Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

[heliman]

I found this 5 part video by Tony Gemignani quite interesting:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

[Lburou]

Re: Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

Thanks for the links

I enjoyed watching them and learning as he went along.

[scottz]

Re: Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

Cheers Rossco, some points to take when I try my first 3 day cold ferm. Good to watch too!

[heliman]

Re: Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

Looks really great Doug... I think I'll give the recipe a go sometime too. Interesting to see the results with such a low hydration - definitely seems to produce a different texture when compared to my usual 66% mix.

[heliman]

Re: Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

Sounds good ...

One observation - there seems very little charring under the base .. could that be due to the low hydration?? At anything over 400 C I get lots of charing with my 66% brew...

[scott123]

Re: Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

Doug and Rossco, it's the protein in flour that traps water. The less protein in your flour, the less water you should be using. Even though Caputo pizzeria flour has a protein level in the vicinity of your Allied flours (11%ish), it's milled under extremely careful conditions to produce less heat/less protein damage, so it acts like a much higher protein flour. Even though Tony Gemignani is not that knowledgeable about Neapolitan pizza (78 hour fermentation?!), he's right on the money when he talks about the 00 acting like a much higher protein flour in the way that it absorbs all the water and isn't tacky.

If the Neapolitans are working with a flour that acts like it contains 12-13% protein and using a range of hydration from 56-62%, then, with your 11% flours, you should be using less water than they are. Either that, or you might want to think about giving the 12.5% protein Perfection Bakers Flour a try. That should give you much more Caputo-ish results, imo. Even with 12.5%, to achieve the leoparding that you're looking for, you never want to exceed 62% for Neapolitan pizza. And you want to be working with a hearth temp of at least 455 C. and a dome temp of 550, assuming you're working with a traditional firebrick hearth.