2024 Neapolitan oven build

[rsandler]

We're big on experimenting with pizza toppings, so love to see it . A few thoughts for free disposal:

• Pesto goes really well with any salty, cured meat. Many restaurants just do chicken, or at most Italian sausage, but pepperoni, bacon, capicola, even Chinese sausage all go really well.
• The "Hawaiian pizza" (essentially ham and pineapple, an American thing) gives fruit on pizza a bad name. There are some combos that are killer, and connect to certain sweet-savory combinations found elsewhere in Italian cuisine (even if you'll never see Italians do this on pizza): Sausage with halved grapes; bacon with blueberries; prosciutto with sliced strawberries (or sliced apple/pear to be more traditional). Works with either red sauce or olive oil as the base. Apple butter as a base works well for prosciutto also.
• Speaking of Hawaiian, if you *grill* the pineapple (in the oven while its heating, for instance), that's a whole different ballgame. Barbecue sauce, grilled pineapple and bacon is to die for.
• We've done a lot of putting leftovers on pizza. Some become more than the sum of the parts, others taste like the leftovers shaped like a pizza. Meats with a pan sauce tend to work well (chicken piccata is a hands down favorite). Curries FWIW, have tended to be in the "leftovers shaped like a pizza" category. YMMV.

Other procedural thought: Up to you of course, but when we have a group over of more than 10 or so, we do "top your own": My wife or I will shape the crusts and sometimes do sauce if it's not too hectic (over saucing can lead to disaster if it sloshes off during loading), but then let guests design their own pizzas, buffet style, before baking. Guests really enjoy it, even if they don't generally end up with as interesting or sophisticated flavor combinations as they might get if we had them over for dinner individually, and topped for them.

Happy pizza-making! Yours are looking great!

[daidensacha]

daidensacha - great looking pizze. And, some proper flavor combos!!

Giovanni Rossi I‘m experimenting to find combinations that I like so I can put together a menu for when we have gatherings. Making up a menu. I bought “Mastering Pizza“ by Marc Vetri and David Joachim, and am loving it. The pizza recipes I shared so far are from it, and form the base of my menu so far. I’m keeping it simple, adding little bits here and there, or changing things I don’t like.

For example, wasn‘t overly wrapped with the pesto potato pizza. The potato is not my thing, fills space adding calories without actually enhancing the pizza. I love pesto as a base, but thinking to add a little mango and chicken in place of the potato.

I will also play with some Indian and Thai curries on pizza. Spent a large part of my life in India and Thailand, so love that food and think it will go well on pizza.

[daidensacha]

Heating oven over consecutive days to cook pizza - Day 2

i left the door ajar overnight so the coals could burn and vent through the chimney. Today when I checked at 10am, it was 240C inside the oven.

I built my little ice starting tower, positioned in in the center of the oven, and then packed more wood around it. I closed the door fully to retain the heat and let the wood dry out. My plan was to bake 6 pizzas today, so at 3.30pm I removed the wood surrounding the center tower, and lit the fire. The fire was raging inside 2 minutes, and I added a piece at a time slowly increasing the size of the fire. It took only 45 minutes to heat the oven to 500C, with wood still firing up. It took a little time then to let the wood burn down to coals, and for the temp to drop. I‘ve only just realised that the glowing coals in the oven given far more heat to the oven than the burning wood. It’s good to finally get it, because that means I need to stop adding wood earlier to prevent overheating.

It was too hot after firing the oven today, to start putting pizzas in. Live and learn through experience, and doing.

I baked 2 additional pizzas today, other than the ones I baked yesterday.

Margherita - pizza sauce, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil


Patata Pesto - pesto sauce, mozzarella, parmigiano regiano, sliced potato, sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil


UtahBeehiver Learning so much, and having so much fin along the way. Today I used my iron dogs when I moved the coals to the side of the oven, and it was much better having those to hold the wood when I put in on the pile of coals. It’s a good reminder every time the oven goes dark that I didn‘t put a piece of wood on the coals in time. Without it, its not easy to see when the pizza is ready, or needs turning.

Iron dogs are really usefu to hold the wood from falling in the cooking space.


Maintaining the heat is my current focus, knowing when and how often to feed the fire when I‘m cooking pizza to maintain the required heat. It dropped off today, which wasn‘t as bad as being over hot, as I can simply cook longer, but my goal is to learn how to maintain the required temp for baking pizza.

My biga pizza dough is really good, however I‘ve been tweeking it, as I have limited space in my fridge, so I‘m proofing the biga at 20C for 24 hours, then making to dough and proofing for 2 hours before making the balls and proofing again for 4-5 hours at 20C. I‘m down to .12% yeast in my biga, with no additional added when making the dough. It’s an ongoing process, and I might incorporate an additional 24 hours proofing of the biga at 6C in the fridge before making the dough.

