cost of purchasing a true Neapolitan pizza oven ?

[thezaman]

marco,
 you know a heck of a lot about neapolitan pizza, all aspects. you have taught the members a lot. i don't think anyone wants to challenge you on your abilities as a pizza maker. i think we would like you to make positive suggestions on how we can make better pizza.
 would you be willing to give ideas on how we can get a non neapolitan specific oven to get better results. how about if we start a thread let us send pics and you can critique our pies.

[pizzanapoletana]

marco,
 you know a heck of a lot about neapolitan pizza, all aspects. you have taught the members a lot. i don't think anyone wants to challenge you on your abilities as a pizza maker. i think we would like you to make positive suggestions on how we can make better pizza.
 would you be willing to give ideas on how we can get a non neapolitan specific oven to get better results. how about if we start a thread let us send pics and you can critique our pies.

Hi,

I have said many times why I do not do that anymore. An example is the  people that do not like my comments as they know better.... In any case I was only clarifying what can or cannot be called a neapolitan oven, based on pratical experience on many wood fired ovens (brick made, authentic neapolitan, neapolitan imitations, prefab in Italy, prefab around the world, etc). Whilst, other are commenting without the knowledge....

At an home level, making one at the time, you can approximate the effect of a neapolitan, by moving the pizza closer and far from the heat, and up in the air or back on the floor depending on where you need the heat.

However, if the dough has some other defects, that is independent from what we were originally talking about. I did not post immediatelly a link to Ciro Salvo's pizza, as there we are also talking about one of the best pizza dough in the world from a technical point of view...


Ciao

[shango]

I agree Salvo makes an amazing pizza.  Out of all the others I have had in Naples, Gino Sorbillo and Da Michele were the best, although Da Michele left a bit of an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I walked back to the hotel. 

Who Makes Gino Sorbillo and Da Michele's ovens?

[pizzanapoletana]

I agree Salvo makes an amazing pizza.  Out of all the others I have had in Naples, Gino Sorbillo and Da Michele were the best, although Da Michele left a bit of an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I walked back to the hotel. 

Who Makes Gino Sorbillo and Da Michele's ovens?

Interesting point on Gino's that as you may know is also one of my favorite pizza, even though I would say a less traditional one. His dough, although very light and tasty, is slightly on the dryer side as are the ingredients on top (which makes it less soggy I guess and more suitable for the American palate). Top notch baked "Calzone", which is his specialty...

Da Michele original oven (exterior still the same) was done over 50 years ago by a family I know very well ;-)... in the summer of 2008 it was redone internally only (dome and floor/unchanged exterior) by another builder as a temporary measure. They may soon remake it completely....

Gino Sorbillo is also about to replace it. So soon I should be able to tell you...

[Mo]

Mo,

Indeed 60 seconds, so if a new guy cannot yet handle 5 pizza at the time, it will be that 1 or 2 per batch may stay in the oven too long (seconds)... If he had to back 2 or 3 at the time to have your output, all should be spotless. It is also important to note that at Peak, the oven is run match hotter that I would ideally run it at, so the baking time is often closer to 45 seconds....

I'll just make one more observation and then I'm going to leave it alone (maybe)...If you are cooking 5 pizzas at a time at peak service and you admit that one or two is left in too long then that means (mathematically) that somewhere between 48-96 pizzas during peak service are overdone, resulting in the, shall we say, very Crispy (some may call it burned) looking pizzas pictured earlier. Granted I'm new to pizzas but I've been cheffing in kitchens for a long time and that sounds like not very good quality control for the sake of putting out large numbers of pizzas. Wouldn't they be better off cooking two or three at a time to better standards rather than accepting mediocre results for large numbers of pizzas?

Again, I 'm a rookie and probably an idiot, so help me understand.

mo.

[pizzanapoletana]

You are not an idiot, and are completelly right. You eventually get to bake 5 pizza at the time with no problems like thay are doing more recently that the Fornaio has learned his trade. However, at the time he was learning it would have been better doing as you explained. This has been a point of major feedback from me to the owner and team. We are designing a training programme so that trainee will only be allowed on the secondary oven (normally unmanned during service and used for bread). But again, this is Franco Manca where we have queques for hours and the pressure has caused the restaurant manager for total output rather then quality (against by wrost nightmare)..


