What's in your (PIZZA) oven?

Ok so here's the jist of the recipe I use. I have actually put together a spreadsheet calculator so I can adjust the recipe as needed based on how much I'm making. That way I can calculate how much to make based on the size of the dough balls I need.

This is the recipe I use for my Sicilian/Detroit style pizzas, but I've found it makes for awesome neopolitan-ish pizzas as well. I often will make a bit extra so that I can make a few regular pizzas in addition to my deep dish sicilians. I've basically abandoned my old neoplitan recipe and just go with this now. Not that they're worlds apart different.

First: I do make a Poolish (starter). It's a 100% hydration starter (equal parts in weight water and flour) with dry yeast. I make it a day in advance and it gets added to the recipe. You don't NEED a poolish, but it does give better end results and is easy enough that there's no reason not to. If you need poolish specifics, I imagine many resources online show how to do it. Or I can make another post on here about it.

Makes 39oz total (my neopolitan dough balls are roughly 10oz (280g))

3g (1tsp) active dry yeast
90g (1/4c plus 2TBSP) warm water
578g (4.5c) pizza flour
13g (1.5tbsp) diastatic malt
116g poolish (see description above)
296g (1.25c) ice water
13g fine sea salt
7g extra virgin olice oil

1. start the dry yeast in a small bowl with the warm water
2. combine flour and malt in mixer bowl with dough hook
3. while running mixer, pour in most of the ice water. save a bit of it to wash out the yeast you just started.
4. Pour in said yeast. Use that bit of water to rinse it out and dump in the mixer bowl.
5. stop the mixer and pull the ball off to kind of reset it (it'll stick to the hook and just kind of bang around at this point)
6. restart it and add all of the poolish
7. add the salt and mix some more
8. stop it, reset the ball and scrape the sides. Then add the olive oil for another round of mixing for about a minute.

1b. Put the ball on a pan lightly greased with olive oil. use wet hands or you're gonna have a bad time.
2b. Stretch and fold the dough (if you don't know how, I suggest looking it up. it'd be another long post explaining)
3b. Cover the dough ball with a damp towel and let it sit for 20mins.
4b. Remove the dough from the pan, weigh it, then divide up in to your pizza dough balls. (again, mine are roughly 280g for a typical pizza).
5b. Stretch and fold the dough balls. Make sure the folded side is nicely pinched and sealed, and put that side down in the container.
6b. Place in an airtight, lightly oiled container, and keep in the fridge for 48-72hrs.
7b. Remove roughly 1-2hrs before stretching and making in to a pizza.
Yo Evan, is there any reason that the dough should not be proofed and fermented in one piece and then divided, stretched and folded just prior to making the pizzas allowing some flexibility on sizing. Perhaps use part of it for a Sicilian and the rest for regular pizzas.
 
Yo Evan, is there any reason that the dough should not be proofed and fermented in one piece and then divided, stretched and folded just prior to making the pizzas allowing some flexibility on sizing. Perhaps use part of it for a Sicilian and the rest for regular pizzas.

By doing that you'll punch all the air out, getting less rise in your crust. At least that's what would happen if I did that with my dough--the main difference that I'm 100% sourdough whereas evan (and I believe you) are using dry yeast.
 
By doing that you'll punch all the air out, getting less rise in your crust. At least that's what would happen if I did that with my dough--the main difference that I'm 100% sourdough whereas evan (and I believe you) are using dry yeast.
I'm using a dry yeast plus poolish starter, so very similar to using a sourdough starter. But otherwise, this is it. You'd end up with a less airy dough in the end.
 
I'm using a dry yeast plus poolish starter, so very similar to using a sourdough starter. But otherwise, this is it. You'd end up with a less airy dough in the end.
Okay another question for the pros. I divided my last batch, formed balls after stretching and folding and put them in a sealed container in the fridge. After three days they had "spread out" and no longer looked like the balls I formed but more like a pancake. I cut them with a dough cutter and reformed the balls. Do the dough balls you initially form retain their shape or flatten out considerably? Edit: Are you using flour or olive oil to make the dough easier to handle, stretch and old etc?
 
