@pete

Pizza Making

This note is all about pizza. Specifically, Neapolitan pizza.

Heat

Currently, I’m using an Ooni Volt 2 on Neapolitan mode + boosting. It does the trick. There’s a whole world of pizza oven obsession out there and I refuse to take part. At least at this point in my life. I live in a 500sqft apt in Brooklyn. The Volt 2 will do.

Mistakes made:

  • Not using boost mode

Culture

I’ve come to learn that I prefer sourdough starter to IDY. I find it much more subtle than the strong yeasty small/taste of commercial yeast. A strong well fed starter is crucial though. It should double or triple in about 2 hours of feeding. Also, I lean stiff on the flour:water ratios.

Mistakes made:

  • Using dark rye flour. I suppose it may make it easier to start, but it totally ruins the texture of pizza dough (in my experience).

  • Not giving the start enough time to mature.

  • Not feeding with bread flour. The difference high protein bread flour makes is massive.

  • Feeding constantly. I’ve burnt a lot of bread flour just keeping the starter alive without any plans on baking in the near future. It will live for a long time in the fridge. I find it takes about 3 full days to come back alive, fully.

Flour

Given the focus is on Neapolitan pizza, I’ve only really experimented with 0, 00, and as of recent, Nuvola flours.

Mistakes made:

  • Using fine semolina vs. course semolina for dusting. Fine semolina burns.

Ferment

There’s a deep rabbit hole on the internet. One of the last few crevasses of the internet that remains pure and unfazed by AI slop and bots. That is pizzamaking.com. There’s a user on it who goes by TXCraig1. I won’t rant too much about Craig and his contributions to pizza making, but I will say they have sent me down more than a few obsessive pizza making episodes. Specifically, the concept of extremely low culture percentages with long, cool, ferment times. So much flour lost. So many flat pizzas.

There seems to be a larger margin of error when working with load percentages. I’m not dedicated enough to make space for vessels to control temperature over that kind of period of time, so I’ve landed on slightly higher percentages for my own sanity. I find 5-10% to not give any real indication of the sourdough tanginess at all, while offering the right amount of spring.

Ratio

Below is what I'm currently working with (Baker’s percentages). I may keep this as a living document to track various ratios and notes on their results.

Hydration

64%

Salt

2%

Culture

9%

Process

This process is deeply inspired by CraigTX1 from pizzamaking.com.

  1. Mix salt in cold water

  2. Stir in the start until fully blended

  3. Pour total liquid (or partial if large quantity) into flour and blend with fork until roughly blended - at least there should be no lose flour

  4. Rest for 15.

  5. Knead and fold. Rinse and repeat 3 or 4 times until smooth.

  6. Rest room temp for about 5 hours

  7. Cut and form 250g balls and refrigerate for the night.

  8. Take out 5-8 hours before baking the next day