A PHILOSOPHY OF PIZZA NAPOLETANISMO!

[Pulcinella]

Dear friends, I finally got to test my new biscotto oven floor last night. Below is a video and pictures showing my very first bake on the new oven floor. Before launching the pizza, the temperature of the oven floor registered at 940ºF (504ºC). (At this temperature, my original oven floor would have completely burned the bottom of my pizzas within seconds.)

My oven was preheated by a propane torch for 2 hours (in order to avoid fumes) and then by wood fire for 1 hour. I used a 16-hour Caputo pizzeria dough, which had a hydration of about 68 percent. About an hour after this bake, the bottom of my pizzas baked much, much better than what is shown in the last picture, below. I conclude that, the Saputo biscotto tiles have been the best thing ever happened to my oven. Good day!

Omid


https://youtu.be/P49iCgH8fPM

Eccellente   What's on the pizza?

The builder of your oven is offering napoli style wood fired ovens now. Any thoughts?

[Pizza Napoletana]

Omid, great to see and hear you are happy with the Saputo Floor. I love mine too.

Dear friends, thanks for your comments. My new biscotto floor has significantly changed the overall performance of my oven. For the test that I conducted last Monday in reply #2997, I had made 18 dough balls, and I baked them during a course of 5 hours to see how the oven floor behaved. The oven performed beyond my expectations. By the 5th hour, the oven floor was about 990F and no pizzas got burned. So, Craig, I am not surprised that you baked your pizzas at over 1000ᴼF without burning the bottoms. The Saputo biscotto tiles have impressive thermal properties. Good day!

Omid

[Pizza Napoletana]

Omid,

It is great the new oven floor worked out so well for you.  My Pizzone with the Saputo floor is supposed to show up on Friday.  So, of course, the weather forecast is for rain/snow that day!

I am so excited for you! I look forward to seeing what wonders you will do with your new wood-fired oven. Have a great day!

Omid

[Pizza Napoletana]

Eccellente   What's on the pizza?

The builder of your oven is offering napoli style wood fired ovens now. Any thoughts?

Thank you! The pizza was garnished with kashk bademjan and buffalo mozzarella. Kashk bademjan (meaning, "sour creamy milk & eggplant") is a traditional Iranian eggplant spread/dip that has ancient origins. It is made of fire-roasted, oriental eggplants crushed and mixed with:

1. Walnut paste,
2. Kashk, which is sheep milk that has been fermented, dehydrated, powdered, and rehydrated into a paste (see the first picture below and this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashk),
3. Crushed fresh/roasted garlic,
4. Fresh lemon juice (optional),
5. Turmeric (optional),
6. Salt, black pepper, and smoked paprika,

At last, the mixture is topped with:

1. Dried crushed mint leaves fried in extra virgin olive oil, and
2. Caramelized onions

The second picture, below, shows a kashk bademjan I prepared recently. I neglected to top it with caramelized onions. The last picture, which I downloaded from the internet, shows a kashk bademjan prepared and beautifully topped with kashk, caramelized onions, fried mint, and parsley. I should point out that kashk bademjan can be prepared in many different ways.

I love kashk bademjan, but, in my opinion as an Iranian-American, kashk bademjan on pizza tastes too ethnically Persian; I would not even call it a pizza. However, my wife, who was born and raised in Kentucky and has no Persian background, completely disagrees with me. She thinks it is an excellent topping for Neapolitan pizza.

Thank you for brining to my attention the Neapolitan-style oven built by Giuseppe Crisa of Forno Classico. I am not familiar with this particular model. Upon doing a brief online research, it seems that the oven has a smaller door and flatter dome than my oven. I wished this model was available when Giuseppe built my oven. Good day!

Omid

[bradtri]

Omid,
  I'm very happy for you to have successfully made it through the process of getting your Saputos cut/installed and now tested!!  I was constantly checking your thread for a while to see the first results!!

   I'm always amazed when I see a picture of high hydration doughballs like yours that have grown together, yet you produce such a beautifully shaped pizza with lots of lift.  If you ever happen to have your video camera out again while baking, I'd love to see your dough technique in action!!    

