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Hey Pizza thread. I'm new to GWS so apologies in advance for low quality pics and any faux pas. I've spent a good while trying to make decent pizzas and failing miserably until now. The single biggest improvement to my game has been heat since I've always been using domestic gas or electric ovens that are about 200C too cold for that which I crave; Neapolitan style margheritas.  I took delivery of an electric oven + refractory stone capable of 500C on the weekend, and the first pie out of it has blown my mind. I reckon I'll have trouble reproducing this any time soon but it won't stop me from trying:  Maybe a little watery- I was about 20C above the temperature I was aiming for, and the canned tomatoes I was using are a bit crap. Those should be easy enough to fix. The crust I think was the real winner:   The oven is an effeuno p134ha 500C edition with a saputo biscotto stone. I've been looking for something like this for about a decade now and had nearly given up when a bunch of Italians from another forum started appearing in my youtube searches turning out insane pizzas with this model and its shorter brother the p134a. There's a community that mod them with PID controllers and extra insulation but this is more for the 450C model where for Neapolitan style you're right on the edge of what the oven is capable of. I went for this over wood-fired or gas powered as I live in a climate where I'd rather be making pizza indoors all year round than waiting for a few dry days outside. The dough I'm using is locally branded 00 flour following a 65% hydration recipe with 25% by flour mass overnight poolish similar to Jeff Varasano's recipe. 1h bulk ferment and 24h balled at room temp. This dough was hand kneaded as I don't have a mixer. I've got a bag of caputo pizzeria on order.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:18
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One thing you might want to consider is that this is a ~3kW 240v oven. I'm not sure where you are but you may need to wire it into a dryer connection or similar if you're in a 110v country.
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Feb 4, 2021 18:52
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Ok, maybe not a fluke then. Dropped the temp on the stone to 470C and left it in for 72s. Last pizza was 63s:   This was *just* on the verge of being overcooked- some toastier flavours from the crust but still a great chew. The mozz melted to about the right consistency, maybe slightly too long. What're your opinions on peel/pizza lubricant? Right now I'm using fine semolina and it shows on the crust. I really like the slightly abrasive crunchy texture you get from it combined with the chew of the dough. I might try some with 00 flour next and compare.
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Feb 4, 2021 21:29
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mediaphage posted:i don't bother with special flours, though, i stick to AP if i'm not milling it myself. I've been trying for so long to get good pizzas out of bad ovens that I'm really looking forward to changing up the rest of my process to see what was just down to the oven. I've plenty of AP kicking about, might try a batch with that next.
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Feb 4, 2021 22:00
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Went extremely hipster for this one. Vegetarian mock duck, hoisin sauce, mozz. Cucumber + spring onion added after cooking.     I hosed up the launch and it came out oval. Still ate that pie like it was my last meal on earth.
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Feb 5, 2021 21:02
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Jamsta posted:Mate, that looks like a great idea... awesome job. Definitely stealing that idea! It's not mine sadly- I've seen it around in a few places, and a bar I used to go to served it. It is really, really good with either mock or real duck.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:20
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LifeSunDeath posted:thought it was pulled pork poutine pizza, either way looks delicious. That also sounds tasty. Something slightly sweet like hoisin works really well to offset the saltiness of the dough. Gravy might be a bit savoury but I could totally see pulled pork with an apple sauce working.
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Feb 5, 2021 22:24
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At the risk of loving up a winning streak, I'm making a batch with 25% less salt this time. As I understand it the purpose of the salt is to slow the ferment and promote stronger gluten formation, but since I'm averaging temps of 16C during the bulk ferment and proofing stages I don't need to slow it much. I'm also wary of regularly eating pies with nearly 3g salt in them.
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Feb 7, 2021 14:42
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ogopogo posted:We put up a two pizza and wings combo for the Big Game, one we pulled from a past pizza for Tampa Bay and the other our chef worked on over the last week or two to put together. The wings were done by a friend of ours who runs a Jamaican patty shop, so he did a little Jamaican jerk and smoke job on a big ol' pile of meaty wings for us. I would eat all of those and feel bad about it for like 5 seconds. Those pies look amazing.
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Feb 9, 2021 14:40
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mediaphage posted:there’s way too much worship of the perfect with online food culture these days and tbh i find it frustrating. cooking a pizza at 550 isn’t sad (i’m aware this was likely said in jest) especially if you have stone, steel, or aluminum to help out. you really don’t need 00 flour, either; as long as you have good, strong flour and reasonable technique, you’ll make good pizza. Seconded- although I'd say the heat does make the difference between a great home-style pizza and a great restaurant-style one. I was using AP on and off in between batches of 00 when I could get it and had a colder oven, and didn't notice much of a difference. The heat really changed things for me but that has more to do with what you're trying to achieve. Canotto style crusts might be possible at lower temps with some messing around like adding the ingredients after an initial bake, but it never really worked for me.
