Yesterday I baked 2 pies in my home oven using Central Milling's Tony Gemignani artisan 00 flour. This flour is malted and designed to use in an oven at temps of 500F - 600F. My oven has a max temp setting of 550F and has induction baking and roasting. My oven set up was 2 pizza stones , one about 6-8 inches from top broiler and one on the second lowest rack from the bottom. I pre heated the oven at max convection temp of 550F for > 1 hr. !st pie was started on top stone after turning the broiler on HI and moved to lower stone after 2 min. total cook time for both pies was 4 1/2 min. Second pie was started on bottom stone at 550F and moved to top stone after 2 1/2 min with broiler on high.
So how did the flour perform?
1st observation was during hand mixing. The dough was a bit stiff and not as soft as my Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. The kneading process took longer to achieve a smooth dough ball surface.
My recipe was: for 2 pies
flour 100% 366.5g ( sifted)
water 62% 227.2 g ( 80F)
yeast IDY 0.5%, 1.8g ( dissolved in 25g of water 105F)
salt ( diamond crystal kosher) 2.35%, 8.6g ( dissolved in 50g warm water}
Evoo 3% 11g
Dough temp after kneading 74.5F.
dough ball weight 295g/296g
Dough balls 48hr CF. As seen in pics I believe 48hours was too long fermentation considering the amount of yeast, ( see pics of dough ball with no spring back), will decrease yeast to 0.3% next time.
Dough balls out of fridge 2.75 hrs at room temp prior to opening
Dough ball open easily but dough was not as strong as anticipated. Perhaps due to over fermentation.
Crust was somewhat crunchy at cornice but softer at the end of the pie slice. I attribute this to my inability to open my dough in a consistent manner with uniform thickness from edge to middle.
Overall I really liked the crust texture and would rate my cook at 8-9 / 10. I am no expert however.
I have to say that I liked the flour and look forward to using again with minor adjustments in recipe. I may even mix 50/50 with the Caputo Pizzeria flour, still undecided?
Mark
