted this in the past..I'm curious to know if you are using natural leavening or using commercial Instant dry Yeast.... thanks again for your invention and ideas on making great pies.

Villa Roma · « **Reply #237 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:42:39 AM »

MT....The answer to your question is both. I used a small amount of IDY and some starter for that pizza. Here's the recipe:

200 gm Gold Medal unbleached all purpose flour
150 gm cold water (75%)
4 gm salt (2%)
1/32 tsp IDY
1 tsp starter

I just mixed up all the ingredients in a small bowl with my sawed off screwdriver, let it rest for 30 minutes or so and stir it up again. I let it rise a few times and gave it a gentle stir between risings and then scaled it into two dough balls. I let them rise until they were puffy and then cooked them in the LBE at around 700 degrees. I had to pop a lot of bubbles as the pizza cooked.

Villa Roma

Villa Roma · « **Reply #238 on:** May 31, 2008, 10:58:35 AM »

MT...Here is a test pizza I made last week using a different recipe:

200 gm Gold Medal Harvest King flour
140 gm RT water (70%)
3 gm lite salt
4 gm oil (2%)
1 tbl starter

Mix up everything with the SOS and let rest for 30 minutes, stir again and let rest 1 hour. Scale and refriderate for two days. Remove from fridge about an hour before baking at 725 degrees.

Villa Roma

MTPIZZA · « **Reply #239 on:** May 31, 2008, 03:25:37 PM »

Thanks Villa for the recipe, but this raises another question... your starter...it must be something special... could you tell where you obtain it and how you maintain it? thanks...(you don't use IDY...)