It’s a family affair now...

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 19:33:44 -0400

Well, I think I’ve finally improved to the point of convincing my family that Friday night is homemade pizza night. They all appreciate building their own pizza and seeing how it turns out. Everyone got involved tonight.

What was different tonight was that this was the first time I used my kitchen oven + BGE stone for pizza (it was raining). I guess I’m fortunate that my electrical oven will go to 550F. After an hour I had the stone up to around 560F in the center and close to 600F at the edges.

The dough I used for my wife’s pie and mine is basically JerryMac’s NY style pizza dough (from pizzamaking.com) with the addition of an autolyse (a la Varasano), the omission of the honey, and the use of a “cold rise” fermentation for 24 hours.

Jeff claims the autolyse (basically letting the blended remaining flour and poolish sit together for 20 minutes before kneading begins) is a crucial step in making an authentic Neapolitan crust, and I believe him now. This is the dough recipe I will be using from now on for all my Neapolitan crusts.

Here is poolish right after the initial mix...

Here is what it looks like after a full 5 hours of doing its thing:

The lighting is different in the second picture, but the poolish definitely takes on a darker color as it stews in the bowl.

The kids made a basic cheese pizza with shredded mozz (the wife and I keep the Boar’s Head for our pies). They both loved it, but said Dad put too much flour on the peel this time. :(

My wife went with her favorite pizza of sauce, cheese, basil and fresh plum tomatoes on the top. It turned out excellent. She commented on the crust too.

Now, me being me, the part-time pizzaiolo of the house made his pizza last and was really hungry by then. I rushed my pepperoni classic to the stone and ended up with this chubby little pie...

I need to learn patience with dough handling. Check out that bubble though! Pretty cool. The taste of the pizza and the quality of the crust was off the charts. The dough was WAY too thick but was tender, chewy, and crunchy at the same time. Just what I was looking for.

Oh, and here is my humble new basil plant I’m harvesting. I don’t have much of a green thumb, so we’ll see.

Later.

Two for the price of one...

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:15:14 -0400

I couldn’t believe that when I told my wife last night that I was going to be making pizzas for us for dinner tonight she said “OK.” I don’t think she was paying attention to me when I asked her anyway.

At 5:00pm I started the coals and prepared myself for the 1 hour stone warmup...

I put in the plate setter (legs up), the grill, and then the stone on top of the grill. I’m convinced, that even with a full firebox full of lump, both air valves on “full blast,” and an hour to get going, that dome temp is never going to get up to 800 degrees (much less 600 degrees) when the plate setter is in place. I guess this just means that I’m never going to be able to cook one of those 90 second Varasano pies in a BGE without torching the crust.

After an hour I had the stone temp up to just about 500F, which was my goal...

To my disappointment, the dome temp at this point was hovering around 450F...

The wife put her own pie together. She went with the Pastorelli sauce, Boar’s Head mozz, fresh basil and some fresh sliced plum tomatoes. Looks good!

Here is the finished product...

I decided to try some Boar’s Head pepperoni for the first time. My pie was my doctored Batali sauce, Boar’s Head mozz, Boar’s Head pepperoni and fresh basil.

The raw pie (you can see the wife bogarted most of the basil, so I’m left with little)...

The finished pie...

I finished both of them off with some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Bottom char...

Both pies cooked for about 10 minutes each. I’m starting to really like the stone, but I’m finding that because the dome temp is not that hot, and the pies need to cook longer to gain color, it’s making the crust a bit tough.

I may have to settle with little to no top color in order to get a chewier, more tender crust. The bottom was great though. The Boar’s Head pepperoni is quite good too. Highly recommended.

Have a good weekend...

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:50:44 -0400

Finally, the Gods of pizza have smiled upon me. My first pie (which was not perfect) that I truly enjoyed (and so did the wife).

What a feeling it is to cook something that someone else compliments you on.

Before any cooking began, I started with a nice Boddington’s...

I really wanted to cook directly on the stone with a surface temperature between 500F and 550F. The plate setter in the BGE really takes some getting used to. I used it this time (and will use it from now on for pizza), and it really takes away from the dome temp. I had nearly a full firebox of lump charcoal lit up, but the dome never got above 575F. Both the top and bottom were wide open.

The stone preheated for about 40 minutes and eventually the external circumference heated up to about 510F. Surprisingly, the center of the stone was only around 350F. The coals were burning fast and the dome temp was already down to around 450F, so I knew I needed to get the pie on pronto.

My dough turned out real nice for this pie. It was my thinnest yet:

The pie cooked for about 14 minutes. Because the last pie turned out so badly I chickened out and used a screen in addition to the stone. Next time, stone only at the proper temp.

I didn’t get a lot of top browning because of the relatively low dome temp, but the bottom had some nice browning...

Note that the crust was a tad too thin in the center and some sauce crept through. By the way, the doctored Batali sauce is excellent. Fantastic tomato flavor and aroma. I could fold the slices and eat them NY style. It was great.

Here is the finished pie...

I used sliced Boar’s Head low moisture Mozz for the first time and LOVED it. Excellent taste and it melts almost perfectly (IMHO).

The only real negative to the pie was that it stuck to the screen pretty badly. I had flashes of having to toss it again, but after working on it with a long, thin spatula I was able to free 98% of it.

Sorry the side shot is out of focus for some reason...

Lessons Learned:

1) The stone is your friend if it’s heated to the correct temp (NOT 800F).
2) Forget the screen next time.
3) Boar’s Head Mozz is awesome.
4) Mozzarella and Provolone together is a very good thing.
5) I need to buy more lump charcoal.

I’m on vacation next week, so no more updates until after the 25th. Bon voyage!

On the stone, hot!

