First pizza night

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday Mick
I tried all the method of cleaning the hearth Natural fibre brushs, brass brushes and blow pipes. Simplest is a mope made from a hardwood stick with strips of cloth wired to the end, replace the cloth every cook and its always fresh. The water turns to steam on contact with the hearth and the ash floats off in front of the mope on its cloud of steam. Doesn't take any heat from the hearth....must be replenished by the dome I recon.
Next thing I have given up using corn meal to stop sticking of the pizza to the peal. A bit of rice flour on a wooden peel cant go wrong.

Regards Dave

[Bacterium]

Re: First pizza night

.....mmmm can smell it from down here ..

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
How come my left overs don't look like that!


Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday Mick
Flashed up the webber with pizza stone last night with a small batch of 50/50 GP flour and pizza flour (Lighthouse). And you wouldn't pick it ....the bloody gas bottle ran out I'd had a coupla beers and no way was I getting another bottle at that time.
So I screwed up the courage used a pr of tongs and a big spatular and moved the hot stone to the gas oven ...dropping it would have definitly cracked it!. Flashed the oven up and cooked a third.
And the results the first pizza was a garlic/cheese it didn't touch the sides and was a little less crunchy that I'd remembered. The secound suffered from the lack of heat the topping was a little undercooked and the base was brown on the bottom. The third was good really good... cooked topping and base well and was difinitly softer but still had a crunch to the edges.
Pizza on a stone is good but I still love the oven you can't beat the process of flashing it up.. the smell of burning wood... the taste of smoke in the pizza. Recon the stone comes secound ...but a close runner up still

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Regards Dave
PS note pizza are generally "roundish"

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
Havn't even looked like cracking. Its used in a webber Q BBq and left to cool complely inside the oven before being stowed flat in its cardboard box.
We have nearly finished the Big Wet up here and the Pizza oven was dry enough to flash up last weekend yes sat pizza nights startd again!!!!
One thing I noticed was that the pizza out of the WFO were a lot softer in texture than those from the pizza stone. Now I'm not saying this a bad thing... the stone pizza was a lot more crunchie in texture and were liked by all that ate them. I was thinking that next I used the stone that I experiment a little with the flour. I know from past experience that pizza made on general purpose flour tend to be a little too soft in texture and at that time the "oo" flour a little expensive so I used a 50/50 mix of GP flour and bread flour which worked well. I might well try this next time I use the pizza stone in the BBq and see what results. It certainly can't hurt....I sometimes think my pizza is less than perfect....but everyone always eat the evidence!!! so they handle being experimented on really well

Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
Sorry thats a hard one...you'll have to start using the term roundish instead of round....its like perfect'ish which is the word perfect with an added disclaimer so no one can sue you

Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
Try this method of rolling the dought. Most roll the dough from back to front right across the middle. Try to roll the dought around the edges with the rolling pin in the middle do say 1/4 at a time then move the dough around to do the next piece of edge. you'll find the dough doesn't tend to srink back like the standard way of rolling.

Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
Due to another really wet summer and the fact that the oven was doorless whilst built another door....well I have a pretty soaked oven.
Had me bestest mate coming over, he loves pizza and loves the whole burn wood in the oven thing but the ovens basically unusable so I brought a pizza stone and thought I'd give it a go on the gas webberQ on the dry back verandah. Made some dough the day before the whole 65% hydration, 00 flour etc.
Checked out the forum and flashed the bbq it upwith stone inside. Gave it about a good 1/2 hour to heat and got the thing around 325C. Used a wooden peel and corn flour to flick on the pizza shut he lid and waited 5 mins. WebberQ's cook with the lid down otherwise the heat escape so it was a bit frustrating to just wait and hope. At the 5 min mark the dough had puffed up and the topping/cheese had started to bubble gave it another 4-5 min and then removed it for the taste test.
Not Bad... a bit crisper than more normal pizzas but not to bad at all. Put out another 8 pizzas and they were all recieved well especially by the family cause there educated and will not except just any pizza now. The results were good but the time factor was the main thing I noticed it took forever after being used to a full blown oven.
Got on question How do you clean the thing? the instruction say just wipe no detergent. Looks pretty stained only after one use



Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Gudday
There was some extensive studies done in the 60'.s on 19 centry country ovens in Quebec Canada. They were a wicker frame construction with a thermal mass of clay over this. They had an oval floor to allow the best cooking space but the dome was a advacardo shape with the door being at the small end. This shape encoured the flame path to follow the longest path to the exit and retain more heat in the back of the oven. The studies found door height to oven height was of course an average of 63%
This info came from a Aussie book called" build you own wood fired oven" by Allan Watt. Roseburg Publishing Rosenberg Publishing makes an interesting read

Regards Dave

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Dear Mick
Don't worry about that mozzarella cheese its a high protein low fat cheese... try some ordinary cheese on your pizza and you'll see what I mean ... you'll end up with a puddle of grease floating on you pizza!!
Its traditionally made from water buffalo milk so the Italians got more than the recipe for gunpowder and noodles from the chinese it seems....
00 flour....well do you need it ? seems like the old bread maker has taken the quess work out of prep'ing the dough. 00 flour is like the the mozzarella a high protein flour the extra protein ...gluten is the stuff that makes the dough spring back when stretched ( and keeps the bubbles that make it rise, in)
I use a 50/50 mix most times of plain flour and either 00 flour or bread flour and this seems to give me a good dough "soft and springy" with a good "chew". Drop the moisture level you get a heavyer dough that takes a larger "Topping load" for Fat Auzzie pizza as well. Its all a bit of a case of experimenting but i have found I dont need to buy bulk lots of 00 flour to make pizza dough affordable. I can buy a 1 Kg bag of 00 flour at Coles for about $3 or Bread flour if its on special. Heres my fav recipe at the moment.....

Potato rosmary pizza...

1 X 12 in pizza dough
1/2 potato cut into Micro thin slices
30-50? grams shaved ham ( or prosciutto if you wish both work)
1/2 clove chopped garlic
2 teasponn olive oil
10 gms parmesan cheese fine grate
1 tblsp rosemary sprigs rough chop
Rock salt
On your base drissel the oil add garlic then shaved ham then place on potato slices slightly overlapping. Sprinkle the rosemary and then add the parmesan and rocksalt to taste.

Have you read that recipe for lemon pizza yet.... now that I have got to try.

regards Dave

[scottz]

Re: First pizza night

nothing is better than pizza in your oven, good luck with it and keep on going!

Scott

[cobblerdave]

Re: First pizza night

Dear Mick
The pizza sound well yummmm.... and that clay sounds serious.....finally committed to a plan ha.....looking foward to you oven build

Regards Dave

[wotavidone]

I still haven'