36" in Seattle

[Raffy]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Hi Keith,

Based on the pics you provided, I can only deduce that your cooking floor temp is too low. I cook my pizzas at around 400 - 425 degrees celsius resulting in a thin crunchy layer outside and a nice "bready" (for want of a better term) layer inside. If the bottom side takes too long to cook, it will result in a tough and chewy crust. If you say that you cook in the 600 F, roughly 315 C, I definitely think temperature is the culprit.

How soon after the firing do you start cooking? The dome gets hot pretty quick but its a matter of getting the cooking floor to "catch up" with the dome's temp. For a commercial oven (running 24/7), we had to wait one hour after firing til we could start cooking in the morning. Even when we could feel the blazing heat from the opening, we knew that the floor still wasn't hot enough til the prescribed waiting time was over.

About the ash, even a thin barrier of ash will affect the transmission of heat to the crust. In the pizzeria where I used to work, if we got the cooking floor too hot, we would scatter/throw rock salt onto the floor to keep the crust from burning. It was an effective method that we used when too much fuel was added to the fire.

Lastly, I recommend you wait a while after you have wiped the cooking floor with a wet rag. It may only be seconds but thats enough to reduce the cooking floor temp.

Sorry for the long answer. Hope this solves your problem.

Raffy

[olddude]

Re: 36" in Seattle

So what your saying is to much (a*s) keeps it from getting hot?

or just moving the a*s makes it hotter lol

this would answer a real big question around here
to much a*s could be her fault
need to move ones a*s would be my fault

[sjmeff]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Keith - is the fire you have going licking the side of the dome? In my experience, the fire needs to be big enough to curl up the inside of your dome almost reaching the keystone (and the logs should touch the dome to encourage drawing the flame up the dome wall). In my oven, that's critical for keeping the floor temps in the 750-800+ range. As soon as I move the ashes over to one side, I immediately throw on some logs and keep some burning while I'm cooking pizza.

Like Tscarborough, I also sometimes remove a shovel or two of ashes if my initial fire was really big. I think too many ashes keeps the oven from getting really hot.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Well, the way I do it is remove most of the coals and ash, then put just some coals and more wood in. I will just wait until I take the door off to put them back in.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

But that would kill the fire. You are specifically supposed to keep the fire going during pizza. I agree with your hunch though, I'm wondering if the ash and coals are actually insulating the floor. Perhaps what I need to do is push the fire to one side, get it roaring on one side, then wait a few minutes to cook pizza. Maybe then the heat would beat down on the floor and bring it up to temp.

I need to read the relevant FB books on this again. I'm confused by my floor temp.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I get about the same, but the floor goes up to about 700. I want to build a low rack to keep the fire (and the insulating ashes)off the floor. I also plan on putting the door on for about 10-15 minutes next time to try and get some equalization after I de-ash it.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

What's the reason Raffy? Even if your aren't sure, share the wisdom. I think the floor was around 600. I don't know how to make it hotter than that since the oven was fully blast and fully cleared with a 900 dome. I didn't precisely time the pizzas this latest attempt. Not two long, maaaybe longer than the prescribed 90s, but I'm not sure.

[Raffy]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Hey Keith,

Do you have the temperature reading for the cooking floor as you're cooking? How long does it take for the pizzas to cook? Can you provide pics of the pizza crust cross-section and underneath? I think I know the reason of your tough crust but I need the info for the above questions to confirm.

Raffy

[david s]

Re: 36" in Seattle

The semolina addition will add crunch to your pizza base when used with any flour. We always use it add about 7%

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Thanks, but I would rather learn how to use proper pizza flour first. Once I get basic pizza figured out I might try experimenting with other things. As for the my routine, it's basically the instructions in the FB pizza ebook. I'm a little shady on the details because my wife made yesterday's dough (I was outside doing construction on the oven). I'm sure she's following the recipe.

I handled the dough after she mixed it, so I know what happened from that point forward. I dumped it out, it was very light and sticky, which I took as a good sign. I folded it in thirds, rotated it, folded it in thirds again, plunked it in a bowl for two hours, seam down. Then I took that out and quartered it (a whole recipe according to FB), folded each chunk and rolled it into a ball, put in tupperware for another hour, seam down. Then made pizza.

[tfasz]

Re: 36" in Seattle

What is your dough mixing/rising routine?

I've been using Sourdough starter for the past year, and have been really happy with it for both pizza dough and home made bread (cooked in our kitchen oven for the time being). I usually mix the dough on a Wed/Thur night for pizza and then let it sit in the fridge for 2-3 days and cook on the weekends. The crusts have been turning out great though I prefer using a mix of Caputo and King Arthur flour as 100% Caputo does not seem to brown/crisp well in our kitchen oven.

I'm more than happy to pass along some starter if you want to swing by sometime - once you get used to it, it is really easy to use and keep going. I haven't touched my yeast in the last 6 months.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Hey Kebwi,
Try adding some semoiina to your dough mix. Also, are you using pizza flour?

We're using the uber stuff, the Caputo Pizzeria flour. You can see a photo of the 55lb blue bag in one of my previous posts. Should I still add semolina to that or did you only mean to add that to "cheapo" flour?

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Hey Keb,,,
Your planters are looking great !!! pizzas and bread are looking good too... Your attention to detail is impressive, I wish I could help you with the dough recipes bot thats not my areas,,, Knowin you I'm sure it will work out

Cheers
Mark

[david s]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Hey Kebwi,
Try adding some semoiina to your dough mix. Also, are you using pizza flour?

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Finally finished building the planter walls. I've been chipping away at them slowly over the last week. The weather has not helped.

Made pizzas seven and eight, thai chicken and hawaiian. They worked very well. I have noticed a trend however. My crust is always very tough, veritably difficult to eat. One has to positively gnaw through it. Any suggestions would be welcome, I'm not sure what to change, either in recipe, dough handling/preparation, or cooking practice.

Made the first real bread. We've made store-frozen bread before but not from-scratch bread. This is an Outback Steakhouse copycat recipe that we like a lot. We've made it in the house before and thought we'd try it as our inaugural WFO bread. We put a few in loaf pans because they weren't rising very effectively and were worried they would stay flat when we cooked them. However, the three we cooked directly on the hearth puffed up vertically very nicely, so we could have done all of them without the pans it turns out.

Note, that since the bread's recipe online assumed people were using normal ovens, it prescribed temperatures in the 350 range, so that is how we cooked them. The hearth was 350-375 and the dome was about 400-450, door (air) thermometer registering about 220. I sprayed mist in the oven a few times while baking. When I follow the FB hearth bread recipes I intend to cook them at the higher temperature associated with such breads, but since we didn't know what effects what, we stuck with the lower temperatures that corresponding to the recipe we were following. I'm not really sure how this all plays out.

On a final note, one can easily observe that I fully cleared my dome this time (both in-oven photos show this). Woo hoo!

Cheers!