[TXCraig1]

I'm always amazed when I see a picture of high hydration doughballs like yours that have grown together, yet you produce such a beautifully shaped pizza with lots of lift. 

I think the very same thing every time I see Omid's pizza.

[fagilia]

Nice one Omid.
I just came back from Napoli and i brought the biscotti with me.
Iam going to take all firebricks on the floor out, grind them down to 4cm, put them back and the place a 3cm layer of saputo biscotti on top of that. Hopefully i will have good results too .....
I showed the guys at Saputo your work and they were impressed. They thought we were all a bit crazy on pizzamaking

[CJ]

Dear friends, thanks for your comments. My new biscotto floor has significantly changed the overall performance of my oven. For the test that I conducted last Monday in reply #2997, I had made 18 dough balls, and I baked them during a course of 5 hours to see how the oven floor behaved. The oven performed beyond my expectations. By the 5th hour, the oven floor was about 990F and no pizzas got burned. So, Craig, I am not surprised that you baked your pizzas at over 1000ᴼF without burning the bottoms. The Saputo biscotto tiles have impressive thermal properties. Good day!

Omid

Omid
Who did you get the tiles from ? I am in northern California and would like to try them over my existing floor. My wood oven is of modular design.
Thank you
CJ

[TXCraig1]

Omid
Who did you get the tiles from ? I am in northern California and would like to try them over my existing floor. My wood oven is of modular design.
Thank you
CJ

The Saputo tiles came from Pizza Party.

[Soulboy]

Actually I think they came "through" Pizzaparty.

You can find Fornace Saputo directly here:

https://m.facebook.com/Fornace-Saputo-618184551553967/

[Pizza Napoletana]

Monsieur Sub, have you ever been to the sourdough heritage library of Puratos in Belgium?

I invite everyone to take a look at these amazing videos made available by the Puratos sourdough library.


https://youtu.be/6TeYb-uod8Y


https://youtu.be/tH_qc0NiumU


https://youtu.be/eabnJyDP23Y

Here is a virtual tour of the sourdough library (make sure to view the available videos for each sourdough). This is a gold mine for any sourdough lover. Good day!

http://www.poppr.be/virtualtour/puratos/?nc=true#p=scene_p1

Here's a new video by the Puratos sourdough library. Good day!


https://youtu.be/Mzj0RgC0W4E

[Sequioa]

Dear DannyG, I am not sure how to approach this subject or how to verbalize it without being misleading. Let me try this. . . As a general rule, the shorter is the duration of the first bulk fermentation, the slower will be the collective rate of fermentation of the dough balls that are formed after the conclusion of the first bulk fermentation. Since the fermentative micro-organisms within dough multiply exponentially, I assume that the sooner the dough mass is divided into dough balls, statistically the slower will be the collective fermentation rate, which in turn will be productive of less lactic acid (sourness). (I do not know how cogent my preceding rationale is, and please notice I did not account for variables such as the amount of salt, temperature, and etc.) Hence, a first bulk fermentation of short duration seems to set up the stage for a ball fermentation of long duration, that can result (as shown in the picture below) in a soft and delicate crust that is full of flavors—just like Tempranillo grape juice which needs time, a long time, to slowly, but steadily, ferment and reach the state of transformation into Tempranillo wine. It is a process that should not be rushed. Although it is a protracted process, it is commercially viable.

In respect to determining the duration of the first bulk fermentation, I primarily go by feel, which I will attempt to describe, with a bit of anthropomorphization. The quality (i.e., the fluidity, suppleness, and gracefulness) of the dough skin embodying the dough flesh is quite important to me. I want it to graciously yield to my touch without it being hesitant, but with assuring pride and confidence! I do not want the dough taste and smell lactical, other than an allusive gentle whisper bearing the glad tidings. I want equal and uniform distribution and absorption of all moisture by the dough. In other words, I look for a degree of order or homogeneity of dough texture (which is indicative of homogeneity of dough temperature) throughout the dough mass. Hence, the warmer is the ambient temperature, the shorter will probably be the first bulk fermentation. Naturally, experience and experimentation—while letting our senses of sight, smell, touch, and taste be our guides under the faculty of judgment—are great teachers in discerning and learning the subtleties of the "feel". Once they are internalized, one will reflexively identify them without much conscious attention.