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Feb 17, 2021 10:38
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Gorgonzola, broccoli, fennel sausage. This one came out great. The sweetness of the broccoli works nice as a foil for the cheese while the fennel amplifies it. 
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Feb 19, 2021 20:46
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Feels weird to be posting after myself but here's another:  Chicken madras, onions + mozz. Mint + cucumber raita added after cooking. Ingredients-wise this was very good, if I'd had some coriander leaves to garnish I think they'd have worked well. Base came out good on this one but I'm having a hard time getting the mozz to fully melt at the same time as the crust is cooked. You can see on my previous post that I ran a lower temp to get the mozz to the right consistency through longer cook times, but the crust didn't leopard up as well and is more evenly brown. I ran the top element at 470C and the bottom at about 350 for this one. e: I'm using brined mozz rather than the firmer stuff that comes in blocks, not out of any preference, I just have a hard time finding the firmer stuff. I'm also making sure it's at room temp before putting it on the pie. StarkingBarfish fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Feb 28, 2021 |
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Feb 28, 2021 20:59
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Malefitz posted:
Yeah, it's not cheap. The 1/2 height version of this oven, the p134a is a little bit cheaper but not by much. Interestingly, they've gotten more rather than less expensive over time. I think when they first came out they were closer to 400-500€. Malefitz posted:I guess you're a bit biased just having bought this oven but how would you say it compares to the Ooni Koda 16 or similar gas powered ovens? They seem a bit cheaper overall. Did you not consider these at all because you wanted an electric oven? I haven't used the ooni or similar gas/wood-fired ovens, so I can't do a direct comparison, but the things that made me choose the effeuno over the ooni/roccbox and the like in order of personal priority were: - Ability to use indoors. I get a lot of rain here and want to make pizzas all year round without having to go outside and face the weather. - Effort/prep time. While it takes this oven 30-40 minutes to get up to temp, it can do so entirely unsupervised. I wasn't keen on having to keep a stock of seasoned wood or break out a propane tank and babysit it through the warmup if I'm just doing a couple of pizzas at a time - When buying it I wasn't sure if I'd be ditching the kitchen 20yr old fan oven I already have, but I wanted to make bread, pitta, naan, calzones etc as well. This is why i opted for the larger model that has an increased height. You can probably do most of these things in the ooni but the extra headroom helps for bread. Since getting the effeuno I haven't used my home oven at all. Mainly because the effeuno is nearly 4x as energy efficient. The installed fan oven I have uses the same rated elements to heat a volume about 2x larger. It takes forever to get up to a temperature half that of the effeuno and isn't as well insulated since on average I was paying about 4x the cost in electricity to make a pizza with it. This is probably very dependent on how modern your normal oven is and on what you use it for, as well as the cost of energy where you are. I don't roast entire turkeys or anything like that which needs the extra volume. I doubt I'll break even over the lifetime of the oven in terms of energy efficiency but it does add up. Broccoli cooked at 500C is phenomenal by the way. You get a lovely char and crunch because anything thicker than a millimeter is basically still raw. It does a good job of rare steaks at that temp too as long as you pat them dry before putting them in to get crust formation. Malefitz posted:And would you say your purchase was absolutely worth it or would you do something different? absolutely worth it is tricky to answer. The downsides I can think of are the cost and the counter space it takes up. If it was supplementing rather than replacing my existing oven it'd be less attractive but that didn't stop me getting it in the first place. For me I'd definitely buy it again over a gas/wood option and it's both cheaper and more versatile than the breville pizzaiolo which is the closest competition as far as I can see.