I‘ve also been experimenting with hydration, and while 70% is easier to shape the pizzas, 65% with a slightly longer proofing gives the same result, and a very nice crust.

I’ve also started adding 2 teaspoons of bakers malt per 1kg of flour, when making the dough. Just to give the yeast development a boost when proofing the dough. It does appear to have added a slightly darker tinge of brown to the crust.

So much to learn, so much fun.

Keeping my fingers crossed for my Xmas ducks. They will be cooked in the oven on 24th December, after having a pizza party on 23rd.

[Giovanni Rossi]

daidensacha - great looking pizze. And, some proper flavor combos!!

Giovanni & AJH, I'm interested in the new RFX wireless meat probe from Thermoworks. The wireless probes are reported to easily retain connections through high temps in all cooking situations. Sounds like the probes would be ideal for WFO roasting & baking.

Thanks, if you decide to purchase, let us know how well it works. It's clear there's a need to go high-end with this type of product. I picked up an 80 USD 2 probe package from Gornel in 2022 and didn't get around to using it until this year. Nothing but disappointment. Poor readings, failed to properly read our turkey in the oven, couldn't properly measure boiling water or an ice slurry and now the one probe just reads 00. The reviews at the time I bought it were well above average. Now, looking back, about 6 months after that the reviews becam decidedly super negative. And, the company is in the wind...no reply from customer service email. Lesson learned.

[UtahBeehiver]

Each time you fire you find out more about the nuances of your oven, nice leopard pattern crust.........

[daidensacha]

Heating oven over consecutive days to cook pizza - Day 1

Starting yesterday I’ll be cooking pizza for 3 consecutive days. It’s the first time I will reheat the oven the day after baking pizza, and I’m looking forward to seeing how much wood and how long it takes to reheat the oven. My ovens retained heat is usually around 360C the day after I cook pizza, and my target heat will be: dome 480C, floor 430C. This will be interesting,

I‘ve also been making use of the retained heat when the oven drops to under 200C by putting wood in the oven so its totally dry for my next fire. It makes a huge difference when lighting the fire as the wood lights up really quickly. These next days it will be too hot to put wood inside as it will ignite, but the retained heat should also help with getting the next fire up and going.

Made 4 pizzas last night from a menu I am working on.

Pepperoni - pizza sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, caramelised onion, oregano, sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil


Maurizio - mozzarella, parmigiano regiano, fresh rosemary, sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil


Salsiccia - pizza sauce, roasted fennel, mozzarella, salsiccia sausage, parmigiano regiano, sea salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil


Pera - provolone cheese, freshly sliced pear, smoked pancetta, fresh thyme, extra virgin olive oil


I nailed the oven heat for the first time, and it made me happy . Took just under 2 hours to heat, dome 480C, floor 450C. It was just the right temp so the pizzas didn‘t stick to the floor, or the bases burn. Gave just the right time for the tops to cook without burning the crust. Now I just need to learn to replicate it. I will do 6 more pizzas this afternoon, and curious how long it takes to reheat the oven still hot from last night.

[daidensacha]

Giovanni & AJH, I'm interested in the new RFX wireless meat probe from Thermoworks. The wireless probes are reported to easily retain connections through high temps in all cooking situations. Sounds like the probes would be ideal for WFO roasting & baking.

That sounds really interesting. I had looked at a different brand available here in Germany but it only withstands temps up to 257C. The brand you mentioned withstands up to 1000F, or 537C. It could be really useful, if I can get it here in Germany.

NOTE: I found another brand available here in Germany, Meater Pro, and Meater Pro XL. It withstands temps up to 550C.

[SableSprings]

Giovanni & AJH, I'm interested in the new RFX wireless meat probe from Thermoworks. The wireless probes are reported to easily retain connections through high temps in all cooking situations. Sounds like the probes would be ideal for WFO roasting & baking.

[Giovanni Rossi]

Really came together nicely. I'm excited for you as you start to reap the benefits.

Something you might want to consider is getting a BBQ meat thermometer probe to monitor temps without needing to take off the door.

Second using a wireless probe when roasting, though I have been unhappy with the accuracy of the one I bought. Anyone want promote one providing good results?

Hmm... maybe a video feed too...

[AJH]

I'm getting very similar performance on my oven. Something you might want to consider is getting a BBQ meat thermometer probe to monitor temps without needing to take off the door. Most are rated to handle heat up to 375C, so if you wait till morning after pizza, you can open the door once to clean out the oven and put in the probes to monitor temperatures wirelessly till you hit your target for the next cook. I have an older wired thermometer that I used on my last cool down. I found it reads a little low, but it was easy to calculate an adjustment factor and then use it to plot a temperature graph. I'm still working out things to cook with the residual heat. Planning on doing a chicken or a turkey sometime in the next month, maybe a roast with carrots and potatoes...

