Make my oven hotter?

[pizzanewbie2021]

Hi,

I'm leasing a small cafe that came with a standard gas fired pizza oven that goes up to 650 F.  Is there any way I can make this oven hotter (like 800 F) so I can make Neapolitan pizza?  Would fire bricks or a pizza steel help?  Maybe I could make some sort of enclosure within the oven?

Thanks for any info,
Steve

[TXCraig1]

Probably a bad idea to try for all sorts of reasons. There is a reason the oven only goes up to 650F.

[Pizza_Not_War]

What oven do you have?

[Andrew t]

I'm very interested in this topic.

Craig may be right.

I've been working on ways to 'get my oven hotter' for a while.

I use a Blodget 911P for my mobile popups. I do a Pizza Pala style, light crunchy, high hydro. Baked hotter @650, 4-6 min, like artisan style.

I've felt the top was a little under and sometimes have to use a screen and go to the 6 min mark to get the results I want.

I had been pursuing ways to increase the temp limit from 650 to 750 to get a little more top heat and balance the bake

I recently realized a hotter oven is not waht I need.

The deck temp and bake time are what I'm looking for. I just want the top of the pie a little (10-20%) more done. What I need in more effcient top heat.

I'm working through posts here and Moderist Pizza and scouring the web to understand more about how to optimize the heat into the top of the pie.

The way heat works in an oven and to bake a pizza is way more complex and non-intuitive than it seems.

I'm not sure what will work for me but I'm starting with looking at the height of the celing and the reflectivity of the chamber first.

For me the perspective shift has been helpful.




 

[Timpanogos Slim]

I'm very interested in this topic.

Craig may be right.

I've been working on ways to 'get my oven hotter' for a while.

I use a Blodget 911P for my mobile popups. I do a Pizza Pala style, light crunchy, high hydro. Baked hotter @650, 4-6 min, like artisan style.

I've felt the top was a little under and sometimes have to use a screen and go to the 6 min mark to get the results I want.

I had been pursuing ways to increase the temp limit from 650 to 750 to get a little more top heat and balance the bake

I recently realized a hotter oven is not waht I need.

The deck temp and bake time are what I'm looking for. I just want the top of the pie a little (10-20%) more done. What I need in more effcient top heat.

I'm working through posts here and Moderist Pizza and scouring the web to understand more about how to optimize the heat into the top of the pie.

The way heat works in an oven and to bake a pizza is way more complex and non-intuitive than it seems.

I'm not sure what will work for me but I'm starting with looking at the height of the celing and the reflectivity of the chamber first.

For me the perspective shift has been helpful.

I could swear that America's Test Kitchen or something similar had said that they found that, in a home oven, moving the stone to the top rack improved the top half of the pizza. I have not tested this myself.

I've heard of people building a "brick" oven inside a conventional oven, also haven't tried that. Sounds kinda extra, and in an actual pizza oven you could probably make the slot narrower just by adding another layer to the deck.

Cooking on steel would certainly make the bottom brown up quicker but won't do anything for the top. The Fibrament folks stress that thermal conductivity is not the end-all metric for baking stones and argue that cordierite and surely steel release their heat into crust too rapidly.

[ira]

Replacing the top stone with steel might increase the radiation off the top and make it cook faster. Also, turning the top stone black might do the same. Might be able to use the same process you use for seasoning a steel pan to darken it. If something like that works well enough, you might need less top heat.

[stickyD]

Probably a bad idea to try for all sorts of reasons. There is a reason the oven only goes up to 650F.

Craig is right, even if you make some box or play with steels, the innards are not up to spec for that temp. Then you have an oven you are leasing that you burned up, have to pay for, and you have no NP to serve.

Maybe do another style? I'd try tricks like this at home but not at my restaurant.