Jerry, forgot to mention I did a 1min blast on the grill, ie the steel plate broiler method. I do like the top of the pizza well done with pepperoni edges burnt a little. I need to get some smaller pepperoni slices, the ones from tesco I have now I rip in half because they're so large. I seen some good smaller ones in Asda.

Your pizza looks good to me though needs a little more browning on top. Underneath looks great and nice looking pizza overall.

My new dough mix is done in the Lehmann calculator. Will be ready tomorrow

Flour (100%): Water (63%): ADY (0.75%): Salt (1.75%): Oil (1%): Sugar (1%): Total (167.5%): Single Ball:

673.96 g  |  23.77 oz | 1.49 lbs 424.6 g  |  14.98 oz | 0.94 lbs 5.05 g | 0.18 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.34 tsp | 0.45 tbsp 11.79 g | 0.42 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.11 tsp | 0.7 tbsp 6.74 g | 0.24 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.5 tsp | 0.5 tbsp 6.74 g | 0.24 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.69 tsp | 0.56 tbsp 1128.89 g | 39.82 oz | 2.49 lbs | TF = 0.1 376.3 g | 13.27 oz | 0.83 lbs

My previous doughs from were done by using by peoples recipes done in teaspoons, measuring water, and bit of guess work, with no hydration info.

Hopefully my new mix will address the lack of browning underneath and also my previous doughs always sprung back and quite difficult to stretch.

I started out with allisons strong bread flour, protein 12.1%. I noticed this time they had very strong bread flour 13.9% protein so I grabbed that and used it today. Maybe more protein will make it stronger, less springy. They recommend 13/14%.

I've got the steel in place, 1/2 inch thick, was going to use cast iron but its harder to find anyone who cuts it.

Was my best pizza yet, very tasty, ate every bit of the crust. The dough wasn't floppy or soft/soggy, quite firm but didn't get the charring/darkening underneath as I would've hoped. Maybe have to try a different dough ratio, steel has definitely helped, also got a nice oven spring.

before going into this pizza making I thought cast iron would be a good platform, cooking here we use iron or ally and i've worked on car engines and other metal related repairs in the past, ally would be too fast

doing some searching it seems to be the case and led me back to pizzamaking.com and heston's cast iron pan trick

edit


don't have the final pizza pic, had a crowd gathering and it quickly went. Still don't have a stone or plate so it wasn't that crispy underneath although much better than before, cooking time was 5mins, can't remember exactly. getting to 525f wasn't very long, 20 odd mins

Got my mind set on a cast iron or steel plate or maybe some quarry stone if not and to also use the top oven and grill, pre heat the iron plate. unfortunately I can't use both the top oven and grill at the same time, would be ideal if I could, perhaps I can mod it.

Good videos there. I've watched countless videos over the past few days and read lots of threads. Tony Gemignani seems really good. I read Jeff varasano's site and he calls out pizza champions but I rate this Tony G guy. Seems to do everything the right according to his interviews and other vids.

I enjoyed watching this series. Perhaps you've seen it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dtiOxq73uM

I'm using Allisons strong bread flour and ADY at the moment. Couldn't find any semolina at tesco. Wanted it to help with spreading out the dough and also combine it with the bread flour as Jamie Oliver suggests.

That's a very hot oven StoneCut.

The bag variety I meant is the whole piece of mozz in a watery bag, not the standard grated stuff. I've edited my post above.

For the real buffalo mozz, seems I'd have to order it online or find a specialist shop.

Tried blocking the vent off on my oven mostly and covering the thermocouple with no success, still 20+ mins.

Determined to fix it I bought an oven thermometer just to see what's happening. At stock the oven is getting to 350-375f. I then tried moving the thermocouple outside of the door through the vent which came in handy. Now I'm getting 525f without blocking the vent so very pleased with that.

Still to test a pizza with my modified oven. My second pizza, prior to the mod, I noticed two thirds of the pizza base under the cheese and tomato was just warmish, you would've thought it was left to stand for 10mins. Still, had some success with some proper mozz in the watery bag suggested by natterjack and also tried my own tomato sauce mixed with some dried methi/fenugreek leaves, very tasty. Can't wait to try this with my new oven temp. My new batch of dough will be ready tomorrow. Also got some parmesan and padano cheese to try.

Time to rustle up a Chicken Madras tonight.

Quote from: JerryM on January 21, 2013, 06:40 PM
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.

I was thinking one large tile would be better when moving the pizza but yes it should work fine. I guess you could even fix the tiles together to stop them sliding if needed.

Really need to see if I can get my oven up to temp, no access to a heat gun. The vent is on the front door seal and should be blocked quite easy. The thermocouple is hanging down from the oven ceiling.

Should be on the right path if I can half the cooking time. How long does yours take in your domestic oven JerryM? Should I be looking at 7-10mins tops?

Thanks.

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.

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.

Little suspicious of Martinwhynot coming out of nowhere. Reads like the same person or a friend.

Sorry if not the case.