Detroit Style in a WPO500

[jgeibel]

Just starting to bake Detroit Style pizzas and thought I'd start a thread on it.

I have a WPO500 electric oven and was thinking it might actually work great for DSPs. The one problem that keeps being talked about is the fact that the oven doesn't have quite enough top heat so you have to make some adjustments to get the right bake times for a new york style pizza. But, I was thinking that this fault of the oven might actually play well for a non-par-baked DSP. I'm thinking a good amount of bottom heat will do well for a nicely baked undercarriage and for the caramelization of the cheese around the edge and since the pizza is baked for 10-15 minutes, a little less top heat might be just fine. So, here start the experiments.

Another idea I had was the fact that everyone loves the corner pieces of a DSP. Why not optimize for that? So, I'm going with 8"x8" Lloyd pans which will generate 4 perfect corner slices. I can then fit 4 of these pans in the oven at the same time, so I can output 16 perfect corner slices of DSP every 10-15 minutes which seems pretty cool. It also allows you to do more variations of topping combinations which is fun with a crowd.

I've never made DSP before but have made a lot of Sicilian, so I have some partial experience coming in.

The 3 areas I'm interested in experimenting with are: dough recipes to get the right rise and flavor, different cheese combinations to narrow in what I think tastes the best, and whether or not this oven is the right tool for the job.

This past weekend I did my first attempts. I baked one pizza at a time to give me a chance to make adjustments if I mess anything up.

Dough was pretty standard: 75% hydration, 2.5% salt, 50/50 blend of high gluten and low gluten flour from Shepherd's Grain (most recipes seem to call for bread flour, so aimed for something like that with the flour I had on hand), instant yeast (same-day rise this time but I usually do 1-2 days CF). Baked with just cheese then heated sauce added after. Parm added after sauce. In the future I'll cook my own sauce but to keep this simple I just went with Mutti jarred pizza sauce (the only jarred pizza sauce I that I like).

First 2 attempts were brick cheese as the base with piled up cabot white cheddar around the edge. Brick cheese was really quite amazing -- super rich and creamy. Melted great. Cheddar around the edge also worked great -- caramelized very well and had a nice salty kick.

Third pizza was muenster + cheddar to see if muenster (easy to get) approximated brick well enough. I had to mail order the brick cheese which isn't ideal (no place in Seattle sells it from what I know). My hope was that the brick cheese wasn't that special so I could convince myself it wasn't worth the hassle and cost to order. The results so far show that it really is that good -- muenster was fine, but the brick really stood out.

Fourth pizza was all brick (base and piled up along the edge). Was good, but we all liked the balance of the saltier cheddar crust along with the creamy brick cheese as the base -- they contrasted each other quite nicely.

We couldn't eat more so we stopped there. Future combinations to try would be mozzarella and provolone as the base cheese. Provolone (a mix of regular and piccante/aged) is my favorite for Sicilian pizza so I'm curious how it does with DSP. I'm also interested in cutting the brick a bit with maybe mozzarella (maybe 80/20 brick/mozzarella) to reduce the richness/creaminess just a bit.

One baking problem I had was the middle of the pizza poofed up mid bake (dough rising off the pan). The bottom of the pizza did not bake well and was not at all crispy. First 2 pans of pizza did this, but after that I started to poke it as soon as it started rising up and that released the air and and allowed the bottom to bake correctly and crisp up nicely.

All of the bakes took about 15 minutes at around 510-525F. I think the oven itself seemed to perform pretty great for this setup. Bottoms and crusts were super crispy and the top was nicely browned.

For the dough, I would have liked a bit more rise of out it like I get with my Sicilians. Next time I may try going all high-gluten at 80% hydration and see how that fairs. I also didn't add any oil into this dough so I'm curious about adding 1-2% oil to see how that compares.

Overall it was quite successful for the first attempts. Cheese crust came out beautifully and was interesting to see how the different cheeses compared. If anyone has any suggestions on what else to try I'd love to hear it.

Jonathan

[Pizza_Not_War]

Your first try is awesome 👍. Better than any DS I ever made.

