Pizza ovens

They've lost the run of themselves at this stage!

Speaking of which - there's an ooni knock off that keeps coming up on my feed - pizza nevo. They look good. Anyone bought one?

https://www.pizzanevo.com/products/gas-fired-pizza-oven

Slightly better than my first few attempts. Tasted decent enough too.

They are really selling it on their various Facebook communities. Deleting any negative comments, Advocates out in force etc. Really don't like seeing that from a company.

Not that I've said anything negative mind you... I'm still not sure why they blocked me from their Ooni Ireland page.

I've seen similar results with a pizza steel and conventional oven. Just shy of 1k is bananas.

I must have tried 5 or 6 times to get Trofast lids over the past 6 months or so. Eventually caved and put the Ooni proofing boxes on my kris kindle wishlist. They're great, but the Trofast boxes were perfect for the price.

One questions I have - when I make dough, I leave it in the fridge as a single ball, then on the day take it out and divide it into individual doughballs. I don't store the doughballs in the fridge. If you're doing that - when do you separate the dough into the individual balls?

I make enough dough for 4 x 250g doughballs. There's 5 of us, so we'd usually get through them all or at least 3.

I never thought of just making some extra to freeze immediately - so obvious!

Have never frozen but will be trying it out and have been looking into it lately.

I wonder does your quick defrost time have anything to do with the less airy dough. 3 hours doesn't seem a long time to get the dough back up to temp. I would normally give them 2 hours out of the fridge from just a cold fermentation.

From the videos I've watched they tend to advise taking them out of the freezer and placing overnight in the fridge, and then a couple of hours at room temp. They seem to still get an airy crust but they're pretty much professionals at it.

Hard to get my head around that Dough Bros advice. The idea that a longer cold ferment would require a shorter RT ferment is sound... but the RT ferment comes before the Cold in nearly all recipes.

While fermentation takes place when taking it out from the fridge, that stage is primarily about allowing the dough to get back up to a temp so that it's better/easier to work with. It's generally not classed as a fermentation stage if you get me.

With only 30mins out of the fridge, the dough would be hard to stretch and would struggle to hold its shape without wanting to spring back imo.

I've done a fair bit of experimenting, and I'll probably continue to do so, but for the moment I've settled on a 2hr bulk ferment, individually ball and do anything from 24-48 hour cold ferment. Taking them out at least 2 hours before making. I just find it the most convenient (no real work required on the day - there's enough to be doing baking them) and results are very good.

The one thing I've really noticed is that there can be a big difference in what is RT. In a poorly insulated home in the middle of winter, it involves me cosying them up snug near a fire.

I really thought that 6 months in, everyone would be selling off their little used pizza ovens.

But almost 3 years later, it seems that people are still as into it as ever. Fair play.

I can't remember the last time I made pizza - much simpler times before anyone knew the words "percentage hydration" and "leoparding". I did do a long, cold fermented, though!

yeah theyre definitely not a gimmick and they are here to stay. I think its because of the quality of pizza you can produce from them by using recipes available online, its on a par with what you would get in a good pizza restaurant. And it beats take away too as its not lying in a box steaming itself for 20 minutes before consumption. And then the cost, Dominoes now charging 22 euro for a medium sized pizza whereas with the Ooni you can produce better quality pizza for less than 2 or 3 euros. Plus kids love pizza and getting involved making the dough and helping to cook it.

I’ve been obsessed with pizza for about 18 years. I think I could eat it everyday but I’m sure I say that about a lot of food.

Got a 9.2/10 tonight from one of my son’s friends. Mrs G! wanted to know where the .8 went. 🙄

Yeah sorry Doh 🙄 (excuse the pun) I use the calculator mostly because of time, amount of pizzas etc. It's great for that but I just throw it all in the mixer, bulk prove and ball it an hour or so before it's needed.

Multiply the weight of flour by 0.6 ie 1000gr of flour equals 600 gr of water. But 60% hydration is a very tough dough, try 66% should be easy to work and add the last of the water slowly in small increments.

