No more wood-fired oven?

[whodatoven]

There is a yahoo article today talking about an easy way to cook Neopolitan pizza. What do you think?

the-game-changing-cookbook: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

PROBLEM #3: You love Neopolitan-style pizza, but don't want to invest in a brick oven.

SOLUTION: Make an oven out of a steel sheet.

Get a ?-inch-thick sheet of steel from a metal fabricator (Search online for a local one), have it cut to the size of your oven shelf and insert it in the rack closest to the broiler. Preheat the oven at its highest temperature for ? hour, then turn on the broiler and slide your pizza onto the metal plate. It should emerge perfectly cooked in 1.5 to 2 minutes.

WHAT'S GOING ON: Pizza in a brick oven cooks at about 800 degrees?way hotter than the highest setting of most home ovens. The metal sheet is more conductive than a brick oven's stone, so it can cook just as fast at a lower temperature.

[mn8tr]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

I am sure that it would work just fine for the cooking part. What you won't get is the wood smoke flavoring (so what's the point). Lastly most of us built our ovens for more reasons than just cooking pizza (or just cooking for that matter).
Its more about a different "kind" of cooking and the continuation of centuries old methods. The satisfaction of building something with your own hands. Not to mention the fun we have cooking for friends gathered around the oven and enjoying each others company. If you are unable to build your own oven due to space or deed restrictions I can understand but if you are able you won't regret the experience.

ps Not trying to be a snob just expressing...

[whodatoven]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

mn8tr,

I think you're right that the brick oven probably still has its place. But, man, talking about convenience - space, time, and money-wise.

I'm not convinced it is the same though. Would love to hear someone actually do both and compare.

[dmun]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

I'm not convinced that a steel sheet is any better than a pizza stone in this application. It's essentially what they're doing with it. It also depends on the heat output of your broiler. Most domestic gas ovens have pathetic broilers. I call mine the "beiger".

As for me? I hate to heat up my kitchen oven to 500f. It fills the house with acrid fumes.

[fxpose]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

Besides, there is no cool factor using your kitchen oven. That's important.

[JoeyVelderrain]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

I don't have smoke flavor in my pizza, by the time it gets up to pizza heat 750-800f it is nothing but clear gases coming out of my smoke stack.

[azatty]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

Besides, there is no cool factor using your kitchen oven. That's important.

Rule Number Six: If you're going to do something, you should look cool doing it.

[fxpose]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

My 14" Lodge cast iron pizza pan is about 1/4" in thickness. I used to use that in my kitchen oven. I would assume this is like using a steel plate. Only diff is you can make a bigger pizza with the steel plate.

[stonylake]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

if you love the pizza and don't want to invest the time or energy, go pay someone (restaurant) who does.... do it right or go home.

[whodatoven]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

stonylake, what if the pizza from the steel sheet modified oven is just as good....

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

I'm not sure the members here could offer much in direct comparison (steel vs a real WFO) data.

What we do here is spend time dreaming about, sourcing materials for, pining over design details, convincing the wife of needing to buy another motor-driven tool, building the base, dome and enclosure, curing and firing schemes, not to mention bouncing every imaginable detail off a fantastic group of guys and gals willing to share their triumphs, errors, injuries, cooking processes and recipes and most all their obsession of all things WFO.

[whodatoven]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

Hmmm, I see. I gather you're saying people doing WFO for the sake of WFO. The quality of pizza is part of the experience but not all of it. Okay, I get the point, I guess.

In the same vein, I miss out a good part of WFO experience since I bought a pre-assembled WFO.

[Lburou]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

Hmmm, I see. I gather you're saying people doing WFO for the sake of WFO. The quality of pizza is part of the experience but not all of it. Okay, I get the point, I guess.

In the same vein, I miss out a good part of WFO experience since I bought a pre-assembled WFO.

Each of us has their own reality, I don't have to fit into yours and you don't have to fit into mine.
If you don't like what you did, do it again with a change that fits into your reality.
If you can learn from my mistakes, then, you are a step ahead.

Do your own thing for your own reasons. If the steel thingy fits your reality, go for it and report back to us.

Society and culture, wherever you live, is based on the fact that we all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us (stone age, bronze age, steel age....jet age). Lead the way if that is what you want......And, thank heaven you have the freedom necessary to do it.

[splatgirl]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

I have no doubt that a steel sheet, or a stone or a cast iron pan will make a pizza in the indoor oven that is superior to one that did NOT have any of those techniques applied to it, but it's still not even in the same category as a proper neo-style, WFO-cooked pizza. It's apples to oranges AFIAC.

The same holds true for most anything else one could cook in a WFO. You could probably apply roughly the same technique to the same food item in an indoor oven, but the results would be different, and, in my book, not as good. It depends on your point of reference. Pre WFO days, I thought I made a pretty killer indoor pizza--and I did. Yet now I wouldn't ever even bother, because WFO pizza raised the bar that much. OTOH, if I had never built a WFO, I wouldn't know that--I'd still be loving my indoor pies and buying a piece of sheet steel.

[GianniFocaccia]

Re: No more wood-fired oven?

Hmmm, I see. I gather you're saying people doing WFO for the sake of WFO.

It's a little more than that. All builders have their own personal motivations and indeed derive great gratification from completing a project of this scope, but the most compelling reason 'people do WFO' (I think) is to make up a reason for everyone to get together to eat, drink and be merry.

Sure, you could do the same thing with a piece of sheet steel, but it isn't nearly as much fun.