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Don't tell! We visited our local VPN place last night for the first time since WFO completion. It was fun to have the reality check on how my own pizzas compare since we really hadn't had anything other than homemade since early summer. From the get go I've said if I can produce pizzas that are at least as good as the local place, I feel like I'm doing great.
First off, it was DEFINITELY the B team on last night but as we all know, it's hard to make a bad pizza from a WFO and if I hadn't been to this place so many times AND become my own pizzaiolo at home, I'd never notice any of this. The dough guy was, IMO, way over handling the dough...more than the A team guy and more than I ever would. Kind of painful to watch, actually. And it seems like the oven hearth to dome temp was a little off, but maybe I've just gotten used to my own pizzas where I shoot for a bottom crust that is browned with some char vs. utterly pale with char which is what was coming out last night.
Still, a super tasty pizza. The biggest thing I noticed was in the chew of the crust. I use KA bread flour with the 500/375 FB recipe, and I get a nicely chewy but not tough crust that's very tasty and with great oven spring/biggish bubbles. I've also done about 10kg. of Caputo red bag and found the end product has no detectable differences other than being less tasty than with KA flour. What I had last night was noticeably less chewy and less crusty, equal but not better flavor than what I make. I don't know what flour they use, but I'm certain the chew difference is due to a a lower protein content than either KA bread or Caputo red which makes me want to try the KA Italian style 00. Anyway, I didn't think it was as good as mine(!!!)...quite surprising, because I figured we'd go there and I'd leave feeling like I have major work to do to get my skillz up to par. Instead, now I feel like a rock star. The only thing that's better is that they also make a wicked good salad that I didn't have to prep any ingredients for and I don't have a mess to clean up, but they also don't do dessert pizzas or smores and I don't get to play with fire
Of course my disclaimer for all of this is that I've never been to Italy for VPN. That would be the true test.
First off, it was DEFINITELY the B team on last night but as we all know, it's hard to make a bad pizza from a WFO and if I hadn't been to this place so many times AND become my own pizzaiolo at home, I'd never notice any of this. The dough guy was, IMO, way over handling the dough...more than the A team guy and more than I ever would. Kind of painful to watch, actually. And it seems like the oven hearth to dome temp was a little off, but maybe I've just gotten used to my own pizzas where I shoot for a bottom crust that is browned with some char vs. utterly pale with char which is what was coming out last night.
Still, a super tasty pizza. The biggest thing I noticed was in the chew of the crust. I use KA bread flour with the 500/375 FB recipe, and I get a nicely chewy but not tough crust that's very tasty and with great oven spring/biggish bubbles. I've also done about 10kg. of Caputo red bag and found the end product has no detectable differences other than being less tasty than with KA flour. What I had last night was noticeably less chewy and less crusty, equal but not better flavor than what I make. I don't know what flour they use, but I'm certain the chew difference is due to a a lower protein content than either KA bread or Caputo red which makes me want to try the KA Italian style 00. Anyway, I didn't think it was as good as mine(!!!)...quite surprising, because I figured we'd go there and I'd leave feeling like I have major work to do to get my skillz up to par. Instead, now I feel like a rock star. The only thing that's better is that they also make a wicked good salad that I didn't have to prep any ingredients for and I don't have a mess to clean up, but they also don't do dessert pizzas or smores and I don't get to play with fire
Of course my disclaimer for all of this is that I've never been to Italy for VPN. That would be the true test.
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