OT**The Unofficially Official Pizza Thread**OT

paqman

Black Garlic, Olive Oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano

zaphod

i'll start mine with a sad story.

5 people coming over, for a total of 9 adult appetites. Menu was 6 pizza on the LBGE.

I needed to pick up a 2nd stone to get 2 levels going so I headed out at 9:30 to the hardware store to do that while my wife started chopping toppings.  This is trip 1.

came back and the new stone was either too fat, or more than 14" or something, but the lid would not close. back to hardware store to return that one and then to over Home Depot to get a different model. (It is *hard* to buy just a stone without the stand/handles/split/cockatoo that most "kits" seem to have in the package). This is trip 2. 

Coming home I see flashing lights and road blocks. I've come up to a special event parade (not that one) so I get jammed up. but the new stone works better.

Start mixing up the dough - two double batches in two huge bowls. My go to recipe makes a really thick shell and while dividing a single batch into two shells is a bit skimpy (we tried), 2/3 of a batch should be fine.so the plan is to divide the 2 double batches (4 pizzas worth) into 6 shells. Tried in vain to explain the math to my teenager. make mental note to write school board.

realize that we may not have the 14-15 cups of flour required - my wife goes to store to buy a new 10lb bag. This is trip 3.

My daughter is working one double batch in the usual big stainless steel bowl, but with two double batches I pull out my mom's big milk glass mixing bowl. I grew up with mom making cookies in this bowl, it's a good memory and it's good to use when I have a need for a 2nd big bowl.

My wife gets back, we have made it with 3 cups to spare, so trip 3 was a bit of a waste, but it's good to have the flour on hand. She goes back to chopping. It is now 2pm and we have been at this for just over 4 hours, but soon the dough is in first rise and all is good.

People arrive. Egg is settling in to temp with plate setter, grill, stone, multi-level and new stone - all is coming together. 

Time for punching down the dough and getting this going, so both bowls onto the counter. Punch down the SS bowl, punch down the milk glass bowl. Pick up one side of the milk glass bowl to roll out the dough ball ...

... and I drop it.

Slightly wet fingers, slightly oily bowl, only an inch off the granite, but that bowl shattered in a hundred shards of dough coloured glass. No way to get the glass out of that dough and when I looked at the other bowl I could see shards of glass on the surface of it's dough ball. That one is also ruined.

Five hours of prep, multiple trips to the store, a dozen bowls of chopped toppings, an Egg all set up and ready -- and everything ground to a halt with no dough for the pizza, ruined.

My wife headed to the store to get something to eat, that would be trip 4.

Canugghead

paqman said:

Black Garlic, Olive Oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano

Looks killer, Gozney Arc XL?

Corv

Zaphod, my sympathies! Both for the ruined dough and the glass bowl.

paqman

Canugghead said:

paqman said:

Black Garlic, Olive Oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano

Looks killer, Gozney Arc XL?

 Not yet, order got cancelled as expected. I am currently arguing with them to reinstate the order…. That being said, they have a 20% sale on the Dome S1… Hmmm

Canugghead

Wow, @zaphod, I feel for you! It could have been worse...your wife picks up some ready to use pizza dough, something else goes wrong, she makes trip#5 to buy something to eat 

xfire_ATX

I have been making mine now on the Recteq bullseye, I never plan that far ahead for Pizza so we just use Delallo Italian Pizza Dough from HEB- it makes three nice pies.

SWMBO OO, Garlic, Tomato and Basil


Daughters w Vegan Cheese 

paqman

Plain pepperoni

zaphod

nice! evenly crisped all around, lots of cheese, nice puffy shell.

U_tarded

Took the ooni out camping.  Basic sourdough crust I had in the freezer.  Canned sauce, pre shredded cheese, and a bad launch on pizza.  Also made a garlic cheese bread to go with the roasted sauce and feta skillet. Pretty good meal great scenery, the frozen dough balls worked perfect.  I kept them as cold as possible until day of use then set them out to thaw and rise about 4 hours prior. 

CTMike

Pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeño from the WFO last weekend. Used Forkish’s overnight levain recipe - I’m a fan of this crust. SWMBO put beefsteak tomato slices on her pieces after it came out of the oven.
Second is a pepperoni, hot Italian sausage, black olives, shrooms on half, and bell peppers:

zaphod

CTMike said:

Pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeño from the WFO last weekend. Used Forkish’s overnight levain recipe - I’m a fan of this crust. SWMBO put beefsteak tomato slices on her pieces after it came out of the oven.
Second is a pepperoni, hot Italian sausage, black olives, shrooms on half, and bell peppers:

both of those look absolutely fantastic - hope they tasted as good as they look.