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Mar 1, 2021 13:27
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Malefitz posted:Are you using the stock stone or do you use a separate one? The store I found sells a biscotto stone for 60€ extra, do you think it's necessary? For this oven I'd say yes. The refractory type stones dump heat much faster into the base so for low temperature ovens they help crisp it up over the course of longer, lower cook times. At neapolitan temps this works in the opposite direction: You need something that dumps its heat slower so you don't get a burned base. Malefitz posted:Are you actually using the 500°C temperature? There is the 450°C model which costs 100€ less and I'm not sure if the extra 50°C are really worth it. I watched a review video on Youtube and it seemed it's already very easy to burn the Pizza using just 450°C. No- this is maybe the one thing I'd change if I were buying again. This oven gets up to 530C according to the IR themometer I have. The 450 model probably also tops out a little above its spec. I tend to run at around 470C for the pies I've shown here, so I could probably have gotten away with the 450 model. The counterargument to this is you really want the top element on while the pie is in the oven to really get heat into the crust to inflate it before it dries out. That means normally just before I launch a pie I'll turn the thermostat to 500 for the duration of the cook to make sure the element stays on, then drop it back to 470 while prepping the next pie. If you're unlucky with the 450 model I could imagine the oven just cuts out the top element when the pie goes in and takes a while to register the temp drop. This probably is a minor issue though. It may also make a difference if you're cooking like 5 pies in rapid succession, you'd possibly want to be a bit over temp for the first pie so you don't fall too far below on the last one. Malefitz posted:Also is this thing mobile? Like can I pick it up and carry it to my rooftop terrace realistically? It's luggable, but a bit bulky. Think similar weight and dimensions to hauling around an old CRT television. The only issue I can see with bringing it outside is the instructions tell you to avoid using extension cords. I guess if you get a single-socket lead rated for 13A you'd be ok, and they're blanket telling you not to in case someone uses a lower rated one. Malefitz posted:Another question. In your experience, when making Pizza and Calzone back-to-back, will the temperature settings of the Pizza also work for the Calzone or will it need lower temperature and some time to cool down? If you have tested this at all. I've not tested calzone in it yet- that's coming once I've finished dialing in regular pizzas. I'd guess you would need to lower the temp a bit to cook through a calzone, but that shouldn't be a problem if you do pizza first, calzone second. The thermal mass of the oven itself is quite low, the temperature of the biscotto drops about 1C per second with the door open. It also gets back up to temp pretty quick, but I've not done more than two pies back to back so far and wasn't in so much of a hurry that I had to recheck temps before firing the second one. Malefitz posted:Sorry for all of these questions. I'm on the verge of buying this thing but I want to know what I can expect. Yeah I totally understand, and I'd not take one person's experience with it on its own if I was dropping that much money on something. When I was looking around there were a lot of people raving about them on youtube and the confraternita della pizza forum who take these things seriously. You might want to check out some of those videos first.
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Mar 1, 2021 17:53
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ogopogo posted:Beautiful pizza, definitely love the Indian food style! oh drat I missed this while drafting my post. That's a great looking pie! ogopogo posted:Yeah, keeping it simple and just doing a proper low 'n slow cook of the onions in butter and salt has always worked best. No need to mess with what works! So is this- your crusts always look so perfect! e: Tonight's margherita: 
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Mar 1, 2021 19:57
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Had some dough that was getting a bit too old to make pizza with (5th day of cold ferment in the fridge). Made foccacia instead. Capers, cherry toms, oregano and rosemary: Came out pretty good.
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Mar 3, 2021 21:41
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mediaphage posted:its true but the longer you go the less structure you get and sometimes you just end up with something thats mostly goo This is why I went focaccia, yeah. I'm still having trouble with pies not wanting to leave the peel with some batches, and the older the dough is the more trouble I have. I suspect it's because I'm hand-kneading still while waiting on a mixer and having trouble with consistency between batches due to laziness/technique. With focaccia I'm just dumping the pile of goo into an oiled tray which is a lot more forgiving than trying to get it pizza shaped and off a peel.
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Mar 5, 2021 11:11
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mediaphage posted:i’m not sure about that; if it sits in the fridge for more than a day your gluten will be sufficiently developed. fwiw you can always just put parchment on your peel. it works great and there’s little real cooking difference It's on my list of things to try after you mentioned it previously: I'm waiting to do two pies in rapid succession with/without. What I found was that my last batch were incredibly sticky, almost 'sweaty' dough, in that once flattened it had a sheen to it that really liked sticking to the peel, particularly for the later ones that spent more time in the fridge.  This recent batch worked well, but I was way too lean on the salt at 2% and the crust tastes meh because of it. Looks like if you want good pizzas you need to just deal with it being high sodium.
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Mar 5, 2021 14:37
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Malefitz posted:Thanks man, I appreciate it. Speaking of which, this guy just did a 'review' of the p134ha. He has looked at the p134a before. He's a bit too youtube for my liking but it gives you an idea of the size of the oven and how it cooks. I reckon they had the base temperature too high and left the door open way too long  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BCBgqH3VyQ e: yeah he had both the base and ceiling at 500C which is dumb as hell.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:27
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Malefitz posted:
Looking forward to seeing what you make with it!
