The main problem is that all the heat is coming from the bottom, and the radiant head reflecting off the top is not nearly hot enough to cook the pizza before the bottoms chars into blackness. I typically do 90 seconds to 2 minutes on a preheated quarry tile with my grill full blast, then use a rack to lift the pizza and finish it for another 7-8 minutes (yes, there is that much a head difference). One can also finish under a broiler or use a torch.
i think that could be remedied by a large “lid” over the pizza, that collects the hot air from below and attrapts it within a few cm over the toppings, avoiding the dreaded de-hydration on top.
I am nowhere near as schmancy as y’all. I use this recipe for dough, freezing two crusts and making two for dinner. Kids get cheese pizza. Adults get something like olives, feta, mushrooms, pickled onions, and walnuts. My sauce has tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, garlic, wine, onions, salt, and herbs. I use a basic bro oven and feel hifalutin with my decade-old Bed Bath & Beyond pizza stone. Every time I pull out the bread flour for pizza crust I feel extra.
Someday maybe I’ll up my game. For now, I’m strictly t-ball.
Haven’t done it for a few years.
We are looking for a new place, saw one that had a brick wood fired pizza oven on the deck along with a fire place. Interesting. But we are not moving for a few years.
The wood oven would probably just be a PITA though.
When we bought our pizza oven, we settled on propane only rather than wood-only or dual-fuel. Propane is just easy. Wood you have to be motivated. My wife makes a bunch of pizza doughs and freezes them so it is easy for her to pull one out in the morning and we have pizza that night. Just last night we had a delicious pizza. I’m in charge of the “difficult” task of prepping the oven: Pull out the stone and scrape it with wire brush, re-insert, light, then wait 15 minutes. Easy with delicious results.
I heated out house for about 12 years using wood only. PITA in many ways. Pretty cool at first (in more ways than one). But we ended up installing a propane cast iron stove. Man, it has a thermostat for it on the wall.
I grew up in a house that was wood-only for a bunch of years. Sometimes it was great, sometimes it was freaking freezing. I split so much firewood! I do have great memories of going out with my dad and his friend, along with the USFS cutting permit and getting our wood.
I used to make pizzas a million years ago when I was feeding four kids on military pay. I made enough dough to cover the bottom/sides of a cookie sheet, and then loaded it up. That was before I realized that precooking the crust was a good idea. The kids always thought it was special, so there’s that. Our niece’s husband got one of those combo gas/wood pizza ovens that gets up to about 900F. Haven’t heard whether it works well or not.
I suppose I should be greatfful that some people had wood burning stoves when I was a baby. I’m told that when I was about a month old, in late January of 1955, Topeka experienced an awful ice storm and a lot of power in the city was off. Mom told me that that night I was put in the bed between my parents and the next morning they were able to get out and take me to some friends in the country who had a wood stove. So I was cradled in the kitchen for a couple of days, until power was returned and the house warmed up again. The city has grown a lot since then and the location of the house is fully developed now and in the city limits.
I wish that at some point I’d learned how to cook on a wood stove.
I try. I like to work and fail with dough of all kinds (bread, pizza, pretzels, bagels).
When you’ve got a nicely raised sourdough you can go ahead and top it with anything. Just do need a super-hot oven. Where I am right now I can’t trick it to 600C with a cleaning cycle.
I lived on Long Island near NYC. Doesn’t matter if it’s wood, gas or peat - they never turn those ovens off. Good dough, a modicum of sauce and whatever else, cook it hot hot hot.
My non-Detroit pizza experiment yesterday was great!
I made a basic 50% hydration dough with overnight poolish, canned pizza sauce, rinsed pre-shredded low moisture mozzarella, and pepperoni, crust brushed with garlic-infused olive oil.
It was about a 35cm pizza and 900g or so of dough – I was trying specifically not to get a shitty NYC style pizza, but something with a substantial, bready crust. Not quite Detroit style, but something like Dominos crust, and this worked.
Oven heated at 290° for an hour to heat the steel, then 4 minutes on high broil to actually cook, and we were in business.
It was freaking amazing for this style of pizza. Probably the best non-Detroit pizza I’ve ever made.
Oh, and that’s with the canned sauce (since the experiment was mostly for the dough and technique). And the rinsed mozzarella, since I already had shredded mozzarella and wanted to use it. I also added some Pecorino-Romano that I ground myself.
Next time I’ll use my homemade tomato sauce, and try the brick cheese with Pecorino-Romano, which is what I put on my Detroits.
I’ve kind of perfected my Detroits since 2011, so this is kind of an exciting, new adventure.
I’m lazy. I use my bread machine for dough. It has that option. I’m one of few that actually use this kitchen appliance I think.
I know you’re somewhat isolated but for those who are not, I’ve seen fresh pizza dough for sale in supermarkets or Trader Joe’s. And when I was a kid, a couple of times, my mother was able to buy it from a local pizzeria for a couple of bucks. So that’s an option if you want a shortcut to a homemade pizza.
Yeah, I doubt my store has it.
When I lived in Denver there was a great place that sold fresh spaghetti noodles. Lots of different kinds. They cut it right in front of you. I loved it.
They closed down and then the store turned into a bird seed store (???). “Disappointed!”
I actually did this many years ago in order to make rolls for Thanksgiving instead of buying the Hawaiian ones. They were fabulous.