Another option is to use a Kamado grill with a pizza stone. They can get very hot, and with the charcoal it gives it a nice smokey flavor. You can add wood chunks for extra flavoring as well. It's hard to eat pizza from the oven now after we have starting cooking them this way!
Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
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Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#12Being frustrated with burned top, and undercooked bottom I figured out that using the broiler together with a couple 2-3 mm thick pre-heated aluminium sheet that I placed the pizza on produced pretty good results. Not that I was aiming for a particular style of pizza though, ymmv.
The sheet itself was placed on an ordinary oven rack somewhere below the middle of the oven.
It seems to align somewhat with their findings. Since the aluminium sheet is only heated by the air, the bottom doesn't get burned, but the slight extra boost of initial heat cooks the bottom about right compared to the top. At least for a bit thicker pizzas as the one I made.
You probably would want maybe an even thicker plate to get a really short cooking times, like the 2min in the article. In any case, you will have to wait for a little bit between each pizza for the plate to reach the appropriate temperature.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#13Is it only Americans that call a pizza 'pie'?
As an Australian it sounds wrong, very wrong - a pie has dished sides and filling, not just topping.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#14The self cleaning cycle on an electric oven is close to 1000 degrees, and can be used to cook pizza:
http://staff.washington.edu/freitz/pizza/clean_cycle_pizza.h...
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#15Is it only Americans that call a pizza 'pie'? As an Australian it sounds wrong, very wrong - a pie has dished sides and filling, not just topping.
There is a style of pizza native to America which has dished sides and filling.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#16Is it only Americans that call a pizza 'pie'? As an Australian it sounds wrong, very wrong - a pie has dished sides and filling, not just topping.
Yes, it is. In the rest of the world it's called a pizza because that's what it is.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#17Is it only Americans that call a pizza 'pie'? As an Australian it sounds wrong, very wrong - a pie has dished sides and filling, not just topping.
There is a style of pizza native to America which has dished sides and filling.
Which deviates so far from pizza, it ought just be called Chicago pie.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#18The self cleaning cycle on an electric oven is close to 1000 degrees, and can be used to cook pizza: http://staff.washington.edu/freitz/pizza/clean_cycle_pizza.h...
But keep in mind that many people have tried and still failed to adequately disable the locking mechanism on a self-cleaning oven, and had to watch (and smell) as their pizza turned to a big pile of ash.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#19This isn’t unique to pizza. A French bread bakery also uses a brick oven, and that oven takes days to break in and requires periodic brick replacement.
French bread is made using a special oven with a steam injection at the start of the bake.
Re: Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie
#20Simply get a small outdoor clay oven, those work fine and are not that expensive anymore.
I've had pizza cooked in an outdoor clay cob oven once. It was probably the best pizza i've ever had. This was years ago and I still don't think i've had any that's compared since. It was just the perfect level of crispy and soft. I've got no room to have one where I live...but they do definitely produce a fine pizza.