Canugghead

Beautiful pies. PSA - be careful with that wheel cutter!

alaskanassasin

Nice Pies @CTMike the mushroom olive especially

wps456

Love this thread! I just do pizzas on the egg...do y'all use the screen or direct on the stone?

alaskanassasin

paqman

wps456 said:

Love this thread! I just do pizzas on the egg...do y'all use the screen or direct on the stone?

Direct on the stone (if possible raised in the dome).  I used to have parchment paper underneath the dough.  I recommend finding a low temperature dough recipe (no more than 500F).  I’m pretty sure that I ruined my first set of bands doing high temperature pizza in the egg.  

CTMike

Canugghead said:

Beautiful pies. PSA - be careful with that wheel cutter!

Is that warning written in blood?

Canugghead

CTMike said:

Canugghead said:

Beautiful pies. PSA - be careful with that wheel cutter!

Is that warning written in blood?

Haha, almost! Had a close call.

Botch

CTMike said:

Canugghead said:

Beautiful pies. PSA - be careful with that wheel cutter!

Is that warning written in blood?

Was for me.  My roommate and I lived on $1.49 Totino's frozen pizzas and $2.99/twelve-pak "Old Milwaukee" last two years of college.  Cut them with a 49-cent wheel cutter (a grocery-store "Ecko" brand) and the pivot/rivet sheared off and the top of the blade sliced the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger, kinda deeply.  Damn, that took months to heal, as it was my dominant hand and every time I grabbed something it'd break open again.  
I've used one of these ever since:

 
 

Canugghead

Ouch @Botch, sounds painful. You earned the Dislike from me. Don't remember the details, I was in a rush and wheel somehow slipped, I got off easy with minor scratch on the thumb. It's now rocking cutter or scissors for me.

alaskanassasin

Never cut towards yourself @Botch! 

JohnInCarolina

Botch said:

CTMike said:

Canugghead said:

Beautiful pies. PSA - be careful with that wheel cutter!

Is that warning written in blood?

Was for me.  My roommate and I lived on $1.49 Totino's frozen pizzas and $2.99/twelve-pak "Old Milwaukee" last two years of college.  Cut them with a 49-cent wheel cutter (a grocery-store "Ecko" brand) and the pivot/rivet sheared off and the top of the blade sliced the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger, kinda deeply.  Damn, that took months to heal, as it was my dominant hand and every time I grabbed something it'd break open again.  
I've used one of these ever since:

 
 

Don’t take this the wrong way, @Botch, but after reading most of your stories here over the years, I’m starting to think it’s a minor miracle you’re still alive.  

Botch

alaskanassasin said:

Never cut towards yourself @Botch! 

To be strictly technical about it, I was cutting directly away from myself.  
As a long-time Safety Engineer, I chalk it up to Faulty Tool Design/poor Fault Tree Analysis (the cheep Ecko did have a flimsy 1/4" "guard" over the blade, but it was totally inadequate).    
 
I did a quick googlez image search; this isn't quite the design I had (this one actually has a beefier handle) but it gives you an idea of the value of the "safety guard"...
 

Botch

JohnInCarolina said:
...after reading most of your stories here over the years, I’m starting to think it’s a minor miracle you’re still alive.  

Or a minor curse...    

Elijah

Don't cut towards your body, cut toward your buddy 

CTMike

Elijah said:

Don't cut towards your body, cut toward your buddy 

Buddy is only half a word . . . 

alaskanassasin

I have a question for the pizza aficionados of the forum.   I like to make huge New York style pies, I have been averaging 17-18" in our oven for years but swmbo bought me a Ooni Koda Max 2.  With 24" to work with I would like to step up to 20" pies.  My current method is to preheat the pizza oven, build out the pizza on a 18" piece of parchment paper, shut the flame off, launch, wait however long, retrieve the parchment, when the crust looks perfect I fire the flame back up and finish the top.  

 This is kind of a silly question because a screen is like $4, but would a 20" pizza screen be a good option for me? I know the best route would be to use a giant wood peel that is floured but I run thin AF crust sometimes you can see through and it can turn into a giant mess if it sticks or tears.  

 Should I stick to parchment or try a screen? Launch on the screen and pull it as soon as the dough sets?  

 

alaskanassasin

is there a method to keep your pie from sticking to the screen?

paqman

what temperature are you planning to bake your pizzas in the ooni?  If it is too hot your parchment will likely burn right away.

I use a wood launching peel with flour or semola on the peel to help launch the pizza, super easy.