Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

[daryls]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

#2 pizza stuck to the peel just enough that the toppings slid off the pizza and on to the floor. I learned that you need to use a fair amount of flour and keep the pizza movable when you approach the oven. Pretty easy clean up though. Just raked a few coals over the floor area and let it self-clean.

That happens to me all the time, toppings falling off the dough when inserting the peel in the forgo. Easy solution was to cook dough only for 1 minute and then add toppings. Works like a charm every time.

[GrahamG]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Got the pizza oven too hot, so hot that once I put a garlic bread in and turned round to cut a finished pizza the garlic bread was black!

I have learnt to keep checking as it cooks at 550C in around 3 minutes!

[heliman]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

I once stretched 30 x bases ahead of a party and separated them with baking paper. Just before cooking started I checked and found them all fused into one sticky mess and completely unusable. Fortunately I had a few trays of lasagne as a backup which turned out fine. I hadn't actually mentioned that we were having pizzas so nobody knew that there was a problem - except me!

[Tscarborough]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

I have had good luck with cold fermented doughs out to 6 days with my prefered time 4 days. I cut back on the yeast, otherwise I use my standard dough.

For disasters, I ruined 3 on the last bake by going too thin, ie using 14" balls for 16" pies.

[texassourdough]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Freeze it whenever you need to - but preferably before it has sat out after the retard for two to six hours. Still okay to freeze, just not likely to rise any.
Jay

[BigSteve46]

Re: Freezing Pizza Dough

At which of the stages below do you recommend freezing?

1. After initial 2 hours rise?
2. After initial 2 hour rise, dividing into individual sized balls
plus an add'l hour.
3. All of above plus 2-3 days in refrigerator.

[texassourdough]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Dough degrades over time whether retarded or not. As I understand it the enzymes are not affected as much by temperature as the yeast so the enzymes keep breaking down the starch the the dough loses strength which gives it the effect of a higher hydration dough.

While flavor can improve for at least two days the texture is going downhill by the second day. By the fourth day it gets a bit weird. If you need to store dough for three to five days it is probably best to freeze it. I have not been happy with dough frozen for more than about two weeks.

Good luck!
Jay

[dmun]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Dough too sticky. Often after letting the dough proof for 2-3 days in the refrigerator the dough is very sticky, difficult to stretch without tearing and sticks to oven floor when trying to turn. What am I doing wrong? My wife thinks the 2-3 day proofing is causing the problem. Should I try reducing the water content?

Depending on how you're storing them, the balls can be a bit wet on the surface from cold retardation. A bit of extra bench flour when you are doing your initial stretch should solve this problem, if it's what I think.

[david s]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Not really a disaster, but avoid using olives whole. They roll off the pizza really easily when you're sliding them off the wooden peel into the oven. Slice them in half at least.

[BigSteve46]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Dough too sticky. Often after letting the dough proof for 2-3 days in the refrigerator the dough is very sticky, difficult to stretch without tearing and sticks to oven floor when trying to turn. What am I doing wrong? My wife thinks the 2-3 day proofing is causing the problem. Should I try reducing the water content?

[mikesuttie]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Yup that fire must have been burning for about 10 hours after I had a pizza firing! the ultimate test of a good build I suppose I'll inspect for cracks tonight lol.

[Ron Johnson]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

at least your oven is dry!

[mikesuttie]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Here's one for you guys, although it's not really a pizza disaster but definitely an epic FAIL I'm sure you'll appreciate!

This weekend I ventured into the woods to collect some firewood. In all a sucessfull mission to accumulate a decent amount of wood. I then had some fun with a chainsaw and a chopper axe to produce some nice split logs .

So anyway, the next day I fired up my oven and cooked some pretty splendid pizzas a few hours after the coals had died down I decided that I'd try my hand at 'kiln drying' my new split wood logs to maybe enhance their effectiveness. So I pretty much filled my oven to the top with as many split logs as I could fit and bricked it up. Last night I went to take the logs out..........no logs but plenty of ash! There must have been some lit coals remaining in the oven as the whole lot is now burnt to ash!! I nearly cried!

[Ron Johnson]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Well it was simply due to my fire not being big enough the first time to heat the hearth adequately. This time I started an inferno, and it worked like a charm. Dome was cleared so clean it looked brand new.

[karl]

Re: Common Mistakes, Pizza Disasters

Curing and drying are two different operations. Drying should be done with the door open and a smaller fire going for as long as it takes. Curing is for the hardening of the refractory cement and need a high temperature (as specified by the type of cement used) for specified periods. Ideally it would be at an as high temperature as possible.

regards from Karl.