Back to the Neapolitan oven dependency, once you have a good team, then there is not comparison possibles... And as there are probably only few places where you need to output at 240 per hour (namely Naples, London, probably NYC and few others), then  with a more reasonable 180 per hour, you would still bake the best pizza in the world thanks to the Neapolitan oven!

I was checking teh pictures of other places that use your oven to sell pizza napoletana, even under the VPN membership, and all were affected by the longer cooking times....

That is why I belive that VPN membership should be linked to the proper tools as they would use it in Naples. If they do not use a prefab oven because is not good, why are these good for people abroad? Yes many years ago was difficult to get a Neapolitan ovens abroad aside of built on site, but now is different.

Ciao


Edit: Crisp and burnt are two different things (That is not what I was referring to). A pizza can be burnt and still soft....

I'll just make one more observation and then I'm going to leave it alone (maybe)...If you are cooking 5 pizzas at a time at peak service and you admit that one or two is left in too long then that means (mathematically) that somewhere between 48-96 pizzas during peak service are overdone, resulting in the, shall we say, very Crispy (some may call it burned) looking pizzas pictured earlier. Granted I'm new to pizzas but I've been cheffing in kitchens for a long time and that sounds like not very good quality control for the sake of putting out large numbers of pizzas. Wouldn't they be better off cooking two or three at a time to better standards rather than accepting mediocre results for large numbers of pizzas?

Again, I 'm a rookie and probably an idiot, so help me understand.

mo.

[andreguidon]

  very interesting discussion !! 

iam posting a link, but iam not jugging the quality of the pizza, just the speed... and how may pizzas where in the oven at the same time...

http://www.youtube.com/user/andreguidon#p/f/27/FNiDsgb78T4

[TXCraig1]

For home use? Build your own! That was why we started a thread on wood ovens many years ago.. for home use approximation...

Marco,

Are there any special considerations/concerns when building a brick oven for use in a very high humidity area such as Houston, TX?

What diameter would you reccomend for home use?

Thanks,
Craig

[shango]

In my 2amys days, the most pizze we ever had in the oven was 18.  It took a lot of shuffling and juggling. The temperature would swing wildly..we would have the oven stuffed like that for hours, and even though it was difficult, took many people to pull off, etc..  We could easily produce 200 mediocre pizze per hour.

This was a woodstone Mt. Baker-strictly wood fueled.  I am not recommending the oven, but stating that high production levels can be achieved with anything, I think.  The quality of the pizze was what suffered, not the owner's pocket.

[Mo]

In my 2amys days, the most pizze we ever had in the oven was 18.  It took a lot of shuffling and juggling. The temperature would swing wildly..we would have the oven stuffed like that for hours, and even though it was difficult, took many people to pull off, etc..  We could easily produce 200 mediocre pizze per hour.

This was a woodstone Mt. Baker-strictly wood fueled.  I am not recommending the oven, but stating that high production levels can be achieved with anything, I think.  The quality of the pizze was what suffered, not the owner's pocket.

18 in a Mt Baker? Incredible! I've only tried to go to 8 in our 140x160cm Valoriani. We turn tables quickly enough with 10 minute ticket times at our most saturated. In this town, people are accustomed to waiting 30 minutes just to get a table somewhere, so 10 minutes from order time to food on the table at 7:00 on a Friday is looking pretty good.

[shango]

At Bebo I used a Cirigliano Forni, at RedRocks, a Renato, At Ciro a Woodstone, at Al Forno A Woodstone gas/wood assist with under floor burner, (garbage), Used a Mugnani several times at a friends house, and a Forno Bravo a few times.. Not to mention a homemade pompeii or two.. Used a built on site at Fratelli la Buffala too, don't know who made it..

For my own place, I acquired a real Neapolitan oven. 

 

[pizzanapoletana]

One last post that should summarise the issue for me.

Edan with your 130 cm oven (if I remember correctly) and the right experienced team, with 6 pizze at the time you can cook potentialy 360 pizze an hour, all cooked perfectly with the help of the oven.

As you stated, not only by cooking 18 at the time you di not get to the above output, but those were also mediocre pizza.