Pulled pork was fantastic at 120C. Season it, place it in a pan to catch all the drippings, stick it in the oven before work, and have perfectly juicy pulled pork after work

[daidensacha]

Oven performance

I dreamed about having my oven for years, all the concepts I had have been blown away, in a good way. The oven is far beyond what I could have imagined. Amazing how powerful it is, which I totally underestimated and consequently had some burnt pizzas to begin with.

I‘m still finding the balance of knowing how fast and how long to preheat the oven, but I‘m just being scientific with it experiment and find what works best. On my last bake on Monday, I had set up my kindling tower, and put extra wood in the oven while the oven was still warm from the last bake. The wood was dry and warm, and lit really easily. Burnt faster too, which is ok because it build up the bed of glowing coals. After 2.5 hours, I moved the coals to the side of the oven, and had to remove a bucket full as there was just to much. The dome and floor were both at 500C, so I wiped the floor down with a freezing wet cloth to cool it a bit, but that only took 10C out of the floor. I still had to wait a bit before putting my first pizza in the oven to save burning the base. When I did put the pizza in, it was my best to date, perfect crust full of air, very light to eat, crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside.

Even with the oven at 500C, sometimes over 550C, there is no heat reaching the outside of the dome. Also, the chimney is cool on the outside, with no heat on the outer wall. My insulated double walled stainless steel flue gets to 10C on the outside. I thought it would get much hotter, but with the arch, vent and schamott flue being the first 1.5 meters above the vent, that takes the heat and is well insulated with ceramic fibre and perlite.

Day 2 after baking the oven is consistently around 300C, with day 3 around 220C, and day 4 170C. Using this retained heat I have been baking bread, and tried some ribs which were the best I ever had. Using the ovens retained heat, and having to open it up to measure the temp wth the IR thermometer, I understand now the advantage of installing a probe thermometer to be able to know the internal temp without having to open it. Knowing that they all fail at some point, i will install one eventually, but in such a way with a sheath that I can easily replace it when needed.

Finally put my light on the front of the oven last week, and added a double power point under the landing, along with 6 more power points alone the back wall of the terrace. You can never have enough power points is my view. I ordered my granite benchtop, but that won‘t come for a few more weeks, and then I‘ll only install it when the temp is warm enough.

[daidensacha]

Walled city and don't know any better, went there in the fall before the Xmas market around Octoberfest so the market was not going yet. I also use a SS blow pipe to clear the ash off the cooking area as well as a bellow to get added wood flaming. Like David said, need to be a little careful and put something on the blow end of the pipe so you don't chip a tooth.

Ah yes, the walls from the old times. Most of the cities i have seen still having remnants of them out grew them long ago. Augsburg near us has a big one, or parts of it with the big old entry arches.

Nördlingen not far from us, is one of the few cities in Germany that still has the full wall from the old times. The city outgrew it and now surrounds it, but you can walk around the wall, it‘s impressive.

I got a 10mm stainless steel pipe this arvo, only 1 meter and I think I might need to get a longer one to reach in the oven. Pizza tomorrow, so lets see how it goes. I‘ll put a piece of hose on the end so it reaches, and protects my teeth.

[UtahBeehiver]

Walled city and don't know any better, went there in the fall before the Xmas market around Octoberfest so the market was not going yet. I also use a SS blow pipe to clear the ash off the cooking area as well as a bellow to get added wood flaming. Like David said, need to be a little careful and put something on the blow end of the pipe so you don't chip a tooth.

[daidensacha]

Yes, I have one of those rubber chair leg tips fitted to the pipe, with a hole drilled through its centre, for exactly the same reason.

I googled a bit yesterday, and will check out the hardware store this morning as I need to buy some materials to put power points in the terrace.

Have you tried a foot bellow pump connected to the tube? I would need one about 1 to 1.5 meter long so I‘m interested to find out how much lung power is needed to blow the ash through such a tube. I‘ll give it a go.

[daidensacha]

The Christmas Markets is on my A list to see sometime, especially Regensburg.

I‘m curious what draws you to Regensburg?

That’s a bit under 2 hours from us. Nuremberg supposedly has really nice Xmas markets (on my bucket list), which is not far from Regensburg. Keep that in mind if your ever in the neighbourhood. Thierhaupten, where I live wins the vote for the best local Xmas markets, although its more social than anything, as a life time of people who ever lived in Thierhaupten always come to catch up at the Xmas market.

My favorite is Salzburg, also just a couple of hours away. I always have such a good time there. The ambience of Salzburg with the old buildings is so beautiful.