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:44:23 -0400

Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind and cook my next pie at some extreme temps. I loaded up the BGE with about 5 pounds of wood chunk charcoal and lit the starter.

On the stove I was simmering a jar of Mario Batali’s Tomato Basil sauce to get rid of the excess water (I had doctored up the sauce using a spice combo I found on pizzamaking.com). The sauce smells wonderful.

Here’s what the sauce looked like on the pie. Again, it smells awesome.

I dressed the pizza in classic Margherita style (although I was short on the Mozz and added some Provolone for variety).

The finished raw pie:

Back to the BGE. After about 40 minutes the dome temp was hovering around 600F. I was anxious to see what the temp was on the surface of the stone.

Booyah, 801F...

I put the pizza in, closed the lid and let it cook. After 2 minutes and 30 seconds this is what I was presented with. Oh, yeah...

Now, let’s check that bottom char...

WTF???

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had to throw the whole thing away. What a waste of time and money (and premium ingredients).

Lessons learned:

1) On the BGE, there is nearly a 200F degree difference between the heat above the pie and the heat below the pie. Something needs to be between the stone and the bottom of the pie (a screen perhaps, or maybe the plate setter).
2) Until I get this crust thing right, that is all I’m going to cook. I’m finished with wasting premium ingredients. I told the kids, be prepared for a lot of breadsticks until dad gets this right.

I’m out!

Directly on the grill

Sat, 8 Aug 2009 15:01:48 -0400

I got the pizza bug late last night and was actually kneading dough at 1:00am. After putting a tub of freshly made sauce in the fridge (Red November’s #2 from pizzamaking.com) I told myself I was going to have to try it for lunch today.

I was anxious to try cooking the crust directly on the grill grate minus both the stone and the plate setter (insert used for indirect cooking on the BGE). I also decided to par-cook the crust on both sides before adding the toppings.

I went with a simple dough recipe that is in the July/August 2009 Men’s Health magazine that my cousin Tim and his wife Danielle turned me on to. The recipe calls for all-purpose flour, but I went with the King Arthur bread flour instead. It was kneaded for 8 minutes in a Kitchenaid blender, left to rise for two hours, punched down and put in the refrigerator.

Here’s a dough ball (this thing was really hard to roll out, SO much gluten it kept springing back):

Because I was going to be cooking directly over the coals and on the grill surface I decided to limit the temperature to 550F.

Here’s the rolled/pressed dough on the peel ready for par-cooking (note the olive oil glaze):

After about 60 seconds it began to bubble up nicely on the top and brown on the bottom. So far, so good.

I brought the par-cooked crust back inside and added the newly prepared sauce and a five-cheese Italian blend shred and put it back on the grill (note that the oiled side of the crust was down...)

After about 3 minutes of cooking with the lid closed I started seeing some ominous smoke billowing out of the top of the BGE (the temp at this point was at about 475F). You can probably guess where this is going.

I opened the grill lid to find this:

When I lifted up the crust to see what kind of char I got, I found this...

CRAP. I was going to just chuck it, but after 5 minutes of thinking what I could do to salvage my lunch I grabbed a bread knife and filleted the pizza in half, effectively cutting off the burnt part. The upper half of the pizza was chewy and delicious.

Lessons learned:

1) Next time, after removing the par-cooked crust from the grill and taking it inside for toppings, I will add a cold stone on top of the grill. That way, there should be very little crust cooking when I put the pie back on to cook the toppings.
2) I will cook at 600F next time (man, I’m really blowing through the chunk wood charcoal now!)
3) I think oiling the raw dough is unnecessary. The grill surface is hot enough and will prevent sticking as the dough par-cooks. I also think the oil contributed a lot to the burning of the bottom of the pizza.

Till next time...

The First Pie

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 15:32:59 -0400

I decided to go with the classic Margherita for my first attempt...

For the dough, I went with a Pete-zza-modified version of JerryMac’s NY style pizza which I found on the pizzamaking.com forums. It begins with a poolish, and this is the first time I’ve tried this method.

Here is a picture of the poolish after the initial blend:

The recipe can be found at: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6515.0.html

Here’s what it looked like after the 5 hour rest period:

This dough recipe was designed as a same-day dough, but since it was already 9:00pm, after mixing and kneading in the rest of the ingredients I wrapped up the dough ball and stuck it in the fridge to use the next day.

Close enough...:

This is the sauce and flour I used on/in this pie. Next time, homemade sauce.

At noon I fired up my BGE (Big Green Egg for those not familiar with the grill), put my stone in and let it preheat. I wanted to cook my first pie at 600F just to see how quickly it would finish. I also decided to cook the first pizza with a screen between the pie and the stone.

Here is the pizza before it hits the heat:

It’s cool that you can peek in and watch it cook in the BGE without having to lift the lid and lose a lot of heat:

Here’s the finished pie, still on the peel:

There’s decent color on the bottom, but not enough on top. I was amazed, but it took a full 25:00 minutes to get it to this stage! I was worrying that even with this little bit of color, the dough would be dry and tough. I was right.

Here is a finished slice. The taste was good, but in the end it was a bit disappointing. I rolled the crust too thin which caused it to get very cracker-like (not my favorite). And, because the oven cooked at just a hair over 500F I had to cook it for far too long in order to get some color on the top.

Lessons learned:

1) Make a slightly-smaller diameter pie next time and cook at a higher temperature (I’m going to shoot for 700F).
2) Let the stone heat up for a longer period of time (this pie’s stone preheated for 1/2 hour).
3) Try a second pie next time directly on the grill surface. I may par-grill the crust on both sides before I put on my toppings.

I got a new infrared thermometer today and I want to see the difference in temperature between the top surface of the stone and the top of the metal grill.

That’s all for today...