General > Cooking
Pizza Bases
vk3em:
IMO, a pizza steel is the key to getting decent pizza bases in a residential domestic oven.
I was practising TIG welding at the time, so I welded up two sheets of 6mm mild steel into a 12mm plate that fits the oven shelf. It's bloody heavy, and I would go for an 8mm plate if buying a new piece from a steel merchant. You want to make sure it is mild steel, not stainless. Stainless reflects heat so it not good for this application. If your steel comes with complementary rust, you can remove that with some scotch brite or steel wool. Don't remove the mill scale, which is hard, greyish oxide layer on the plate. The mill scale is your friend, will help prevent further rust, and is non stick, and non toxic.
Each oven is different, and my Westinghouse oven has an analog temperature control dial. I experimented with placing the steel at different locations in the oven, and ended up at the top shelf. Experimentation was required to find the right setting on the dial, where the temp control was not linear nor did it max out if you maxed the dial. 250 deg C was the last annotated temp of the front panel, and I found a setting of 280 deg (estimated) gave a plate temp of 305 deg C after 1 hour of pre-heating. Further increase of the dial resulted in reduced temperature, which is not what I expected.
Using a slow fermented pizza dough with 70% hydration, it takes about 6 minutes in total to cook the pizza. 4 minutes on pizza oven mode, 2 minutes on grill mode. We let the oven and plate recover for 10 minutes before baking the next pizza. Enough time to enjoy a glass of wine and talk shit.
Pizza Stones are not suitable at these temperatures. Stone is ideal for wood fired ovens where the temperature is around 400 deg C. At 280 deg C to 300 deg C, the stone is too slow in conducting heat. The pizza steel has a better thermal conduction characteristic at these temps, so the bottom is covered in nice "leopard spots" with a fully cooked base, and top.
My tips:
- Try and find Carputo Red 00 Pizza Flour. It has the best characteristics for a good base.
- Slow fermentation helps : Typically I used 2g yeast for 1 kg of flour @ 70% hydration, 2 hour bulk proof, then into fridge for 24-72 hours. Remove, shape into 250 g balls, and proof again for 4 hours at 25 deg C.
- Don't overload your pizza, and avoid wet ingredients like fresh capsicum
- 70% hydration can be difficult to shape and handle, so at the end of proofing your balls, put them back into the fridge. As they chill down, they become less sticky, and easier to handle, and still cooking up really well.
Cheers
Luke
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: beanflying on August 24, 2022, 02:01:45 pm ---I have a stone base but for domestic ovens I prefer the non stick Plates with holes in them for ease of use and cleanup. Not a totally uniform crunchy base but just a better compromise for me at least.
--- End quote ---
I *did* have two ceramic pizza stones, but both cracked last week (weirdly in almost identical places with the same curve) after I placed pizza on them. I imagine the temperature differential between the hot stones and cold pizza/pan was just too much.
I was actually making these, which turned out VERY well:
ttx450:
Small pie...
ttx450:
Usual.. pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives.
coppercone2:
Does anyone use the bread machine to make pizza dough?
I was using a dough hook. Its alright. But I found something else
if you use the auto sifter scale to sift flour directly into a bread machine cup, and set the bread machine to dough, it makes a nice dough.
I made a pan pizza with this. Its pretty good. I like how it gets rid of the step of letting it rise in an oiled bowl. Also no monitoring like the dough hook. Only one dough transfer onto a floured board. Maybe you can even stretch it in the pan if you make the dough right, mine was a bit wet so I had to flour the bottom . I was able to just roll it down into close the right shape with a roller, so only minimum interaction was needed with the dough by hand to make it fit in the pan.
I don't like the order of the ingrediants though, because the bread machine wants water on the bottom, so you can't weigh your water in the transfer thing because the flour will stick, so you still need to weigh that seperately. But fortunately its just water so you don't need to rinse anything.
So the only measuring tool you need to measure with something you clean after is the oil spoon, and the auto sifter, but that thing improves the quality so much its worth it (put yeast, sugar, salt through it no problem).
IDK if its good enough for a stone pie, the hook might be better, but for a pan pizza... more then good enough
trick I found is to separtate the dough from the edge of the oiled pan and pour extra oil around the perimieter of the pizza like a moat. Came right out of a stainless steel pan with a spatula no problem
I think the bread machine dough was more sticky though, with the dough hook you add more flour to get it right on the hook, with the machine IMO better to let it over hydrate then just put some flour on it after.. nice texture anyway IMO
the stone cooked pizza is less oily but its stressful because you need to assemble it and transfer it quickly to avoid peel problems, and holes are a big deal. with a pan pizza you can load on the sauce and cheese and if there is a hole you can patch it up after its transfered and it will hold, the repair on a stone pizza is perilous.
also get the dough scraper tool and a pizza peel. but i love the auto sifter because I hate measuring powders.
I need some kind of precision oiler too, so I don't need to wash oil spoons.
actually since i wash the sifter every time, I can probobly weigh the water so long I wait like a good 20 minutes to make sure most of it drips off/evaporate. let it warm up to room temp too because its filtered usually from the tap.
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