Here's my first effort.



Tasted quite good but not as good as I'd hoped.

First it was quite soft soggy from what I wanted, no real browning underneath. Didn't seem to get enough rise out of the dough. All I could find was tesco's own mozzarella, it didn't come out white melting and stringy or tasty enough except the odd small area, its was disappointingly very much like every TA I've had in a decade or more where its more clumpy, yellowish, okay nice to an extent but average in my opinion and very similar to how the pizzahut round here is.

Couldn't find a pizza stone, went to tesco, asda, morrisons, wilkinsons, could only get these thin pizza plates, no pizza screens either. I guess they don't sell well or take up too much room too heavy. I'll have to order online or try sainsbury's, or find some catering place. Quarry tiles are far too small from what I could see.

Supermarket pizzas take 10-12mins, sometimes 15mins gas mark 6 in my oven. My first one took 20mins and wasn't cooked enough despite preheating for 30mins on the highest setting , I had to take it out as I didn't want more browning of the cheese and develop some thin layer.

I'll try a pizza stone or try to source one of those pizza pans the takeaway often use, more preheating. On my oven there's a six inch gap/vent on the door which I don't think helps.

Anyway, not bad, not great, kind of rivaled typical tesco, asda, pizzahut. In recent months I've been going to Aldi and their stonebaked pizza is much better than all the other supermarkets and is only half the price at around ?1.79 every day, not on these cheap one week then jump up to ?3.50 the next week ie tesco. Aldi pizza for the price makes me think twice about going to the trouble.

Hope I can find a place for lots of decent mozzarella at reasonable prices. Doing it yourself doesn't seem quite as cheap if you have to pre-heat the oven for an hour on full and ?1.50 for a bag of cheese to cover a 12" pizza along with the rest.

Quote from: tonybatty on January 19, 2013, 11:28 AM
Uncle Buck,
here's the blog of the build I did with lots of photos of the construction. As you'll see, from the lack of recent entries I'm not much of a blogger
www.batty.me.uk

Jerry,
try it with sour dough starter only, there's certainly enough rise without commercial yeast, and the flavour is fantastic. as I say to all my guests, 'best pizza this side of Rome' and they have to agree otherwise they don't get invited back ;D

Shame about the recent crappy summer weather which meant I only fired the oven up half a dozen times last year.

looks good tonybatty well done, I haven't been on http://ukwoodfiredovenforum.proboards.com for a while I must pop in

Hi natterjak

Might give that a whirl, thanks. Similar to those pizza screens I've seen recommended. My plate has some holes in but maybe not enough. I think I need to pre heat much longer more than anything.

EDIT: Just ordered that mesh. Should help with condensation

Yes the cheese was pre-grated bag, all I could find at the time unfortunately. I'll search harder for the buffalo mozz when the snow clears a bit.

Will check those other cheeses out StoneCut.

Thanks.

Quote from: harley on January 21, 2013, 02:35 PM
Quarry tiles are far too small from what I could see.

reclamation yards have the tiles - they are 1 inch thick and 6 inch square - i use 4 off in my domestic oven. i think the modern equivalent would work too but are thinner. not used myself but would expect the stone to give reasonable performance - the thicker the better (it acts as a heat store).

can post a pic of my setup if you need.

quarry tiles/stone are no good unless the oven temp is high ~ 550C. getting to this temp (typ 1 hr oven pre heat) is not easy in a domestic oven and potentially could damage it. you may be stuck unless the vent can be temp blocked. for example on the difficulty i had to locate the thermocouple and covered it to enable the oven to run at the higher temp.

tonyB,

very best wishes.

i picked up on your initial comment on the West Bromwich location for fire bricks as this is my No 1 task in the coming wfo season. i tried to purchase from Higgs Refractories in the Midland over the new year being foiled by seasonal shutdown.

Jerry, the company I used was W Midlands Refractories who were subsequently rolled into Yorkshire Refractories who were rolled into Sapling Associates : For comparison, you should also have a look at www.kilnlinings.co.uk who have supplied a number of members on the forum and I believe offers members a discount.

There's quite a range of firebricks not all of which are right for the classic wfo so make sure you do your research before buying.