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The physics of baking good pizza

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Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#141

Post by skellera »

dsr_ wrote: post #119
panabee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is very cool! 1) what's the most helpful physics-based cooking tip most people aren't aware of? 2) are there efforts in food engineering to apply machine learning to recipes in the same way some projects are trying to automate other creative functions like graphic design?

It is a widely-held belief that searing a piece of meat before a slow roast will seal in the juices. Actual testing reveals this to be completely incorrect. Searing (dry, high heat) produces maillard reactions which are responsible for lots of flavors that we like. So searing is good, but it's better to cook your meat to just below the temperature you want, then take it out and sear it. You'll have a more consistent…

For anyone looking, this is what most people are now calling a reverse sear.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#142

Post by KozmoNau7 »

makmanalp wrote: post #23
elorant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to 2 is to get a special pot made out of stone that you place in the oven and it accumulates heat. After 30 minutes it has the necessary temperature and then you place the pizza on top of it.

Or a pizza steel which I've wanted to try forever: https://slice.seriouseats.com/2012/09/the-pizza-lab-the-baki... ... not a perfect neapolitan but looks good enough for me.

I use a ~35x40cm, 8mm thick, ~8kg slab of iron as a baking steel. It does take a while to heat up, and conversely also to cool down again, but it produces extremely consistent and good results.

As someone who's cracked several conventional baking stones, I would be seriously surprised if the Slab O' Steel doesn't outlast me. I can highly recommend getting one, it's definitely worth it.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#143

Post by KozmoNau7 »

tigershark wrote: post #18
numbol wrote: post #13

This post encouraged me to make account and leave a comment after couple years of read-only /sorry for bad english/ Long ago, in yearly middle-school time I am argue with friends about optimum(by combined simplicity and taste score) way to bake frozen pizza, and all about with electric heating oven VS microwave. After some time oven was chosen, but I thinked that made oven pre-heaten was waste of time and try to appr…

1) Frozen pizza is awful 2) To properly bake a pizza you need 350/400 C 3) Normal electrical ovens arrive to 220/240 C and the pizza becomes dry and crunchy 4) If you put a frozen pizza in a cold oven it will always be burnt because by the time the inside is cooked the outside has become overcooked and burnt 5) Please don’t make me cry writing pizza misadventures :’(

>"To properly bake a pizza you need 350/400" >"Normal electrical ovens arrive to 220/240 C"

You don't really need it, you can produce extremely good pizzas in an ordinary oven, as long as you remember to preheat it and have enough thermal mass in your baking stone/steel. Once the oven reaches temp, give it at least another 15 minutes to really preheat the stone.

Preheating and a good dough have been the key ingredients for me. That and a hefty 8kg baking steel. Metal retains more heat and dumps it a lot quicker into the crust than a traditional backing stone.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#144

Post by KozmoNau7 »

jules wrote: post #118
tigershark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Frozen pizza is awful 2) To properly bake a pizza you need 350/400 C 3) Normal electrical ovens arrive to 220/240 C and the pizza becomes dry and crunchy 4) If you put a frozen pizza in a cold oven it will always be burnt because by the time the inside is cooked the outside has become overcooked and burnt 5) Please don’t make me cry writing pizza misadventures :’(

If you freeze your own pizza they taste pretty good, so I wonder why store bought pizzas don't. You can't bake good napolitan pizza at home but you can bake decent pizza at home as long as you change the recipe to be nontraditional. I make a very wet dough, let it rise, then spread it on olive oil greased sheets, rise again then pre bake the crust until it is firm enough to put on the toppings then bake again. The cr…

>"You can't bake good napolitan pizza"

Yes you can. Good dough, high thermal mass (baking steel) and thorough preheating are the most important points.

"Oh, but it doesn't get to 350/400/a quadrillion degrees like a real pizza oven does!" the peanut gallery cries.

A lot of great pizzarias don't bake their pizzas above ~300 anyway. Just turn your oven way up and let it preheat properly. It is not properly heated when the indicator bulb turns off. Give it at least another 15 minutes to get the baking surface thoroughly warmed through. If water droplets don't show the Leidenfrost effect on the baking surface, it is nowhere near hot enough.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#145

Post by KozmoNau7 »

peterwwillis wrote: post #27

There's lots of kinds of pizza out there. It seems like the commenters here haven't read the paper, because it goes over a sampling of the different styles in Italy, and you can not cook them all the same way, period. But a Neapolitan brick oven (or an equivalent) works for most of them. However, you can approximate the specific variables of a Neapolitan brick oven by using two factors to your advantage: slow even co…

Pre-heating at the highest temperature setting for 45-60 minutes on the normal oven setting and then cooking on the broiler setting (again, properly pre-heated) works great for me. I also use a thick baking steel, hence the extensive pre-heating.

