Outdoor Pizza Oven Thread

[Troy S]

I thought a thread dedicated to outdoor pizza oven pies would be a pretty fun addition to TVWBB! Whether you throw them down on your kettle, Ooni or something else.

I got hooked to making pizza a couple of years ago. I've made a ton of them in my crappy home oven, and since December I've made a fair amount outside.

My girlfriend surprised me with a Bertello pizza oven for Christmas, and in the last month I luckily received the outdoor pizza oven conversion kit for the 22" Blackstone griddle. Both have their own place and purposes. The Bertello is a Neapolitan pie-making machine! The Blackstone oven is more versatile and can handle lower temps for things like NY style pizza and pan pies.

Here's my favorite recipe for a classic Neapolitan!

• Flour – 640g
• Water (room temperature) – 360g
• Sea salt – 14g
• Yeast (dried or fresh) – around 0.2g to 0.5g

I bulk ferment for about 20 hours at room temperature, and 5-6 hours before I cook the pizzas I make four 250-260g dough balls out of the batch to make 10-12" pizzas.

Here's a salami & pesto pie from my first ever cook on the Bertello in December.

 

[Rich G]

Great looking pie, Troy!! Been pretty busy around here, so haven't made any pizza in about a month, but once "grad season" is done, it'll be pizza time!!!

Question on your dough......what kind of flour are you using? AP (which brand)? Bread (which brand)? 00 (which brand)? Your hydration is a bit lower than mine usually is (mine is typically ~63%), but your formula and process look really good (and you can't argue with the result!)

Thanks!

R

 

[Rich Dahl]

Very nice Troy, really like the looks of that pie.
Barb and I like to make pizzas outside also. I have a kettle pizza but sold the kettle it was dedicated to, so now it's a garage wall ornament.
What we do have is a 22" weber kettle that is propane powered with a Weber gas conversion kit. The kit was only sold in Australia and New Zealand to the best of my knowledge. We use it to cook whole chickens and it does great.
We are going to put the KP on it because it will get screaming hot if put on high, completely pegs the dome gauge in about 5 minuets and see how it does a pizza.

 

[Troy S]

@Rich G -- Whoops! I meant to add the flour type in the post. I like using bread flour the best (King Arthur brand). I would place 00 flour on the same pedestal, but it's difficult to find. I live in a rural, small area. Closest retailer that sells 00 flour is about an hour away (Kroger). I enjoy using it, though. King Arthur brand there, too.

There is a restaurant supply store in Johnson City, TN -- about an hour and a half to two hours away from me -- that sells 50-lb. bags of the Caputo 00 flour, and only in that size, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Same place sells 25-lb. bags of bromated all-trumps flour, which I did purchase!

All-Trumps flour, from what I read, is heavily used in NY for NY style pizzas. I have had mixed results with it using it straight up, but exceptional results with it when mixing it with bread flour!

I usually roll with a lower hydration, maximum of 60%, as it's personally easier to stretch and because I still consider myself to be a newbie when it comes to stretching pies even though I have gotten pretty decent at it these last near-six months. Now, I do go up to about 73% hydration when making Detroit style pizza! But for that I make a no-knead dough that stretches perfectly in a 10x14 pan.

@Rich Dahl -- that's really cool! Please post some photos in this thread when you get some pizza rockin'! I wanted the kettle pizza attachment for a long time, but glad to have a couple of dedicated outdoor ovens even if they take up more space in my garage.

 

[Rich G]

@Rich G -- Whoops! I meant to add the flour type in the post. I like using bread flour the best (King Arthur brand). I would place 00 flour on the same pedestal, but it's difficult to find. I live in a rural, small area. Closest retailer that sells 00 flour is about an hour away (Kroger). I enjoy using it, though. King Arthur brand there, too.

There is a restaurant supply store in Johnson City, TN -- about an hour and a half to two hours away from me -- that sells 50-lb. bags of the Caputo 00 flour, and only in that size, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Same place sells 25-lb. bags of bromated all-trumps flour, which I did purchase!

