Wood fired oven - cheese thin crust pizza

This was last night's meal. I am getting better with thin crust pizza but not where I need to be. My wife got me a laser thermometer so I could get some actual oven temperatures. Nothing fancy here, just cheese.

I fired it on white cedar kindling and sugar maple splits.



This shot is about 20 minutes into the burn. The secondaries at the top were over the thermometer limit of 1022 degrees.



Only a few food pics. I had no black olives, mushroom or pepperoni which is rare.



This pie had some nice topography.

Once the fire died down, the dome temps were 850 degrees.

 

Thinner crust and edges and a little more crunch to the crust. This was a little bready. I still need to find a good dough recipe. Half the fun is trying, the other half is the eating.

 

I've made literally 100s of tons of pizza dough in a previous career running a pizza restaurant, was a fantastic thin crust. The recipe is forever engrained in my gray matter, for the life of me I can not duplicate it, but I will not stop trying. Oh, and plain cheese is my absolute favorite!

Don't be messin with my cheese pizza!

 

Jon!

Haven't you seen this ad with the little guy and what he says at the end while stuck in the traffic jam?



This is what your doin to us here.

Jon? Are you eating another piece?

 

So Dave, is the yeast omitted completely in recipes you have used?

The recipes I am using cut half of the yeast out from my regular dough, some say add sugar. I am not letting the crust rise, but making it right into a pizza. I even used a rolling pin to flatten it out, but it still manages to rise while cooking.

 

I am not looking, I am not looking needs olives!!!

 

I checked everywhere on the shelves, none. 3 out of 4 pies were eaten that evening. I really like plain cheese, but variety is nice.

 

I just discovered a small town bar south of us has a wood oven and makes delicious pizza. He usually runs at 750-825* and cook time is like 3-5mins. He fires on oak mostly very thinly split. Another benefit is a good meat locker that processes deer meat just down the block from the bar. And they will make gluten free stuff for my wife.

 

It is kinda slippery, specially when there's a puddle of it on the kitchen floor.

 

Your question brings back a lot of memories.

Very little yeast, the amount varied and actually wasn't really measured, the doughmaster (me for many years) just knew how much to pinch off of the brick of wet yeast we used. The yeast had a Budweiser label on it. I could write pages, and actually did, when I left on how to "make the dough".

The basic recipe was yeast, 1/4 cup salt, 2 gallons water, 5.5 gallons flour. No sugar. The only parts of the recipe that were ever adjusted were the amount of yeast and the temperature of the water, and that depended on how you planned to handle the dough. The handling of the dough varied a lot, and depended on a bunch of different things but mostly how busy we were or how quickly we needed the dough, and the time of year. The dough cooler didn't stay as cool in the summer. The "perfect" dough ball was "aged" for 12-18 hours in a cooler and didn't really raise much, maybe by a quarter.

 

Thank you for the info. One recipe said to put in fridge overnight. I like the dough nice and warm to stretch easier.

I'm going to keep reading and see what common ingredients and methods show up.

 

That sounds real good. Can't beat local fresh food

 

Jon,
What kind of flour are you using ?.
Most "home" cooks use "all purpose" and that has less gluten which limits the "proofing" or rising of the dough.
I've never made dough without sugar, as it is the "fuel" for the yeast to grow on. IMO
I, like Dave have owned, run, and worked in pizzerias for 37+ years.
I have found that "softer" less dense doughs require more sensitive kneading but will yield a thinner crisper crust....

 

There are sugars available in flour to feed the yeast it just takes the yeast a little longer to get going if you don't add a little extra to the dough.

I meant to ask about the flour too, I wish I could remember what it was we used, you'd think I could as many tons of that stuff I lugged around. I do remember it was a Pillsbury XXXX product in a brown bag, but that's all I remember, and we only ever used that exact flour.

Oh and do yourself a favor and use a whole milk mozzarella

 

I am using K.A. bread flour and it is much better than the all purpose. It has a nice stretch and pretty easy to work.

I'll check different recipes and see what is common. It may need even less yeast and some olive oil mixed in for a little crunch.

 

wow, that looks good

 

Pillsbury "So- Strong" is what we always used. (Which is a 'high gluten')
We always mixed in a few scoops of "durum semolina" as well.