Works great, cooks amazing pizza in a couple of minutes.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#146

Post by jules »

Freak_NL wrote: post #131
jules wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is salt still considered bad for you?

When you eat too much of it, certainly. It is generally thought that we eat way more salt than is considered healthy. Too much salt increases the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular diseases, and kidney failure. The Dutch government — to cite just one example — states that 80% of people in the Netherlands eat too much salt¹; i.e., more than 6 grammes per day, and lists the health issues mentioned above. Conve…

I'm a bit skeptical of an organisation that recommends eating lots of carbs and margarine. Is there good scientific evidence that salt is dangerous? A priori I'd find that strange, because our kidneys are good at filtering out salt, so why would the body have any trouble with salt as long as you drink enough water?

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#147

Post by jules »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #144
jules wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you freeze your own pizza they taste pretty good, so I wonder why store bought pizzas don't. You can't bake good napolitan pizza at home but you can bake decent pizza at home as long as you change the recipe to be nontraditional. I make a very wet dough, let it rise, then spread it on olive oil greased sheets, rise again then pre bake the crust until it is firm enough to put on the toppings then bake again. The cr…

>"You can't bake good napolitan pizza" Yes you can. Good dough, high thermal mass (baking steel) and thorough preheating are the most important points. "Oh, but it doesn't get to 350/400/a quadrillion degrees like a real pizza oven does!" the peanut gallery cries. A lot of great pizzarias don't bake their pizzas above ~300 anyway. Just turn your oven way up and let it preheat properly. It is not properly heated when…

The problem with low heat is that the pizza doesn't rise properly and the pizza needs to stay in the over for longer which makes the crust dry out. If you have a good oven and a pizza stone then you might be able to do it, but most people don't have that. My oven maxes out at 200 even though it claims to do 230.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#148

Post by toomanybeersies »

stevesimmons wrote: post #126
flukus wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capsicum is the standard name in here (Australia) from wikipedia: >The large, mild form is called bell pepper, or by color or both in North America and the United Kingdom, but typically called capsicum in New Zealand,[8] Australia, South Africa, Singapore, and India. It does seem strange that even anglosphere countries in the eastern hemisphere ended up with a different name for some reason. Presumably it was also ca…

I grew up in Australia calling them capsicum. Now I live in the UK and the Netherlands, it is pepper/paprika respectively. Some other differences in Australian and UK usage are zucchini vs courgette and eggplant vs aubergine. Not much of a French influence down-under. And Italian immigrants dominated Melbourne's fruit and veg trade in the 1960s.

I always get confused and just use one or the other. Conveniently it doesn't really matter because everyone understands me when I use any of the above in Australia.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#149

Post by makmanalp »

sgc wrote: post #136
sgc wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a formula! Take it out when you start prep for the evening, so it's at least 90 minutes before first use. But pizza made at close will be different than pizza made at the beginning of the shift.

Forgot to mention: It is a perpetual starter--take a pizza worth of dough to start the next batch (for maybe 100 pizzas).

To add, I think perhaps the levain makes it develop to a good state faster such that 2 days is fine as opposed to the 3+ I seem to need with no levain, if you want the nice spotted and bubbly dark and light pattern as opposed to the even golden brown.

Re: The physics of baking good pizza

#150

Post by shaklee3 »

krzat wrote: post #123
shaklee3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out pizzamaking.com. It's probably the central place to chat about all things making pizza. While a home oven will get you decent pizza with a good stone, there are outdoor solutions that aren't too expensive. I got the blackstone oven, and it makes Neapolitan-style pizza in about 90 seconds, just like a large wood oven does. The difference is it uses propane with a giant flame arching over the pizza, and it ha…

$400 oven is pretty expensive compared to a steel made from scrap. And steel is way easier to use.

It's an oven that can get to 1000F, which a home oven won't get close to. You need that for Neapolitan pizza, and it cannot be emulated with a steel stone. Those are great for NY-style in the home oven though.
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