The Wood-Fired Blog
We're on TV
Jul 17, 2012Thanks to GPT Construction near Sacramento, CA for this. One of their great pizza oven and pool projects was on CBS Local Good Day Sacramento — as part of their Pools to Drool Over series. Very fun. You can also check out their 3D visualization of the project on YouTube. httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3OYsfdPSDQ&feature=youtu.be Read More
Dough and my Cuisinart Mixer
Jul 17, 2012To catch up, I have been working with my new Cuisinart stand mixer to make easy, one-touch dough. So far, I have had trouble with loose flour not getting mixed in the bottom of the bowl, with flour building up on the side of the bowel, and the dough ball not getting completely formed. I also have some questions about the overall “quality” of the dough mixing. With my latest... Read More
Oven Size and Throughput
Jul 16, 2012After posting about oven size and throughput and receiving a couple of email messages with questions on how oven size impacts throughput, I had an idea — I decided to lay out a series of simple drawings that show just how many pizzas you can fit into each size oven. Here is a spreadsheet with the results and a couple of sample layouts. Oven size 11” pizzas 24” 1 28”... Read More
Coals and Oven Temperature Control
Jul 16, 2012When you are baking bread, you always need to manage oven temperature relative to the rest of the world — such as how quickly your bread is proofing and when you are going to be ready to load your bread. And unlike your conventional oven, you don’t have controls to lower or raise your oven temperature. The rate that your oven heats up and holds heat is based on a... Read More
Balancing Oven Dome and Floor Temperature
Jul 15, 2012Every pizza oven is a little bit unique in how it absorbs and stores heat and how it cooks. That means that you always have to do a little bit of experimenting with a new oven (or a friends oven, or an oven at your vacation rental house) to work out how to be fire your oven and make it just right for the type of cooking that you are... Read More
Pizza Pilgrims in the UK Guardian
Jul 15, 2012If you missed my previous posting, Pizza Pilgrims in London have installed a Forno Bravo pizza oven on a Piaggio Ape, a three wheel mini truck with a top speed of 32 mph. As you might guess, they are getting a lot of good press — I think not only because they’ve done something very original and very cool, but also, from everything I’ve read, because they are really good... Read More
Whole Wheat Boule with Pine Nuts
Jul 14, 2012That’s right. Pine nuts. This came out really nicely — its as something of a surprise. This is a standard 1kg formula using 80% whole wheat flour, 20% white whole wheat flour, 75% hydration and 100 grams of raw pine nuts. We really enjoyed it. The oblong loaf on the left was proofed in a loaf pan shaped baneton. A couple of notes on the finished loaves. I fired my... Read More
Pizza Oven Size and Throughput
Jul 14, 2012How many pizzas can you put in a wood-fired oven at a time? How many pizzas can you make per hour? This is useful information whether you operate a restaurant or throw parties for friends and family. In general, throughput is based on concurrent places in the oven and the number of pizzas you can bake in each place per hour. I think it is fair to say that there... Read More
Cuisinart Update
Jul 13, 2012It might be as simple as learning to work with a new appliance — or perhaps the Cuisinsart mixer does not have a comparable mixing action and bowl design with the KitchenAid. But I seem to be having trouble getting my entire batch of dough to mix into a nice ball, where the mixer leaves unmixed flour at the bottom of the bowl. There is also a lot of dry... Read More
