Keiths 34" build in north yorkshire uk

[kstronach]

hey LS, thanks yea i did a week of curing fires before i insulated and rendered so i'm hoping this weekend to get a big fire in there weather depending and see how it goes! i'm going to knock some dough up tomorrow just in case!!

can anyone point me in the direction of a good neapolitan dough for the oven? atm i only have access to strong bread flour, plain flour etc from the supermarket however i do have access to fresh yeast if this will make a better tasting dough?

keith

[lemonsouffle]

Hi Keith

we always have pizza for Friday supper and this is my very casual (and never before documented) approach for 5 pizzas and some "pizza dough bread" made with the leftovers.

2lb strong white bread flour (waitrose organic is my usual)
2tsp table salt
a good lug of olive oil - about 3tbs but I just pour straight from the bottle
1 tbs instant dried yeast

combine the above in bowl and add

1 pint warm water


Knead to give a soft sticky dough - I do this in my kenwood.

Place in an oiled bowl until you are ready to make pizza.

I have recently been using fresh yeast which I like using but I am not convinced that it makes much difference. I think that the big difference in dough flavour is between dough risen with sourdough and commercial yeast.

I allow the dough to rise for anything between 2 and 8 hours.

When making pizza about 6oz of dough seems to give a good base for 1 person.

It is all very casual here, I found out quite by chance that this pizza dough does't seem to be too sensitive to rising times so I can make dough in the morning and then bake pizza at different times in the evening if some of the children need to eat earlier than others. Anything left over at the end of the day is either made into bread rolls or pressed out into a foccacia style loaf.

Sorry I can't be more precise but these things take practice and you need to get used to the feel of the dough.

The most important ingredient is your WFO just get it really hot and then the pizza base will be so good.

Keep baking and enjoy your oven.

LS

[kstronach]

hi LS . . . thanks for your recipe i shall give it a try when i have my first pizza party! i think i'm going to make a few different doughs then i can see how the different types handle! i lit the oven this weekend but made some last minute dough i found on forno bravo called dough in a hurry!! i wasn't very prepared at all, in truth i didn't plan to go as far as i did but when the wood got delivered i built a fire and just kept going!!

[kstronach]

first big fire this weekend! i didn't really plan to cook in it but when the wood got delivered i built a fire and just kept going! it took quite a while to get to temperature about 2 1/2 to 3 hours but some of the wood i got i didn't think was seasoned well enough and was also wet from the rain we've had over the last week! i have a few questions on wood too but think i'll start a new thread for that one!

anyhow back to the fire, it was smokey for quite a while even when there was a good flame and it appeared to be going well but again more to do with the wood i think! eventually the dome turned white and was registering hi on the laser gun it goes to 550c and the floor was at about 380 at this point i spread the coals about and planned a quick trip to the local shop for some mozzarella, salami and the like! this didn't go to plan ! about an hour and twenty mins later i got home after discovering the local shop had sold out! so i set off to the nearest supermarket!

anyway when i eventually got home i think the coals had been spread too long (i read somewhere about 15 mins is good then push aside and and a few logs), not to be deterred i pushed them to the side and ploughed on and added a few more of the questionably seasoned logs! after some blowing these started going and i was back on track . . . until some unexpected relatives turned up! some small talk later and a quickly thrown together garlic and mozz pizza, (which was by far the best pizza out of the oven that night and i forgot to get a picture of!) i got back to it!

my floor temp was around 340c now and dome was at about 425c i think, the pizza was good but i am aiming to make much better and quicker to a didn't time it but it was a bit over the hallowed 90 second mark! anyway a picture of my first official pizza it was nothing special just mozzarella and ham and ideally i wanted some more browning above and below but boy it tasted good!

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[kstronach]

a few notes on the oven . . . there was 2 or 3 lines of render cracking all stemming from the back of the flue, which i think terry touched on being a problem unless you have and insulated flue, and also some steam from that area too as i am still to properly finish that area off yet, at first i thought it was smoke leaking but thinking about it i'm pretty sure it wasn't! no cracking anywhere else on the render, but around the top of the oven it was reasonably warm to the touch, you could keep your hand on so i dont think it was too bad i did take a temp but i cant remember what it was now i took that many playing with the new toy!! also i kept a check on the underside of the concrete flags in the wood store directly beneath the oven these were ok until some time later i checked them and they too were reasonably hot and some hot water was dripping, i'm guessing the vermi hasn't dried out yet . . i really regret using the dam stuff now and wished i went with thermalights. i'm hoping the heat coming through the bottom was maybe due to all the water still in the vermi and heating up, that could be wish full thinking i'll let you all know in a few firings time! other than that it stood up to it pretty well! oh and i need to work on my firing technique!

[swatson]

Sometimes the best times are the unexpected times!

Congratulations on your pizza success, I have found when it comes to dough for pizza leave it for 24 hours at least and you will be amazed at how light and airy it becomes, it also becomes a lot more pliable and stretches with ease.

[swatson]

This is the recipe I use which is a clone of Roberto Caporuscio's dough from Keste's pizzaria New York, Roberto is from Naples and is world renowned. This will make 4 or 5 pizza's at 10" to 12".

Flour (100%):
Water (60%):
CY (.075%):
Salt (2%):
Total (162.075%):

Flour 691.04 g | 24.38 oz | 1.52 lbs
Water 414.62 g | 14.63 oz | 0.91 lbs
Cake yeast 0.52 g | 0.02 oz | 0 lbs |
Salt. 13.82 g | 0.49 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.88 tsp | 0.96 tbsp
Total. 1120 g | 39.51 oz | 2.47 lbs | TF = N/A
Single Ball. 280 g | 9.88 oz | 0.62 lbs

Yeast was dissolved in room temp water, flour was dumped in and mixed for a few seconds, then the salt. Total mix time around 5 minutes by hand. I do not have a fork mixer, but my goal was to have the dough looking very fluid and smooth, Went into a glass container, and was not touched for 24 hours.

Any questions on it give me a shout!

[kstronach]

Thanks, do you use caputo or 00 flour for your dough?

[swatson]

I normally use '00' from Sainsbury's. would love to try the Caputo but its too expensive to ship, and I can't find a stockist in the Glasgow area.

[swatson]

Keith,
You have a few replies on the pizza forum.

www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,26045.0.html

[kstronach]

ah thanks stevie i'll head over there now!

[kstronach]

not much progress of late, but i've started up again now and changed the single wall flue for an insulated jobby as the heat from the single wall flue was cracking the render around it! i have set the flue in and domed all around it with vermicrete so all i need now is a final weatherproofing coat or two! when i render the final coats i am going to put something around the flue to create mabey a 5 or 10mm gap that i will pull out when its set and fill with KOS fire cement out of a tube or heat resistant silicone or if any one knows of a better product i'll use that!?! any suggestions?

also has anyone used K Rend on there dome? i'm considering it and wondered if anyone had actually done it?

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[kstronach]

a quick pic of the underside of the flue, i cut the outside wall of the flue off about 2 inch up and let the internal tube down between the bricks then shuttered up the gaps angled into the flue.

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[suitord]

I was considering using K-rend on the dome (not quite at that stage yet) so I contacted K-rend to ask about it. The local guy here contacted head office and they came back saying it may not be suitable as they only recommend it up to temperatures of 35C.
Hope this info of some help.

[kstronach]

Ah ok thanks. I'm going to do a few full firings before I put a final coat on anyhow so I'll keep an eye on exterior temps see how hot it gets then decide! Would be good if someone else had used it first though!