All-Trumps flour, from what I read, is heavily used in NY for NY style pizzas. I have had mixed results with it using it straight up, but exceptional results with it when mixing it with bread flour!

I usually roll with a lower hydration, maximum of 60%, as it's personally easier to stretch and because I still consider myself to be a newbie when it comes to stretching pies even though I have gotten pretty decent at it these last near-six months. Now, I do go up to about 73% hydration when making Detroit style pizza! But for that I make a no-knead dough that stretches perfectly in a 10x14 pan.

@Rich Dahl -- that's really cool! Please post some photos in this thread when you get some pizza rockin'! I wanted the kettle pizza attachment for a long time, but glad to have a couple of dedicated outdoor ovens even if they take up more space in my garage.

Thanks, Troy! Protein content for various flours are all over the map within the same category (AP, Bread, etc), so thanks for including the brand.... I think my hydration works for my pies @ a 4 min bake. I'd probably drop the hydration down for a true Neapolitan bake @ 60-90 secs.

Looking forward to seeing some pies in here!

R

 

[Troy S]

Thanks, Troy! Protein content for various flours are all over the map within the same category (AP, Bread, etc), so thanks for including the brand.... I think my hydration works for my pies @ a 4 min bake. I'd probably drop the hydration down for a true Neapolitan bake @ 60-90 secs.

Looking forward to seeing some pies in here!

R

I'm going 100% by memory here without looking and admittedly being too lazy to google, but I forgot to mention that the all-trumps flour is something like 14.2 or 14.7% protein. I think KA bread flour is 12.7%? But again, relying on memory.

The weird thing about all-trumps is that you barely have to knead it at all. If you knead it with a stand mixer, you are playing with fire because it can be ready to rock in about 2 minutes, which sounds ludicrous but I'm not even playing! When hand-mixing and kneading, it can come together in about four minutes. I gathered this information from the 'Pizza Making' forum, another site, while researching it. It requires longer fermentation times.

My first experiment with it, using the same recipe in the OP, the dough was so flippin' elastic and wouldn't stretch. I read that it's because of the need for a longer fermentation for that type of flour used. At the same time, though, I messed up and went with 3% salt (ahh, using the PizzApp for my phone and somehow entered 3% salt and didn't notice it until afterwards), which could have been my problem as well.

I love experimenting, trying out different doughs and different techniques. Sourdough pizza is on my bucket list.

 

[Rich G]

I'm going 100% by memory here without looking and admittedly being too lazy to google, but I forgot to mention that the all-trumps flour is something like 14.2 or 14.7% protein. I think KA bread flour is 12.7%? But again, relying on memory.

The weird thing about all-trumps is that you barely have to knead it at all. If you knead it with a stand mixer, you are playing with fire because it can be ready to rock in about 2 minutes, which sounds ludicrous but I'm not even playing! When hand-mixing and kneading, it can come together in about four minutes. I gathered this information from the 'Pizza Making' forum, another site, while researching it. It requires longer fermentation times.

My first experiment with it, using the same recipe in the OP, the dough was so flippin' elastic and wouldn't stretch. I read that it's because of the need for a longer fermentation for that type of flour used. At the same time, though, I messed up and went with 3% salt (ahh, using the PizzApp for my phone and somehow entered 3% salt and didn't notice it until afterwards), which could have been my problem as well.

I love experimenting, trying out different doughs and different techniques. Sourdough pizza is on my bucket list.

You are correct that KA Bread is ~12.7%. I've never used All Trumps but know it's higher (14'ish?) Most of my base of pizza knowledge came from the same place! I've been using a blend of 13% bread flour and Caputo blue bag recently, and am finding that I prefer the Caputo reg bag....probably because it has a lower protein content. It's all fun, and tasty, experimentation! Sourdough pizza is on my list, too....seems only natural since I bake with my sourdough starter every week anyway!

R