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Mar 10, 2021 00:11
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Sir Sidney Poitier posted:I make the Serious Eats foolproof pan pizza a lot and love it. It should work fine, lots of Italian breads use lard instead of or mixed with olive oil. Only thing that'd worry me is the smoke point being too low but its not high for evoo either. Will probably taste amazing.
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Mar 13, 2021 12:05
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By the way, it might be a bit amateur for GWS pizza experts, but in case it's not common knowledge I'm really liking the PizzApp for quick calculations:  This is my default recipe at the moment, which I copied into the app. It has nice things like overleavening warnings, and in addition to just being able to specify your batch size in the number of doughballs you need it adjusts the yeast quantities based on the salt %age, room/fridge temps and leavening times. It makes it easy to get consistency when your room temp varies seasonally.
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Mar 19, 2021 11:41
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It's my recipe copied in from a mix of Jeff varsano so not the fault of the app, but : I leave the poolish overnight at room temp for 12h. Its 50/50 water and flour, so 25% of the flour by weight and the same amount of water by weight. I then add the remaining water and flour to 65% hydration, autolyse for 20mins, add the salt and knead for 20. I bulk ferment for 1h at room temp, then ball and cold ferment for 48h.
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Mar 19, 2021 23:55
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ogopogo posted:Kale and sausage with Calabrian chili aioli Quoting these so they can be admired on a second page. You always get such perfect crusts and those are ace ingredient combinations.
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Mar 26, 2021 14:21
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:At the time, we were using supermarket pizza sauces, which tend top pack some salt. Spread that on a 3% salt dough and you can feel yourself turning into a mummy. I find this too- it's personal preference but after eating a pie with 3% salt I find myself getting up to drink water in the middle of the night. For my recipe about 2.5% is enough to not mess much with the fermentation and still give the dough a good flavour. Any less and it begins to get a bit bland.
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Apr 5, 2021 09:58
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I'm using a can of san marzanos, 4-6 leaves of basil and ~1-2g of salt hit for about 2 seconds with a stick blender to coat about 6-8 pizzas. The salt amount in the sauce is usually the thing I adjust to taste as different brands/varieties of tomatoes have a different salt content and sweetness but it doesn't contribute much to the total. On my neapolitans I'm typically adding 1tbsp of grana, pecorino or parmesan and for pecorino in particular that's another 1/4-1/2g of salt added to each pie. The issue I have with dropping the salt in the dough to account for the toppings is that the crust is 50% of the pizza experience for me- if the cornicione doesn't have some flavour to it I feel like I'm missing out on one of the best parts of a good neapolitan. StarkingBarfish fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 09:49
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Ahh okay, I can understand adjusting the sauce's salt based on the starting amount of salt. I'm assuming that's something like a 28oz can of san marzanos. For whatever reason, that seems like quite a bit of basil, but I'm really just worried about the salt. This is for a 400ml can so about half that. For the Basil content these are single leaves not sprigs I'm talking about. Agreed on the variability with adjusting salt, I've tried going below 2% before and had issues. The pizapp is good at adjusting the yeast content to account for changes in salt content though. I've not confirmed it gets it right but plan to soon.
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Apr 6, 2021 21:12
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Malefitz posted:
Checking in on this because I'm excited to see if you're having as much fun with it as I am. Has it arrived yet? 
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Apr 14, 2021 10:41
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Brutal  looking at the confraternita thread on effeuno it looks like effeuno themselves are experiencing delays: https://laconfraternitadellapizza.forumfree.it/?t=75130319&st=6135#lastpost The last post in there said it took about 8 weeks from purchase. Still worth the wait in my opinion but frustrating as hell
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Apr 15, 2021 08:59
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Malefitz posted:Oh no. Thanks for the link. That's the spirit. I pretty much spent the time between ordering it and having it arrive: - adding poo poo like proofing trays to my shopping list - testing out a few batches of higher hydration dough to see what it's like to work with
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Apr 15, 2021 20:39
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Previously I was using 65% but with a cordierite stone it wasn't great. i tried going up to about 70% and that worked better at low temp, now I'm back to 65% which works fine at these temps.
