Cooking thicker pizzas

[mike]

hello all! has anyone seen a wood-fired oven used for thicker and heavier pizzas? here in seattle people are very fond of thin crust naples-style pizza... but in the farming country of eastern washington they want their pizza to be more substantial.

so i'm curious about using a wood-fired oven for pizzas with more topping, such as american style or thick-crust pizza.

1. cooking time: how much longer does a thicker pizza need?
2. temperature: do you have to cook at a different temperature?
3. technique: are there any other differences in how the pizza is made?
4. restaurants: is anyone currently doing this?

mike

[dsyl1]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

dont have any experience with this project in my oven, but it sounds like you'll need to use a deep dish pan to execute

[Tscarborough]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

1. cooking time: how much longer does a thicker pizza need?
7-10 minutes
2. temperature: do you have to cook at a different temperature?
Yes, 500-550
3. technique: are there any other differences in how the pizza is made?
Bigger dough ball in relation to size.
4. restaurants: is anyone currently doing this?
None that I know of.

[texassourdough]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Hi Mike!

Making a thick crust pizza with a WFO is a bit like driving a screw with a hammer - wrong tool for the job. Oven control at the right temperature would be a nightmare. WFOs can easily be maintained at 650 or so to 800, but the temperature of open flames is not consistent with maintaining reasonable oven temp at 500 or so. That is what they make deck ovens for!

Just for grins I tried to make thicker crust "substantial" pizzas in my WFO shortly after it was finished and I never was able to cook the dough before the top burned.

Sort of like polishing your car with sandpaper!

[Tman1]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Well, the other two T's certainly have more experience, but we used Wolfgang Pucks dough recipe and I think it might fit this bill. We couldn't get the dough stretched too thin because it would rip, but I always thought the crust was a little thicker than I would prefer. It is an easy dough to make though, and no one ever complained about it.

Oh, I didn't do anything different with the oven than I do with my new, higher hydration dough.

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

I think that if you approached the thicker pizza more like bread you will do fine. This requires you to remove all the coals and swab the floor. Or you could use the same method that you would use for a ciabatta with the fire still going but you cover your thick pizza with a cover for the first bit then remove the cover for the proper browning. I saw Dan Wing use this method in his class. But not on pizza. I think it's very doable

[BriggsARNP]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

I have read a lot of posts about people cooking just about anything in their WFO. I can't imagine that you wouldn't be able to do it but from what I understand (I haven't made an oven yet) you might just have to wait to the next day after doing pizza nepalitano. By the way where are you at? Eastern WA?
Bevan

[brickie in oz]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Ive done focaccia in the oven which is really only a thick pizza..
I used normal dough and they were delish.

[nissanneill]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

mike,
the other replies have pretty well hit the nail on the head.
The thicker the base and the thicker the toppings, then the longer it is going to need to get the heat into and through them to cook. Unfortunately when using a wood fired oven and at higher temperatures, you will burn the base and the top of your toppings before the dough is cooked through.
I start cooking in my oven when over 500˚C and the first pizza is done in close to 1 minute, my wife waits for a while as she prefers a thicker base and cooks hers when the temperature has dropped but I haven't measured it but would be around 440˚C. She does not load heaps of toppings on her bases.
I would suggest trying a longer cooking time when your oven is around 350˚C.

Cheers.

Neill

[RTflorida]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Here goes, I do all three - thin, medium (kind of like a Pizza Hut pan pizza), and thick Chicago style deep dish. I grew up in Ohio, geographically in the middle of Chicago and NY and I guess over the years everyone acquired a taste for medium thickness pizza. The mom & pop pizza shops were doing 'pan pizza' long before it became a marketing slogan.
Thin crust is where our ovens shine, fire to the side, high hydration dough, 700+ degrees F, and done in under 2 minutes.

Medium crust works pretty well, I wouldn't attempt at anything over 600 F, you will burn it before its done. Best with little or no fire and just coals in the oven. The 7-10 minute time frame is about spot on.

Deep dish I have only tried a couple of times in my WFO and can honestly say it is not worth going through the whole firing process. A true deep dish crust can't handle over 500 F, and that has nothing to with the thickness. The thickness adds more problems for high temp cooking. Your best bet is to stick with your indoor oven at around 450 F, 475 F tops. It will take at least 20-25 minutes. Some say it is bread like, I don't know about that; to me it has a density closer to pound cake.
I love it all, if you call it pizza I will eat it.

RT

[texassourdough]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Faith is right that you could bake a thick crust pizza in a WFO. But the oven will cool rapidly with the door open - and when you open the door. You could load the oven with a bunch of pizzas and bake them...But you might not be able to do two or three batches and get great results. The oven will cool too much. And reloading wood and firing to get it hot again is not a "quick" process. If you like challenges you can do it but it would be very difficult in a commercial environment where you cook to order (so you need continuous operation).

[dmun]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Best with little or no fire and just coals in the oven

I think the key is however you do it, you do it on the declining temperature curve, and that's hard to maintain in a commercial environment, which I think was the intention of the original poster. It's one thing to cook a fruit tart when the fire's burning out, and another entirely to do six minute pizzas all night long.

I think windage's huge oven runs at lower temperatures, but I'm not exactly sure how he manages his fire to do that.

[RTflorida]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

dmun makes alot of sense (as usual). In the sizes of ovens most of us have, say 32" - 42" , it would be pretty difficult to keep a constant temp in the rage needed for thicker crust. Windage can probably pull it off with that monster oven of his, keeping a small fire going and having enough floor space that the whole oven does not spike in temp when he has to add another log. I'm sure it took him alot of practice but I'm sure it is doable with that amount of real estate. I'm thinking I would have to switch to charcoal to have any shot at avoiding continual temp spikes in my 36"...I'm wishing I had a commercial sized oven (at least for a day) to experiment with this.

RT

[texassourdough]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Hi DMun/RT!

I don't think it would even work in a big oven very well because if you are loading pies you will (eventually) depress that area of the hearth that you are using and with a small fire you won't be recharging it fast enough to keep up. Hearth surface temps get depressed 200 degrees F or so by bread and rely on the refractory heat to build the hearth temp back up as the bread bakes. At 550 start temp and a 40 minute bake the bottom is only "brown". A pizza with all its wet stuff could depress the oven further and while a freshly charged oven should have enough heat load to do a couple of batches, I have my concerns.

[Faith In Virginia]

Re: Cooking thicker pizzas

Sorry I missed the commercial aspect of the question. I'll bet that if you started out the really thick pizza in a pan and use a second pan as a cover for the first part of the baking perhaps half way to 3/4 pulled the cover off and let brown up you could have a great pizza even in a really hot oven. Some experimenting I'm sure will get you the results your looking for.

Now I need to look for some pans and give it a go myself I was not raised as a "can't do" kinda girl! Love a good challenge. Thanks