So, I made two different pizza doughs from Forkish's "24 to 48 hour" recipe. I followed the recipe with two exceptions: 1) I cut the hydration to 58% per his advice elsewhere in the book (baking at 900-ish°F requires a drier dough) and 2) I used two grams of yeast since I have active dry yeast, not instant yeast. My intent was to see if AP flour could withstand the temps required to produce a good, unburned crust at proper Neapolitan baking temps. I am skeptical of the claim that AP flour will burn due to it's"sugar" content. Reading the nutrition labels, the flours I've seen always list "sugars" as zero. Flour is complex carbs, plus protein and whatever, and the sugars don't become available until the enzymes that yield simple sugars from more complex starches are "activated" once the flour is hydrated. The sugars are 100% necessary as they are what the yeast consumes, so, at this point, ALL doughs have sugars. Best I can tell, the only significany difference between 00 and other flours is that 00 is a finer grind.
I had attempted to do "true Neapolitan" one other time in my BGE and didn't get enough charcoal lit, so it took forever to get the dome temp (per the built in gauge) to 800-ish°F and the stone didn't get beyond 500-ish° as measured by IR gun, so this time I lit an entire chimney of lump, got it really hot, and dumped it into a hollow in the charcoal bed, then covered it with more unlit lump. The first time, I also used the plate setter. I didn't use it this time and I didn't use the top vent and left the bottom vent wide open. Well, boy howdy and golly-be-shucks, it didn't take but 25 minutes or so for the cordierite stone to read 800°F, at which point I went in, formed the crust and put tomato sauce, pepperoni and fresh mozz on it. Took maybe 4-5 minutes. By the time I was ready to load the AP version, the stone read 924°F. I baked it for 90 seconds. The bottom was uniformly charred black, but the top looked fine. Quick like a bunny, I made the 00 pizza "identical" to the first. By the time I was ready to bake it, the IR gun just read "Hi"--I think its max temp is like 961°F. I baked this one for only 60 seconds and...the bottom was uniformly charred like the first one. Again, the top looked fine. FWIW, the built-in temp gauge (a bit difficult to read because one must extrapolate and it was dark) and IR readings seemed to correlate reasonably well.
Somewhat surprisingly, the burnt layer of BOTH crusts was very thin and did not have too much of an adverse affect on the overall flavor. Next day, after cooling down, the stone had some char on it, but it was very light and mostly so "unattached" that I could just blow most of it off.
Bottom line--I didn't really prove much mainly because I am evidently at the very bottom of the steep part of the learning curve when it comes to running a kamado at high temp. Low 'n' slow, BBQ range temps have been easy, even controlling up around 500°F has been fairly easy. Not so much for 800°-900°F. Next time I will light of goodly amount of lump AND use the plate setter. One bit of good news is that I have evidently managed to seat the top and bottom of the BGE well enough that the gaskets, while charred a bit on the inside, are still fine and looking good on the outer 1/2-ish inch.
Suggestions and mockery are welcome!
I had attempted to do "true Neapolitan" one other time in my BGE and didn't get enough charcoal lit, so it took forever to get the dome temp (per the built in gauge) to 800-ish°F and the stone didn't get beyond 500-ish° as measured by IR gun, so this time I lit an entire chimney of lump, got it really hot, and dumped it into a hollow in the charcoal bed, then covered it with more unlit lump. The first time, I also used the plate setter. I didn't use it this time and I didn't use the top vent and left the bottom vent wide open. Well, boy howdy and golly-be-shucks, it didn't take but 25 minutes or so for the cordierite stone to read 800°F, at which point I went in, formed the crust and put tomato sauce, pepperoni and fresh mozz on it. Took maybe 4-5 minutes. By the time I was ready to load the AP version, the stone read 924°F. I baked it for 90 seconds. The bottom was uniformly charred black, but the top looked fine. Quick like a bunny, I made the 00 pizza "identical" to the first. By the time I was ready to bake it, the IR gun just read "Hi"--I think its max temp is like 961°F. I baked this one for only 60 seconds and...the bottom was uniformly charred like the first one. Again, the top looked fine. FWIW, the built-in temp gauge (a bit difficult to read because one must extrapolate and it was dark) and IR readings seemed to correlate reasonably well.
Somewhat surprisingly, the burnt layer of BOTH crusts was very thin and did not have too much of an adverse affect on the overall flavor. Next day, after cooling down, the stone had some char on it, but it was very light and mostly so "unattached" that I could just blow most of it off.
Bottom line--I didn't really prove much mainly because I am evidently at the very bottom of the steep part of the learning curve when it comes to running a kamado at high temp. Low 'n' slow, BBQ range temps have been easy, even controlling up around 500°F has been fairly easy. Not so much for 800°-900°F. Next time I will light of goodly amount of lump AND use the plate setter. One bit of good news is that I have evidently managed to seat the top and bottom of the BGE well enough that the gaskets, while charred a bit on the inside, are still fine and looking good on the outer 1/2-ish inch.
Suggestions and mockery are welcome!
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