Use flour and a wooden peel

dust it with flour or semolina, pull the pizza onto it once built. Stretch it out a bit once on the peel, give it a little shake to ensure it’s not sticking. Peel all the way into the oven. Use the metal lip at the back for a guide. At a slight angle pull it out in a quick movement. Can always use the pre cooked bases you see in the shops for practice at first.

also don’t worry I still have the odd one stick after a few years of making pizza!

I use semolina on a metal peel and hardly ever sticks. If you leave it sit on the peel for too long before launching it will start to stick. Don't overload the toppings either. As mentioned, give it a little shake on the peel before launching to be sure it's moving freely. If not, you can lift one side of the pizza and blow under it to free it. I find Stadler Made on YouTube does some good videos.

multiply the amount of flour by 0.65 ie 600 grams flour equals 600x .65 equals 390 grams water. The main thing is not to worry about it being sticky coming out of the mixer, scrape it out into a rough ball on counter and spread some olive oil on top and leave covered for 15 to 20 mins then lift and fold lift and fold. Watch the Vito video it doesn't matter how sticky it is initially the method works and you will form a nice tight ball to prove.

Tetra pak lid from litre of milk snaps on perfectly underneath the lid!

That looks pretty good

Sure here you go ….

1) I have attached the ingredients quantity from the pizza app. You can change the number of pizzas and quantities will change. I use slat a bit less you can increase that as well. 24 hr cold fermentation.

2) I use either Stagioni 00 Pizza Napoletana Flour or Caputo pizzeria(red) Flour(both generally available in supervalu), sea slat, tesco instant dried yeast

3) I activate the yeast using 105F warm water 300 ml and let it sit for 2-3 mins

4) Mix the flour and salt.

5) Add all the water and yeast mix in a stand mixer (if you dont have one u can use your hands). Incorporate flour slowly in 2-3 phases…Mix for 10 minutes. If using hands mix till dough does not stick.

6) Remove the dough on a counter top and let the dough sit for 5 mins(cover with wet towel).

7) Now pull and fold the dough 3-4 times and you will get a smooth finish. Make a big ball and let it sit for another 20 mins cover with wet towel.

8) Punch out all the air and do pull and fold to make final big ball which will go for cold proving in fridge. Keep it covered so it does not dry out. I cover it with cling foil.

9) Let it cold ferment for 24 hrs. Remove 6 hrs before u want to cook pizzas.

10) Remove the dough and cut it into required ball size and ball them up. Put in a container(i use ones from amazon) after greasing as its easy to remove for stretching, else a tray is fine too. Let them rise for 6 hrs at room temp.

11) For cheese, i use mix of grated mozzarella and balled fresh mozzarella (ensure you drain the water 2-3 hrs in advance or buy costlier dry mozzarella..tesco has them)

12) Preheat your pizza stone/oven(i use indoor oven with marble in center of oven) for 40 mins until temp of stone reaches around 270-300.

13)After 6 hr remove the balls from container onto a mix of semolina and flour. Shape the pizza pushing air towards crust on the semolina and flour mix(top side of dough ball first). Turn the pizza and do the same(bottom side of dough ball). This will ensure ur pizza is dry and will not stick on peel. Use gravity by using pizza crust as a wheel and move it around..do final stretch using ur knuckles(this will get better with more tries took me 1 year to master).

14)I use a wooden peel to launch and metal peel to rotate/remove.

15) Dust the wooden peel with same mixture of semolina and flour. Put the stretched pizza on it. Jiggle a bit to see pizza slides. Apply tomato sauce and launch into the oven. ( you can ignore this step and no 17)

and directly put toppings if u have a ooni and dont use home oven)

16) Cook for 2-3 mins until crust rises.

17) Remove the half cooked pizza and put all the toppings.

18) Launch it into the oven again and let it cook until cheese melts. Finish it by putting near the grill using your metal peel to get final char on the ingredients.

Three years of trial and error and this is how i make my pizzas😀 ! Hope it helps others.

One of my kids mad a little cover and handle out of some paper and we stuck it over it with some Sellotape.

I use these and find the flour very good.

I'm not sure if it's classed as 00 it's more of their own blend I think. I can only describe it as a really white light soft flour (can you tell I'm an amateur 🙄) . These are some of the results I get.

Want something with a dough hook.