How can I make a true 16" pie ??

[Crusty]

My wooden peel is 15.5 x 13.75"
metal peel is 14 x 14"
stone is 14.5 x 16"
Oven rack 17 x 20"

What size tools are you using to produce a 16" pie?

Thanks,

Crusty

[canadave]

heh...

First step is to get enough dough going.  I use 2 lbs of flour and 20 oz of water for two 16" pies...I could probably stretch them to 17" if I had to.

Second step...get a peel that's large enough to accomodate.  I have a 16" x 17" peel, but I'd rather have an 18" x 18" just to give it a little extra room; as it is, my 16" pies tend to droop slightly over the sides.

My oven is a shade more than 16" deep, so no problems there.  I use four 8" x 8" unglazed quarry tiles, so they form a 16" square.

Dave

[canadianbacon]

The only thing I would need is a ruler 

when you say a "true" do you mean 16" exactly ?

Even in the pizza industry - where the guys are rolling by hand you are not going to get an exact 16" ... it maybe 15-7/8" or
16-1/4" so I can't really answer that correctly Crusty.

Damn, I guess they say it time and time again............ size DOES matter :-) hhehehehehe

[Pete-zza]

Crusty,

I use a 16-inch screen because my peel (wood) is not big enough to hold a 16-inch pizza and my pizza stone is similar to yours in that the major dimension is 16 inches. What I do is bake the pizza on the screen until the rim of the dough starts to turn brown and the cheeses bubble, and then transfer the pizza to the stone for a final few minutes of baking. At that point, the pizza is stiff and overlaps the stone, but the overlapping is of no consequence. While I haven't done it, you could bake the pizza only to the point where it just starts to stiffen and then transfer it to the stone, where the bulk of the baking will take place.

Some people use only the 16-inch screen for the entire bake, and don't use the stone at all.

As Canadave has pointed out, another possibilities include getting a larger peel with a larger blade and replacing your stone with tiles with a total surface area large enough to hold a 16-inch pizza. You could also get a larger pizza stone, and I have seen some advertised on eBay at reasonable cost (I think the stones were 16" x 16"), but the larger stones I have otherwise seen advertised from conventional suppliers tend to be quite expensive.

Peter

[canadianbacon]

Hi Dave !

hey can you measure your oven ?

I got some tiles from a buddy of mine in the beer group I'm in .......... he gave me 6 tiles... now to make the tiles fit exactly
I would need 3-1/2 tiles from back of the stove to the front..... and that would just fit ( and be able to close the oven )

I guess on the same note I should also measure *my* stove....

I don't even know the size of tiles he gave me either.... time to go measure :-)

Mark

[Crusty]

Pete-zza, what is the best source for a screen?  Is the screen consistent throughout ie., is the rim area different from the center?

Thanks

[canadianbacon]

Crusty,

the whole pizza should be very uniform, - if you are using tiles underneath.

[Pete-zza]

Crusty,

I have bought several screens from instawares.com because they seemed to have the broadest selection and lowest prices. The first time I bought screens I bought different brands and different sizes just for comparison purposes. As it turns out, they were all made in India. I thought the best brand was Adcraft, so the next time I bought screens (for my daughter-in-law) I bought all Adcraft. I also bought a screen from pizzatools.com and it looks very good, but for a 16-inch screen, the price is $6.05. The 16-inch Adcraft screen sells for $3.82. Since shipping costs for a single screen will be high relative to the cost of the screen, you might want to see if there is anything else you need in the way of pizza tools or accessories, and buy everything at one time. You may end up with the purchased items arriving at your place at different times in different shipments, and sometimes instawares makes mistakes, but in the end you will get everything you ordered (so long as the items are in stock).

The screens are made up of a mesh-like center portion with a rim (about 3/8-inch wide) that encircles the screen at the perimeter (the rim has a U-shaped cross section and the screen is crimped into the U) . You will see what I mean if you go to the instawares.com website and look at the various screen offered.

Peter

[canadianbacon]

I can add that even up here in Canada, I found MANY very good quality pizza screens in restaurant supply stores.

The metal is good, the outer metal is good, take care of them and they should last a long time.

It would be neat if we all lived within an hour of each other and had meetings on a regular basis as we do in our beer meeting groups,
- everyone brings new beers they made and we sample them.

anyway I guess we could post images of our screens, and that may help ou out.

[scampi]

I use a 16 inch screen for the entire cooking process like Pete-zza said. I got mine on Ebay for a good price. In fact someone was selling 92 screens and I bid $7 and won them all. My wife looked at me like I was a crazy man when she saw the box...and of course, I am a crazy man so it was the appropriate response from her. I use a peel I got from ebay as well that has a short handle but is 15 inches across. When I finish the pizza I scoop it out with the peel and lay it on my stone I used to cook with to slice it up..it's just my simple system but it works for me.

[anthony]

opening a ny style pizza/deli with an old buddy. we're having a ball(no pun) experimenting with crusts, sauces, chesses, etc... More a labor of love,for pizza, than a business:)
Having special trouble with the dough. Trying different flour, proportions, etc..
Using quantities for a single pizza at a time, for sampling purposes. PLEASE HELP!!