Norma,
What I was wondering is if the bake times for a 12" pizza and a 16" pizza in your oven are different and, if so, how do you know when they reach the same final condition? For example, if the 12" pizza were baked proportionately longer than the 16" pizza, might not the rim be dryer and crispier? Also, if the sauce and cheese quantities are not proportionate, that might also have an effect on the bake times. I would think that the best comparison is to make two dough balls for two 12" pizzas, with one of the dough balls having the ascorbic acid and ginger, using the same weights of sauce and cheese on both pizzas, and, if possible, baking them simultaneously in your deck oven and then pulling them at the same time. This would remove pizza size and related aspects as variables.
Peter
Peter,
I don’t usually time bake times with any of my pizzas at market. I just keep opening the door on the deck oven and rotating the pies or using a screen if I think the bottom is getting to dark. My deck temperatures vary all over the place according to where the pies are placed. I don’t understand why that is, but usually a smaller pie will be finished in about the same amount of time. My deck oven doesn’t lose deck temperatures as fast as my home oven using a pizza stone. I can let the door open for a much longer time, and the deck temperatures don’t fall much. As can be seen in many pictures I have posted for reference to how the pies are baking, my deck oven does bake differently than my home oven. I guess it is the mass of deck oven stones that helps, and also I can hear my gas turning on much quicker than my home oven would reheat the coil in my electric home oven. If I would let my regular home oven door open as long as I do at market, my pizza stone would lose more heat. I also guess, because there is less head room in my deck oven, than my home oven, that also helps to maintain the temperatures.
I do have a timer at market and can make two Lehmann doughs next week, (one with ginger and
ascorbic acid and one without) to see what happens, but if I put them (with the same amount of cheese and sauce), almost simultaneously in the oven, I still am not sure if they will bake the same because of the different temperatures of my deck stone. On the right side of my deck oven the temperature seem to be higher than the left side. My top deck also is a lower in temperature. I don’t know why that is either, because I think heat would rise and make the top deck hotter, but it doesn’t. Maybe the bottom deck stays hotter because that is where the gas burner is. The gas burner goes underneath the middle of the whole bottom of my bottom deck.
I didn’t use a screen for this pizza and just wondered why the crust did get lighter in the bottom of the crust and was also crisper. I hadn’t seen that before in my deck oven. Usually I take a pie out of the oven when the cheese looks finished.
If you still think what you posted would be a good test, I will do it next week. I know you are always looking at variables.
Norma