[jose9989]

Just starting to bake Detroit Style pizzas and thought I'd start a thread on it.

I have a WPO500 electric oven and was thinking it might actually work great for DSPs. The one problem that keeps being talked about is the fact that the oven doesn't have quite enough top heat so you have to make some adjustments to get the right bake times for a new york style pizza. But, I was thinking that this fault of the oven might actually play well for a non-par-baked DSP. I'm thinking a good amount of bottom heat will do well for a nicely baked undercarriage and for the caramelization of the cheese around the edge and since the pizza is baked for 10-15 minutes, a little less top heat might be just fine. So, here start the experiments.

Another idea I had was the fact that everyone loves the corner pieces of a DSP. Why not optimize for that? So, I'm going with 8"x8" Lloyd pans which will generate 4 perfect corner slices. I can then fit 4 of these pans in the oven at the same time, so I can output 16 perfect corner slices of DSP every 10-15 minutes which seems pretty cool. It also allows you to do more variations of topping combinations which is fun with a crowd.

I've never made DSP before but have made a lot of Sicilian, so I have some partial experience coming in.

The 3 areas I'm interested in experimenting with are: dough recipes to get the right rise and flavor, different cheese combinations to narrow in what I think tastes the best, and whether or not this oven is the right tool for the job.

This past weekend I did my first attempts. I baked one pizza at a time to give me a chance to make adjustments if I mess anything up.

Dough was pretty standard: 75% hydration, 2.5% salt, 50/50 blend of high gluten and low gluten flour from Shepherd's Grain (most recipes seem to call for bread flour, so aimed for something like that with the flour I had on hand), instant yeast (same-day rise this time but I usually do 1-2 days CF). Baked with just cheese then heated sauce added after. Parm added after sauce. In the future I'll cook my own sauce but to keep this simple I just went with Mutti jarred pizza sauce (the only jarred pizza sauce I that I like).

First 2 attempts were brick cheese as the base with piled up cabot white cheddar around the edge. Brick cheese was really quite amazing -- super rich and creamy. Melted great. Cheddar around the edge also worked great -- caramelized very well and had a nice salty kick.

Third pizza was muenster + cheddar to see if muenster (easy to get) approximated brick well enough. I had to mail order the brick cheese which isn't ideal (no place in Seattle sells it from what I know). My hope was that the brick cheese wasn't that special so I could convince myself it wasn't worth the hassle and cost to order. The results so far show that it really is that good -- muenster was fine, but the brick really stood out.

Fourth pizza was all brick (base and piled up along the edge). Was good, but we all liked the balance of the saltier cheddar crust along with the creamy brick cheese as the base -- they contrasted each other quite nicely.

We couldn't eat more so we stopped there. Future combinations to try would be mozzarella and provolone as the base cheese. Provolone (a mix of regular and piccante/aged) is my favorite for Sicilian pizza so I'm curious how it does with DSP. I'm also interested in cutting the brick a bit with maybe mozzarella (maybe 80/20 brick/mozzarella) to reduce the richness/creaminess just a bit.

One baking problem I had was the middle of the pizza poofed up mid bake (dough rising off the pan). The bottom of the pizza did not bake well and was not at all crispy. First 2 pans of pizza did this, but after that I started to poke it as soon as it started rising up and that released the air and and allowed the bottom to bake correctly and crisp up nicely.

All of the bakes took about 15 minutes at around 510-525F. I think the oven itself seemed to perform pretty great for this setup. Bottoms and crusts were super crispy and the top was nicely browned.

For the dough, I would have liked a bit more rise of out it like I get with my Sicilians. Next time I may try going all high-gluten at 80% hydration and see how that fairs. I also didn't add any oil into this dough so I'm curious about adding 1-2% oil to see how that compares.

Overall it was quite successful for the first attempts. Cheese crust came out beautifully and was interesting to see how the different cheeses compared. If anyone has any suggestions on what else to try I'd love to hear it.

Jonathan

Hi, are you still using this oven? Any updates?