cooking at 300-400

[JohnR]

Re: cooking at 300-400

Miscovich's book has been mentioned elsewhere... but I second your opinion of the book. My wife bought it for me as a present when I finished our wfo. I used it tonight to get dough ready for a bread bake tomorrow.

I've had a little problem with pizza and ashes... so I wonder if you could "build" a brick curb between the fire banked on the side and the area where pizza will be cooked to keep the two apart. You'd still get flames lapping across the dome and if the pizza hit the curb it wouldn't be a complete mess...

Re: the topic of the thread, I am enjoying learning to use the majority of the heat curve... Miscovich's book is organized according to the steady heat decline and how to get the most out of one firing.

[Tscarborough]

Re: cooking at 300-400

Some people use a metal ash guard to keep the coals and ash from falling onto the pizza, as well as to shield the near side of the pizza from burning. I don't, but can certainly see the utility of it especially in a small oven like mine.

I like to cook a NY/New haven type pizza, not a Neapolitan style, so I have to ride the curve down from 900+ degrees to about 750 on the walls and 650 on the floor. I normally cook 1 or 2 Neapolitan style to cool it down, then cook another 4 to 6 at my preferred temps on any given firing of the oven.

As noted, every oven is different, and experience with your oven is really what it takes other than general guidelines.

Before building an oven you need to decide why you are building it, i.e. what you want to use it for. Bread ovens are very different from Neapolitan pizza ovens, and general purpose ovens are different from both of those. The FB Pompeii oven is a general purpose oven, but is still designed for more than casual use. It is based on a subsidence design dating back thousands of years when efficiency meant the difference between eating and not eating, so it is not tuned to modern convenience.

[kstronach]

Re: cooking at 300-400

I like to cook a NY/New haven type pizza, not a Neapolitan style, so I have to ride the curve down from 900+ degrees to about 750 on the walls and 650 on the floor. I normally cook 1 or 2 Neapolitan style to cool it down, then cook another 4 to 6 at my preferred temps on any given firing of the oven.

What dough do you use for NY style pizza, could you post a recipe and method? or do you just use the same dough you use for neapolitan but at a lower temp?

Cheers

[Tscarborough]

Re: cooking at 300-400

No, I use Caputo 00 for Neapolitan and All Trumps bromated for NY/New haven if I can or King Aurthur bread flour if I can't find the All Trumps.

A typical batch:

4c KABF
1c semolina
2-1/2c water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ADY


Caputo:

2c Caputo
1-1/4 cup water
1/2 cup semolina
1/2 tsp ADY
3/4 tsp salt

Workflow:

Handmixed for a couple of minutes, then covered with a damp cloth and allowed to rise at room temps for an hour or2 to double in size. Dumped onto the bench, stretched and folded 6 or 7 times, balled, portioned, balled and into containers for a 24-36 hour ferment, used cold from the fridge.

Pics:
1. First batch stretched, folded and shaped to portion out.
2. 4 each 320g doughballs
3. Second batch, same as the first
4. Caputo just mixed prior to inital rise