JD's Neapolitan

[Simone]

Hi JD how to progressing your Caputo experiments?

[JD]

Hi JD how to progressing your Caputo experiments?

Your oven gets very hot, very quickly! I hope to experiment again this weekend and get some better results with a slightly cooler oven. Don Luigi has given me some good advice, I look forward to trying it out. Will update if successful.

Still very happy with my oven! 

[JD]

Took a small step forward tonight. 61.5% Hydration, 48hr Cape Fear. I'd say the dough was slightly over-fermented but not terrible.

I also tried a new sauce tonight: Wild Oats organic tomato sauce. I was surprised at the ingredient list: Tomato puree, sea salt, sugar, red pepper, citric acid. I don't taste any red pepper, and the sugar is there but not overwhelming. It's not a award winning sauce by any means but not bad for a Walmart find.
 
http://wildoats.com/product-post/organic-tomato-sauce/

Still a lot of work to do, I need to worry less about pictures and focus on the bake.

[Don Luigi]

Hey JD, looking great! Looking at the bottoms you got the temperature dialed in! These are around 90 sec? What did you change compared to the last bakes? Did you measure floor temp?
What's the topping on the second pie? Is that salsiccia and chives?
Great stuff!

[dylandylan]

Took a small step forward tonight. 61.5% Hydration, 48hr Cape Fear. I'd say the dough was slightly over-fermented but not terrible.

I also tried a new sauce tonight: Wild Oats organic tomato sauce. I was surprised at the ingredient list: Tomato puree, sea salt, sugar, red pepper, citric acid. I don't taste any red pepper, and the sugar is there but not overwhelming. It's not a award winning sauce by any means but not bad for a Walmart find.
 
http://wildoats.com/product-post/organic-tomato-sauce/

Still a lot of work to do, I need to worry less about pictures and focus on the bake.

Very nice JD!!

[deb415611]

very nice Josh

[JD]

Hey JD, looking great! Looking at the bottoms you got the temperature dialed in! These are around 90 sec? What did you change compared to the last bakes? Did you measure floor temp?
What's the topping on the second pie? Is that salsiccia and chives?
Great stuff!

Thanks Don, I'm much happier with the bottoms on these. I took your advice and moved the fire from the center much earlier, around 30 minutes. At that point it was around 700F, so I kept a good fire going and brought it to 850* at the back of the oven. I liked baking all the way in the back, it was more even heat than the middle/front.

The margarita was actually 60s, the rest were more like 90s.

I made a few changes this bake:

1) Lower floor temp
2) Raised to 61.5% hydration, still miss that tenderness of 63% so I'm going to raise it again next time
3) Did not worry about protecting the cornice as much. I think the extra weight of dough from protecting the cornice causes that black ring to form. I was really happy with the consistency of color on this bake and I think this helped, but I did not get great spring as a result.


Yes Italian sausage & chives, it was pretty good.





Thanks Dylan & Deb!

[CaptBob]

Well done Josh!

[TXCraig1]

Looking really good.

[Don Luigi]

Interesting you had the fire in the back - need to try this as well one of my future bakes! Door on or off?
BTW, last time I used small very dry pieces of wood and bark (see photo) and put them on the fire ca. 30 seconds prior to shoving in the pizza making sure I had a hot, blazing fire going for the top heat. I saw a couple pizzaiolos do something similar with saw dust (Anthony Mangieri comes to mind) and must say it really worked well for me...

[mbrulato]

I'm running out of things to say, Josh.   

[JD]

Interesting you had the fire in the back - need to try this as well one of my future bakes! Door on or off?
BTW, last time I used small very dry pieces of wood and bark (see photo) and put them on the fire ca. 30 seconds prior to shoving in the pizza making sure I had a hot, blazing fire going for the top heat. I saw a couple pizzaiolos do something similar with saw dust (Anthony Mangieri comes to mind) and must say it really worked well for me...

Actually the fire was on the side, but I put the pizza all the way to the back.  I used to take temperatures in the middle but this time I went all the way to the back. I put the door on for 20s, which is when I make my first turn. After 20s I leave it off because it just gets in the way. What do you do?

I also add small pieces to get a hot fire, but next time I think I want to put one medium sized piece so I can sustain a large fire instead of adding small pieces before every bake. The coals pile up quickly when always adding small pieces. Looking at your picture just gave me an idea though. I bet if I used hardwood charcoal it would do a good job of making a hot fire that doesn't burn off too quickly.


The problem with Neapolitan is it takes 2-3 days of prep but only 20 minutes to bake. I hardly have time to practice, it will take me forever to get my 10,000hrs!

Looking really good.

I'm running out of things to say, Josh.   

Thanks!



 

[Don Luigi]

JD,  I am baking in the back right corner of the oven as well. Door on, about 30 seconds, then turn, door on again, wait and watch the pie, at around 45 seconds I check the bottom and either dome the pie or put the door back on and wait another 10 seconds...

[JD]

Yes Italian sausage & chives, it was pretty good.

I'd like to make a correction, as I just learned chives & green onions are not the same thing     I used peeled green onions on that pizza.

[Don Luigi]

Thanks for the info JD

[JD]

Not sure how I feel about tonight's bake. The dough was definitely over-fermented, which is pretty wild because for this 45hr ferment I only used 0.7% starter & between 64-66* temps.  These were 62.5% hydration and I recently read in Craig's garage thread how his 64% hydration doughs were significantly faster to ferment than his 60%. Craig if you're reading this, does that still hold true?

All between 50-60 second bake times:

1. Marinara
2. Margarita
3. Dates & caramelized onions
4. Habanero & lime marinated shrimp, sliced red onion, topped with fresh cilantro. Sounds weird but was the only pizza we finished completely. Could use a finishing sauce next time.


I tried out some pallet wood right before launch, and it took off really good but quickly slowed down to a very slow burn. I'm not sure what type of wood it was, but definitely was not a hardwood and kind've screwed with my balance a bit.

[PizzaJerk]

You might want to steer clear of pallet wood, you never know what was carried on it (chemicals).



Anthony

[Pab]

Not sure how I feel about tonight's bake. The dough was definitely over-fermented, which is pretty wild because for this 45hr ferment I only used 0.7% starter & between 64-66* temps.  These were 62.5% hydration and I recently read in Craig's garage thread how his 64% hydration doughs were significantly faster to ferment than his 60%. Craig if you're reading this, does that still hold true?

All between 50-60 second bake times:

1. Marinara
2. Margarita
3. Dates & caramelized onions
4. Habanero & lime marinated shrimp, sliced red onion, topped with fresh cilantro. Sounds weird but was the only pizza we finished completely. Could use a finishing sauce next time.


I tried out some pallet wood right before launch, and it took off really good but quickly slowed down to a very slow burn. I'm not sure what type of wood it was, but definitely was not a hardwood and kind've screwed with my balance a bit.

Pizza picture (129) looks so much like a naan bread.

[deb415611]

nice Josh

[Don Luigi]

Hey Josh, these look incredibly light and puffy - naan bread like as mentioned earlier. Pretty different from your previous  bakes and different from what you see here most of the time but I really like these alot!