Since becoming a member of this site back in the fall, I have been testing out a number of different combinations using the Lehmann calculator. It wasn’t until my most recent batch that I was truly pleased with the result and wanted to share.
I have been using an old gas oven with which I have lined the bottom rack with unglazed quarry tiles. For a while, I was cooking the entire pizza on the tiles. Unfortunately, I was overcooking the bottom by the time I got the top as brown as I would like it. The bottom would be hard and chewy. Average cooking time was about 8-9 minutes at 500-550 degrees (still don’t know how accurate it is). More recently, I began moving the pizza to the upper rack at the top of the oven after about 6 minutes. I would cook the pizza for the last 2 minutes, to get a nice browning. This was an improvement, but it wasn’t until I cleaned out the old broiler oven drawer, that I began to get optimal results. The below pic is my most recent pizza. It cooked roughly 5-6 minutes on the tiles, and 30-45 seconds to brown up in the broiler.
My sauce consists of Cento tomatoes, fresh basil, grated Romano cheese, olive oil, sugar, salt and cracked pepper. I topped with chicken, feta, scallions, a motz/prov blend, and drizzled with bbq sauce prior to baking. When I pulled it out I drizzled with a little EVOO and sprinkled with some more scallions.
My dough is as follows (I used GM Harvest King Flour and Canola Oil):
Flour (100%): 993.25 g | 35.04 oz | 2.19 lbs
Water (60%): 595.95 g | 21.02 oz | 1.31 lbs
Oil (1%): 9.93 g | 0.35 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.13 tsp | 0.71 tbsp
Salt (1.5%): 14.9 g | 0.53 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.67 tsp | 0.89 tbsp
IDY (.25%): 2.48 g | 0.09 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.82 tsp | 0.27 tbsp
Sugar (0%): 0 g | 0 oz | 0 lbs | 0 tsp | 0 tbsp
Total (162.75%): 1616.51 g | 57.02 oz | 3.56 lbs | TF = 0.1
Single Ball: 269.42 g | 9.5 oz | 0.59 lbs
I want to thank you all for helping me get to this point. I hope to share some more pics as I go forward. In looking through the site, I didn’t see a place that just has pictures. Does one exist? I know that the pics are embedded into the posts, but didn’t know if there was just a gallery of photos somewhere. Anyway, here’s my latest….
