Pizza Ovens

[Flysmallie]

36 minutes ago, ness said:

Looking good there, Ronnie! There’s a bit of a learning curve on these things, and you’ll only get better at it. 

Thanks. Yeah that first cook was a little rough. The first pizza was a disaster. But that was expected and it was still edible. Going to give it another go tonight. 

[ness]

There is stuff all over the internet on how to do these high-heat pizza ovens, but I'll go ahead and give my two cents.

Launch is important: gotta get it in the right place and get it in flat. Center it and ensure there are no folds or rolled edges. Then, the bottom needs to set before you move it. This is largely by feel, but 15 to 30 seconds is about right. You can lift up the edge and see how it behaves.

Then, rotate about 90 degrees every 15 seconds so the pizza cooks evenly and the side to the fire doesn't scorch. I've got a turning peel that makes that job easier than a full-sized peel. Mine is similar to this one:

https://a.co/d/iGYOHOY

If the crust is right, but the toppings still need some time, slide the peel under it and lift it off the stone towards the ceiling for a few seconds. 

Hope this helps, and good luck with it. 

We've had a lot of fun with ours and we got our daughter and son-in-law one for a wedding gift. The only other thing I've done on it is pita, which turned out well. 

 

[Flysmallie]

30 minutes ago, ness said:

There is stuff all over the internet on how to do high-heat these pizza ovens, but I'll go ahead and give my two cents.

Launch is important: gotta get it in the right place and get it in flat. Center it and ensure there are no folds or rolled edges. Then, the bottom needs to set before you move it. This is largely by feel, but 15 to 30 seconds is about right. You can lift up the edge and see how it behaves.

Then, rotate about 90 degrees every 15 seconds so the pizza cooks evenly and the side to the fire doesn't scorch. I've got a turning peel that makes that job easier than a full-sized peel. Mine is similar to this one:

https://a.co/d/iGYOHOY

If the crust is right, but the toppings still need some time, slide the peel under it and lift it off the stone towards the ceiling for a few seconds. 

Hope this helps, and good luck with it. 

We've had a lot of fun with ours and we got our daughter and son-in-law one for a wedding gift. The only other thing I've done on it is pita, which turned out well. 

 

This is all great info. 
 

Launching is where the first one went bad. And I made it a little too big to fit in the opening!! But we salvaged it and it wasn’t horrible, but wasn’t pretty. 
 

I did get a turning peel. One of my guys has an oven and I could tell by watching him that it was very useful. 
 

 

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

You guys always seem to show me the things I don't have,  didn't know about, don't need, but feel like I'm missing out on.   This seems like a cool venture.    Looking forward to the video.

[Flysmallie]

2 hours ago, Daryk Campbell Sr said:

but feel like I'm missing out on. 

Well throw a few hundred bucks in a bowl, soak it in gasoline, and set it on fire. Now you are as cool as me!!

Got home from a big family gathering last night to prepare pizzas for the few that made the cut. No power. Not that the oven needs power but.... Got power back around 5:30am this morning and unless another round of storms roll through we are going to eat pizza tonight. 

Of course last night we ended up at a pizza place. LOL. Weren't many places open around town that everyone would agree on. 

[ollie]

A little too small for me. Not like the ones we used at the restaurant I worked in! Brick ovens heated by gas. We kept one of them at 600 and the other one at 500 if memory serves me correct. 600 for pies and 500 for the calzones and rolls. Baker's Pride and Blodgett is what we used and I had many a scars from those beasts!  lol You will get the hang of it I'm sure. I hear some pretty good things from those that have those types of ovens though.

[BilletHead]

9 hours ago, Flysmallie said:

Well throw a few hundred bucks in a bowl, soak it in gasoline, and set it on fire. Now you are as cool as me!!

Got home from a big family gathering last night to prepare pizzas for the few that made the cut. No power. Not that the oven needs power but.... Got power back around 5:30am this morning and unless another round of storms roll through we are going to eat pizza tonight. 

Of course last night we ended up at a pizza place. LOL. Weren't many places open around town that everyone would agree on. 

                My son in one part of town and my sister in another part of town are still out of power. This year you all have been hit twice pretty hard. 

[Flysmallie]

3 hours ago, BilletHead said:

                My son in one part of town and my sister in another part of town are still out of power. This year you all have been hit twice pretty hard. 

Been a lot more fortunate than a lot of folks out there but still around $3,000 out of pocket. The grass and flowers are lush though. The trees? Not so much. 

[Flysmallie]

Tonight was better. 
 

[ness]

We had two birthdays and a new job to celebrate so we had reasons to get together. Son-in-law got a pizza oven as a wedding gift, so we decided to turn it into a pizza-making event. 

I did the dough yesterday  and balled it up early this morning. 9 people coming and my recipe is in fours so I did 3 batches for 12 total. 

I schooled them on the first batch then turned them loose to do their own pizzas. 

There are  two ways to really wreck things: 1) screw up the launch,  blow the pizza up and get toppings all over the stone or 2) tear the crust as you turn the pizza and get toppings all over the stone. Fortunately everyone did a good job and there weren’t any issues. 

There were some pretty ugly pizzas, but a couple of the kids really tried to perfect things and got nice, round, thin crusts. The rest, well they didn’t. 

So….

 

This was A lot of fun!