More importantly, so far in America, people that have similar experience of non neapolitan vs neapolitan, have already expressed their opinion on the change, namely Settebello in Las Vegas, Il Pizzaiolo in Pittsbugh, and Motorino in NYC... So these people runs businesses and have come to the same conclusion, but I guess there is still reason to be sceptical of a marketing ploy ;-)

[pcampbell]

very interesting discussion !! 

iam posting a link, but iam not jugging the quality of the pizza, just the speed... and how may pizzas where in the oven at the same time...

http://www.youtube.com/user/andreguidon#p/f/27/FNiDsgb78T4

 i like that... 8 in 4 minutes...

[shango]

One last post that should summarise the issue for me.

Edan with your 130 cm oven (if I remember correctly) and the right experienced team, with 6 pizze at the time you can cook potentialy 360 pizze an hour, all cooked perfectly with the help of the oven.

As you stated, not only by cooking 18 at the time you di not get to the above output, but those were also mediocre pizza.

More importantly, so far in America, people that have similar experience of non neapolitan vs neapolitan, have already expressed their opinion on the change, namely Settebello in Las Vegas, Il Pizzaiolo in Pittsbugh, and Motorino in NYC... So these people runs businesses and have come to the same conclusion, but I guess there is still reason to be sceptical of a marketing ploy ;-)

Well, in all fairness, at the time 2amys only had about a hundred seats, we could have produced more pizze hourly, but it was hard to turn tables any faster..

Having said that, what is important, and what I said intentionally in my previous post.  "mediocre pizza".  (although honestly, people in DC love that place)

[pizzanapoletana]

very interesting discussion !! 

iam posting a link, but iam not jugging the quality of the pizza, just the speed... and how may pizzas where in the oven at the same time...

http://www.youtube.com/user/andreguidon#p/f/27/FNiDsgb78T4

Andre,

I just watched the video


8 x 29cm pizza. I would do 6 x 35cm... Still a 130cm oven give you that capacity.
The guy was doing all by imself in 3.50. You need at least 2 more assistants (better 3) to turn up the volumes I was talking about. I said many time, that the FORNAIO is a job by itself in Naples, and whilst all "pizzaiuoli" have started as Fornaio, many fornaio never graduates and makes it to the pizza making table.

There are other comments to be made but hopefully you can understand my point.

[andreguidon]

Hi Marco, sure i understand... just posted a video, cause it was very interesting seeing one guy doing all that... and there was no burned pizzas... again not commenting on the quality...

[pizzanapoletana]

Hi Marco, sure i understand... just posted a video, cause it was very interesting seeing one guy doing all that... and there was no burned pizzas... again not commenting on the quality...

the pizze were not burned because the oven was running much cooler tha we run it at franco manca... the guy can clearly bee seen adding a piece of wood and still there was no light in the oven.......


Edit:

Evidence on the temp
1.32 min first pizza goes in.
3.04 min first pizza comes out.
That is 92 seconds or 1.32 mins


Not commenting on quality is fine, but the final product is affected....

[andreguidon]

i agree, but could it be done right ? (one guy doing every thing).... this is just curiosity... and is that a Neapolitan oven ?

and Marco, you go 35cm, what is your dough ball weight ? (i know is done by eye, but a approximated number)

thanks for all the info. !!

André
 

[pizzanapoletana]

i agree, but could it be done right ? (one guy doing every thing).... this is just curiosity... and is that a Neapolitan oven ?

and Marco, you go 35cm, what is your dough ball weight ? (i know is done by eye, but a approximated number)

thanks for all the info. !!

André
 

Of Course it can be done as the guy at that rhythm will be turning 140 pizza an hour, mostly mediocre pizza. I think until I post a video of Franco Manca at peak all this are just words... It looks like a neapolitan imitation and I believe I know who made it because we have to replace a similar one in the province north of Naples after Easter.


My panielli are north of 250g, never less that that.

And, I may have mentioned this before, but in Naples, when the pizzeria open early in the morning, they re-form the dough balls from the day before in smaller balls and bake 10-12 small 25 cm pizza at the time while the oven was being rewarmed in the morning. Topped only with tomatoes and basil and occasionally 2 cubes of mozzarella. Those pizza are sold to students going to school off a glass display on the street. When I was a kid those were sold for 1000 Lire or about 50 cents of Euro of today..

[andreguidon]

yea, my mother in law  is from Naples, and she always tells me that story about the cheap pizza sold in the morning...

thanks Marco !!