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Neo/NY Neo Pizza - Setup Question

I know this has been discussed a ton and I've read everything I can find as well as doing 3 of my own cooks.  I've been able to get decent results but not exactly the time/color I've been striving to achieve.  I know the common issue is to get the stone high into the dome, which I've done, but to get the results I'm after, I still can't get enough heat to the top of the pie before the bottom crust is done.

My far-fetched thoughts involve a second dome and making modifications to mimic an Italian pizza oven opening, I know, it's out there!

My second thought and much more manageable, is to suspend a baking steel above the pizza stone to get radiating heat down on the top of the pie at the same or higher rate that is on the bottom crust.  My question is how to get the steel suspended.  The issue is being able to maintain enough room at the front to be able to use a peel to launch the pie.  I have a few ideas on how to do it but thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has any ideas I may not have thought of yet.  Thanks :)

Comments

  • Check out this article. I haven't tried it, but came across it a few weeks back. It might inspire something.

    http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2013/03/my-pizza-oven-tailbiters-frankenegg.html
  • Federalist226
    Federalist226 Posts: 82
    edited May 2013
    Not really responsive to your question, but here's my setup (we've discussed it before). The thick firebricks heat up slower than the pizza stone. So I can get my bricks to the desired temp and then blast the dome temp through the roof so the top finishes at the same time as the bottom.

    The bricks still will heat up, though, so my fix is really only slowing the process down. Good for probably 4-5 pizzas before the bricks are too hot (with the stone, I really only had the right conditions for about 1 pizza.

    image

    The results (this was the 3rd pizza I did):

    image

    (One of these days I'll use a different picture, but other results have been similar )
    :)
  • NEWB_IN_NOLA
    NEWB_IN_NOLA Posts: 135
    They use the baking steel on top of the pizza pushing 1000 degrees with some non-bge equipment here:

    "America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland." -Tennessee Williams
  • brycos
    brycos Posts: 137
    edited May 2013
    CSE, I'm thinkin' the same with the steel above the pie.  My idea is to get a cheap grate from Lowes and some SS bolts to create a raised grid.  then the steel on top of that. The front bolts would have to be as far apart as possible in order to give room to insert/remove the pies.

    So the set up would be PS legs down, grid, stone, raised grid with steel on it.  I think a 550-650 deg dome temp will give a good toast to the topping w/out burning the crust.
  • Jamieoro
    Jamieoro Posts: 180
    @federalist226 - that's a seriously good looking pie! Care to share your crust recipe?
  • Thanks for the comments and links y'all!  The two links are what spurred my thoughts and Federalist, thanks for the pics; I may have to try this setup before I got the steel route.  What temp do you aim for the deck and how long after you go wide open do you thrown on the pie?  And again, that's an awesome looking pie!!!

    brycos; that's about the only sane thought I had for getting the steel above the stone, just don't know if back and side bolts would be enough to hold the weight of the steel and allow a big enough opening in the front to be able to launch the pie.  This will most likely be the route I take after trying the easier stones :)

  • I go for about 650-675* on deck before I let it rip. As soon as the dome temp is spiking about 750, I launch my first pizza. I usually close the vents back down after I remove the pizza, while I am prepping pizza number 2 and then open it all the way again right before the next pizza goes on. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, and I'm very much a novice. The steel above the pizza sounds like an excellent idea. Keep us posted if you figure out how to make it work!

    Jamieoro, I don't have the recipe right now, but it's just your basic 60-65% hydration Neapolitan dough recipe ("00" flour, water, salt, yeast).


  • Jamieoro, I don't have the recipe right now, but it's just your basic 60-65% hydration Neapolitan dough recipe ("00" flour, water, salt, yeast).


    Thanks again!  I'm thinking about using a Woo2 or even the plate lifter from Toronto and welding/bolting the baking steel to it, just some thoughts...

    As for the recipe for Jamiero, I also use 00 flour at 65% hydration, 2.7% salt and a natural starter at 8% total weight.  I use the dough calculator at www.pizzamkaing.com to get my exact measurements if doing more than my normal 2, 310g balls.