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Okay another question for the pros. I divided my last batch, formed balls after stretching and folding and put them in a sealed container in the fridge. After three days they had "spread out" and no longer looked like the balls I formed but more like a pancake. I cut them with a dough cutter and reformed the balls. Do the dough balls you initially form retain their shape or flatten out considerably? Edit: Are you using flour or olive oil to make the dough easier to handle, stretch and old etc?
The longer they ferment in the fridge, they’ll spread (like happened for you). I wouldn’t reform them, I’d just form your crust and go.
 
Okay another question for the pros. I divided my last batch, formed balls after stretching and folding and put them in a sealed container in the fridge. After three days they had "spread out" and no longer looked like the balls I formed but more like a pancake. I cut them with a dough cutter and reformed the balls. Do the dough balls you initially form retain their shape or flatten out considerably? Edit: Are you using flour or olive oil to make the dough easier to handle, stretch and old etc?
Totally normal for the pancake spread to happen.
 
We've had a few threads about building pizza ovens and which pizza oven to buy. How about a thread about the pizzas you're making in whatever oven it is you have?

Just pizzas: Your methods, your ingredients, show off what you made. Share some tips.

Seems there's plenty of enthusiasts here.

I have plans for a few pizza nights in the near future, but I'll make a few posts here soon about some of my creations from the last year since I finished building my oven.

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Yo Evan, is that darkish crust on the edge achieved by using a cheese? Noticed it is just on the facing side.
 
Yo Evan, is that darkish crust on the edge achieved by using a cheese? Noticed it is just on the facing side.
If you're talking about my Detroit / Sicilian, it is cheese. You pile low moisture mozzarella along the edges of the crust. It fries along the edges of the pan and makes for the best of crusts.
 
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Well if we're playing that game: Good thing, because Italy isn't known for having to oil up pans for deep dish Detroit style pizza!
Not really a "pizza oven" comment, maybe even blasphemy, but thanks to DO you mentioned deep dish pizza. I saw a good looking recipe for a deep dish oven baked pizza today that requires a springform pan. Any recommendations for a good quality 12" model? In doing a search there's a lot of options but when reading reviews the majority of them are lacking for one reason or another.
 
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Pizza night at my house. Thanks @Evan B for the samples and suggestions posted here. I used a poolish and the new flour. The dough was super pliable and easy to work with. After two days cold ferment, (three with poolish) there were some fairly large bubbles. This was my first time doing parbake. I only did it with two of the three to test with and without. Unfortunately I did not parbake the Hawaiian which didn't fully bake the crust top. Maybe the cold pineapple caused that. My favorite was the basic pepperoni/cheese. The third was a weak attempt at Detroit with sauce on top. I brushed melted butter and garlic on the top of the parbake before topping. This was a nice addition. All in all, I was happy with the results.

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Pizza night at my house. Thanks @Evan B for the samples and suggestions posted here. I used a poolish and the new flour. The dough was super pliable and easy to work with. After two days cold ferment, (three with poolish) there were some fairly large bubbles. This was my first time doing parbake. I only did it with two of the three to test with and without. Unfortunately I did not parbake the Hawaiian which didn't fully bake the crust top. Maybe the cold pineapple caused that. My favorite was the basic pepperoni/cheese. The third was a weak attempt at Detroit with sauce on top. I brushed melted butter and garlic on the top of the parbake before topping. This was a nice addition. All in all, I was happy with the results.

View attachment 140893View attachment 140894View attachment 140895View attachment 140896
If you end up wanting to give the Detroit thing a serious go, grab some of these.

 
Do you wood burners favor a particular wood?

For the most part—whatever’s free.

But really, most hardwood is good. (Local) Woods I’ve cooked with that have been good are: oak, cherry, alder, birch, walnut and maple. I don’t know if my palette is refined enough to taste the difference but I can smell the difference when i’m cooking with wild cherry.
 