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Apr 15, 2021 21:58
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Looks amazing. Those meatballs sound great I reckon if I had to do a tribute to NYC without just going new york style some kind of reuben pizza would be my starting point. White pizza using emmental and sour cream with some caraway seeds, Pastrami and sauerkraut added post bake and a few dots of sharp mustard. Might be a bit overpowering but going to have to test it out sometime
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Apr 17, 2021 10:30
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mediaphage posted:loool This is a pro strategy for maintaining good neighbourly relations. Unless you keep murdering them with hypertension.
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Apr 19, 2021 08:04
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Malefitz posted:A seemingly endless wait later and I can finally get my hands on this bad boy. My Effeuno is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow! Rejoice! Awesome. Hope you have some poolish on the go in anticipation! That's still my go to method and temps for the upper element. I'm still playing with the lower one but have settled on about 320C for a good bit of even char on the base. Expect about 70-90s per pie at those temperatures.
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Apr 19, 2021 22:37
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Malefitz posted:gently caress, I love my new toy! It's brilliant! Hell yes that's the good stuff. Love that last ingredient combination too. How are your bases looking at 440 on the bottom? I found it a little too much if the top was at 470 and had preheated, but I'm only usually doing one pie so the first one is getting the full heat the top element is putting into the stone without having dumped any.
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Apr 20, 2021 20:19
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Yeah I'm running a biscotto. I think the bottom element is there to mostly maintain heat in the stone but the biscotto doesn't lose much off the preheat when the top element is directly radiating onto it, it's probably more important to get it tuned to the second or third pie than the first but since I've been doing mostly one at a time during lockdown here I've not had the chance test it for a solid batch of consecutive pizzas yet.
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Apr 20, 2021 22:17
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I agree, those look great! I've a poolish on the go for tomorrow. Will give 440 a try. Is that the temp on the dial or are you using a thermometer?
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May 2, 2021 23:06
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CancerCakes posted:Surely after 4 days you have to roll and ball anyway? Although some might argue that the yeast needs to have a bit of time at room temperature to activate before going in the fridge. Depends on your room temperature as well! My understanding, based on stuff I've heard Gino Sorbillo say, is that you want to ferment at room temp for a while, and then refridgerate, rather than refridgerating and warming it up later. He says this is because when cold the yeast won't do much. This makes sense to me, because ideally you want the gluten to form, then have the yeast grow which happens best at warmer temps, then once risen the now more populous yeast can work slower and all the secondary fermentation products start to slowly provide flavour in the fridge. If you've very little yeast because it hasn't had a chance to multiply you'll get a proportional reduction in flavour because there's less of it to work slowly. I've tried both methods (no warm rise before the fridge, then bring to temp and rise on the day I'm baking) and I always got better results with the warm rise first. That's for neapolitans though, not sure if NY style behaves differently.
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May 2, 2021 23:34
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Sure- this is a slight adjustment to the recipe I posted earlier in the thread, mainly to adjust up the salt slightly and to account for slightly different room temperature:  The PizzApp is really good by the way. The process I use is: - Make the poolish the night before. I don't have scales sensitive enough to get 0.32g of yeast but I measure a gram and use about a third of it by-eye. I dissolve that in the 242g of cold water and roughly mix the 242g of flour in. Leave covered. - In the morning the poolish should have roughly doubled in size. I add the poolish to the 340g of water, mix well until even consistency, and then add the full 725g of flour and mix roughly (don't make dough at this stage, just fork it together). I leave that to autolyse for 20-30mins - While the dough is autolysing I dissolve the 2.2g of yeast (again, by eye so it's 2g on the scale plus a pinch) in the remaining 47g of water. After the 20-30mins is up, I pitch this into the dough, mix well for a few minutes until combined, and then add the 24g of salt. - I knead this for a good 20mins, and bulk ferment for 2h. I then ball, place in a covered proofing tray and put it in the fridge. If I'm making pizza that day I'll put as many balls as I intend to use in a separate tray and leave them to proof out of the fridge, the balls that go in the fridge will last up to 5 days but are best around 2-4 days later. For the ones that went in the fridge I'll take them out 2-3hrs before using them, depending on room temp. Less for warmer days, more for colder ones. The pizzApp is great as it'll adjust the amount of yeast based on the room/fridge temps and salt percentage. It's also easy to adjust for the number of and size of balls you want.
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May 3, 2021 00:18
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I let it come to temp and rise a bit, yeah. Cold dough is harder to shape and if it has been in the fridge for 4 or 5 days it's worth balling it again and letting it rise a bit otherwise its really damp and hard to launch without loads of Semolina or flour. I try not to ball it again if I can but I'll always let it sit for a couple of hours at room temp at least.
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May 3, 2021 01:07
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