You may want to compare the aforementioned description with "point of pasta", as one can interpret the aforementioned description as a prolongation of pasta point. In that sense, what I call "dough cosmogony"—i.e., the way water, flour, salt, and culture are mixed and kneaded as a productive cause of a mass of dough, including the type, quantity, and temperature of the the elements—has primal impact upon determining the duration of the first bulk fermentation. Fundamentally, it is all about imposition of order upon the chaos. The word "cosmogony" itself is a derivative of two ancient Greek words: Kósmos (meaning, "order") and genesis (meaning, "origin" or "productive cause of a thing"). I hope all these make sense.

The second picture below is our corner of the cosmos (the Andromeda galaxy, our galaxy) which was captured by the Hubble telescope some years ago. And, what is absolutely mesmerizing is that when this picture was shot, we—all of us—were in it, toward the lower left! Have a cosmic day!

Respectfully,
Omid

rise info 

[Pizza Napoletana]

rise info 

What in the cosmos was I thinking when I wrote that post more than four years ago?

I had read that in Bulgaria and certain parts of the Middle East, they sometimes use cheese brine to make sourdough starters. About a month ago, I made such an attempt out of curiosity, although I had done something similar with sour yogurt before. I successfully made sourdough culture with the brine of my favorite Bulgarian cheese known as "sirene". Frankly, I do not know to what degree the brine contributed to the formation of the sourdough. Are there bacteria and/or yeasts that can ferment both sugars of milk and sugars derived from wheat starch? I need to do some research on that.

Regardless, a sourdough culture has emerged out of a mixture of the sirene brine and wheat flour. And, it has been performing satisfactorily so far in making sourdough breads that are sour not in a typical way. I do not know how to describe the taste, but the sour note in the breads is of a different octave than those of other sourdough breads I have had before.

Recently, I made Neapolitan dough with the starter for a small wedding reception at my house. I baked the pizzas in my Forno Classico oven equipped with Saputo biscotto floor tiles. Below are some pictures.

Now that my oven has a new floor (which has totally changed the dynamics of my oven), this time I did an experiment with baking with and without flames. The pizza marghertia, below, was baked while there were a canopy of flames hanging over the pizza. And, the asparagus pizza, below, was baked while there were virtually no flames in the oven. As you can see, there is a considerable difference between how the two pizzas baked. Since my wood-fired oven is very small (25 inches of internal floor diameter), pizzas, such as the marghertia, can easily get overwhelmed during baking in close proximity to the source of energy. Good day!

Omid

[TXCraig1]

Are there bacteria and/or yeasts that can ferment both sugars of milk and sugars derived from wheat starch? I need to do some research on that.

I don't think there is any naturally occurring yeast that can metabolize lactose. Lots of lactic acid bacteria can.

[MotoMannequin]

What in the cosmos was I thinking when I wrote that post more than four years ago?

Good one Omid. Let me say that for one, I enjoy your writing style, despite the cosmic nature sometimes. Part science, part alchemy, seems about right..

[Pizza Napoletana]

Good one Omid. Let me say that for one, I enjoy your writing style, despite the cosmic nature sometimes. Part science, part alchemy, seems about right..

Thank you!

Let me share with you a picture of my new pizza studio which my wife completely pimped up last Monday while I was gone for three hours. She has done a marvelous job. Good day!

Omid

[MotoMannequin]

Maybe if you put a bed in the corner then I could move in? 

[Pete-zza]

Thank you!

Let me share with you a picture of my new pizza studio which my wife completely pimped up last Monday while I was gone for three hours. She has done a marvelous job. Good day!

Omid

Omid,

I can smell the incense and I can hear the Iranian music .

Peter

[parallei]

Thank you!

Let me share with you a picture of my new pizza studio which my wife completely pimped up last Monday while I was gone for three hours. She has done a marvelous job. Good day!

Omid

Your wife did a great job!  You're a lucky man.

[PizzaJerk]

Lavish!