My Pizza Journey
I have been obsessing over which pizza oven to buy. I finally got the Ooni Fyra to make 12″ New Haven style apizza. Yes, that is not a typo. Below is a rare photo of me wearing shoes.
I use my Zojirushi BB-PAC20BA Home Bakery Virtuoso breadmaker’s homemade cycle to make the dough. I do not know where I found the recipe I was using until last night. It worked well for the home oven. On the web pizza videos stress to weight the ingredients, but so far I have not. My Ooni Frya pizza recipe in the pamphlet is:
“00” flour 4-1/2 cups (500g) (I used Peter Pan AP – seems like bread flour)
Water 1-1/4 cups (300g) (I used 1-3/4 cups)
Salt 2tsp (10g) (I used dead sea salt)
Fresh Yeast ¼ oz (7g) ( I used 2 tsp dry active)
Sugar No sugar is listed in the Ooni recipe ( I added 1-1/2 TB honey)
The pizza image for the post was created using the modified Ooni recipe above. I figure that I will burn the first few pizzas so I am using all-purpose flour. Samsclub sells Peter Pan flour. I replaced my bread flour with it. It is super fine (like 00) and elastic like bread. The recipe I was using for pizza called for 1-1/2 TB salt. I used 1 TB than the 2TB specified initially but my bread did not have personality. I use sea salt unless the recipe calls for kosher. I used dry yeast (2 tsp). My recipe uses 2 TB olive oil and 2 TB sugar. The Ooni recipe has neither. An pizza guy on the web uses honey. Another pizza guy on the web said not to use the oil in the dough for a pizza oven since it will burn the dough at high temps. I will be cooking at almost twice the temp I use now in my oven so left out the oil – even though I want a charred pizza. Dough absorption is influenced by humidity. An article about weather shifts and dough suggested introducing an oil to enhance crust quality and performance. They said that oil acts much like water in that it makes the dough softer and easier to work with in humid weather. They cautioned, to delay oil addition until after the flour is hydrated to ensure gluten properly forms, otherwise crust inconsistencies may arise that could ruin your entire batch. In addition to boosting flavor and increasing bread sweetness in low concentrations, salt tightens gluten and controls rise speed. Videos on the web discuss the differences between 00, bread and regular flour. I do not know what is true for certain. But, it seems like I need more water for bread versus 00 flour. My current recipe has the same amount of flour as this one but requires 1-3/4 water. So that is what I used. Interestingly the dough was a little stickier than usual. So, I am hopeful.
I modified my prep for cold prove (proof) for improved flavor and texture. For me pizza has to have the right C & C (char and chew). I started with the water, yeast and 10% (4-oz or ½ cup) of the flour to set for 10 minutes or so. It did not bubble the way I am used to so I squirted a bit of honey into it. I added the rest of the flour and put it in the bread machine. The homemade cycle takes a little over 1-1/2 hours to complete and does rise 2 times. I hope my dough will not over-prove. I formed 5 dough balls. I normally make 3 from my current recipe. I did not have a proving tray or box. I used my 13×9 casserole dish with saran wrap. It might be too shallow. But I am making smaller pies and want a think crust. My plan is to make some with the sauce near the sides and a Neapolitan style with big crust. Cold dough can rest in the fridge for 3-5 days and a minimum of 24-hours. Mine was in about a day and 1/2.
I think I am using too much yeast since I like to cold ferment (proof) my dough). This time, my recipe was:
00 Flour 4-1/2 cups
Salt 2-1/2 tsp (sea salt)
Water 2 cups
Yeast 1/4 oz (approx. 1.42 tsp) or 3 grams for dry active yeast
The recipe recommends for active dry yeast, 1/2 tsp (3 grams) or 1/3 tsp (2 grams). This does not seem correct as the online grams to tsp converter calculated 3 grams as .66 so that would be 2/3 tsp. 00 flour is recommended for lower hydration than bread flour. For New Haven and bread flour at least 70% hydration. For 00 55-60% is recommended. (image forthcoming).
This time I kept in fridge 3 days.