Do you wood burners favor a particular wood?
Unlike @mcswny , I don't have a talent for finding free wood that's worth using. I found a guy out in Beaverton that sells a bit of everything for a pretty fair price, so I go load up with oak and cherry with him. Unlike running a smoker, you just want whatever is going to burn hot and hold up to the heat for more than a few minutes. The different woods aren't going to really change the flavor of your finished product. Just way too hot for smoke, so you're just getting heat.

Soft woods just flame out super quick if you toss it in to an already up-to-temp oven. So find something like oak or cherry that's well-seasoned and you shoudl be good to go. If I have some laying around, I'll sometimes toss less desirable wood in during the 2hr long process of heating my oven up, but once the oven is up to that 700f+ range, it's all hardwoods.
 
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We've had a few threads about building pizza ovens and which pizza oven to buy. How about a thread about the pizzas you're making in whatever oven it is you have?

Just pizzas: Your methods, your ingredients, show off what you made. Share some tips.

Seems there's plenty of enthusiasts here.

I have plans for a few pizza nights in the near future, but I'll make a few posts here soon about some of my creations from the last year since I finished building my oven.

View attachment 139778
Yo Evan, another noobie inquisitory. Do you add that low moisture moozzarella on thee edge before doing the par bake or before the final bake. Looks like probably the former but what do I know?
 
Yo Evan, another noobie inquisitory. Do you add that low moisture moozzarella on thee edge before doing the par bake or before the final bake. Looks like probably the former but what do I know?
The latter. Par bake is just the dough to make the crust.
20240930_142713.jpg
I pile on the edges before the final bake when all the toppings are on.
IMG_20241014_204212 (2).jpg
 
👍 Thanks, as always.
 
A little off subject but is there any such thing as a good frozen pizza? I have watched between 6 and 10 video comparisons lately on identifying the best frozen pizzas but there seems to be no clear winner. Why would I buy a frozen pizza anyway? Well, normally I make one on the weekend, starting the dough on Thursday and baking on Friday or Saturday. But this Friday I had to make a grocery run to prepare for next week's Arctic blast. It involved a 90 mile round trip over a mountain pass (with temps down to 3 degrees), shopping for hours at two different supermarkets then after the drive home, unloading all that stuff and putting it away. By the time I was done I knew I would be in no mood to build a pizza so I bought one that promised pizza nirvana. It was bloody awful, more like a saltine cracker with spaghetti sauce, a thin layer of cheese and a tiny bit of pepperoni on top. Even my failures are better. The one I bought was a Raos brick oven model and at $10 was seriously overpriced. I can't imagine the budget priced pies being much worse.

Next week I am expecting the delivery of some high quality pepperoni and should be back in business. In the meantime the question remains-is there such a thing as a good frozen pizza? When you live alone there are just some days that you don't want to cook and having a decent pizza in the freezer would be a big plus on those days.
 
A little off subject but is there any such thing as a good frozen pizza? I have watched between 6 and 10 video comparisons lately on identifying the best frozen pizzas but there seems to be no clear winner. Why would I buy a frozen pizza anyway? Well, normally I make one on the weekend, starting the dough on Thursday and baking on Friday or Saturday. But this Friday I had to make a grocery run to prepare for next week's Arctic blast. It involved a 90 mile round trip over a mountain pass (with temps down to 3 degrees), shopping for hours at two different supermarkets then after the drive home, unloading all that stuff and putting it away. By the time I was done I knew I would be in no mood to build a pizza so I bought one that promised pizza nirvana. It was bloody awful, more like a saltine cracker with spaghetti sauce, a thin layer of cheese and a tiny bit of pepperoni on top. Even my failures are better. The one I bought was a Raos brick oven model and at $10 was seriously overpriced. I can't imagine the budget priced pies being much worse.

Next week I am expecting the delivery of some high quality pepperoni and should be back in business. In the meantime the question remains-is there such a thing as a good frozen pizza? When you live alone there are just some days that you don't want to cook and having a decent pizza in the freezer would be a big plus on those days.
I keep some Costco frozen pepperoni pizzas (4 to a box) in the back freezer. They're not bad.
 
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