scott123

FWIW, that white pie has one of the prettiest Neapolitan crusts that I've ever seen on this forum. I had a sense that the pizzeria flour @ 48 hours wouldn't be as wonderful as your emergency dough, but the gumminess is throwing me for a bit of a loop. How are you stretching these? Are you using the slap technique? If you are, how aggressively are you slapping? The reason I bring this up is that slapping with a heavy hand tends to promote gumminess. It's so closely associated, the second I hear 'gummy' my mind goes to the slap. Basically, aggressive slapping compresses the dough and makes it harder for heat to penetrate. It might just be as simple as 48 hours breaking a (relatively) weak dough down, which, in turn, freed up water, with a wetter dough resulting, with a similar amount of heat/bake time as your last bake- resulting in a wetter crumb. Was the dough overly sticky and/or slack? What bake times did you play around with? Did you go as long as 90 seconds? Visually, I'm not going to lie, this doesn't really look like a dough that's too far past it's prime. On the last pie, those blisters that you're seeing at 8:30pm, in Naples, those are generally considered to reveal overproofing, with smaller, more freckled leoparding being the goal. Considerable numbers of home pizza makers are happy as a clam with that kind of blistering. All the same, if you keep the pizzeria flour to 24 hours or less, you be less likely to see those.

My feelings are mixed. I've seen some puffy crumbs with Nuvola, but also some crumbs that weren't puffy at all. For me, it's difficult to view Nuvola outside of the greater Caputo lens. Like many American pizza makers, when I started this journey, I was a pretty rabid Caputo fanboy. And then, about 10 years ago, I learned that, in Naples, they didn't have the market share, which surprised me. And then I watched Caputo take over the Pizza Expo in Vegas and, amazingly, make it even crasser. Combining that with the Americana- attempting to sell Americans their flour back to them at a markup- with the inference that we don't know how to mill good flour for our styles of pizza, the transitional whole wheat Typo 1 (bran is a gluten/volume killer), and the more recent corner cutting with the reformulation- needless to say, my love affair with Caputo has come to a close. Not that I'd ever to tell anyone to avoid the Cuoco or that the 5 Stagioni Napoletana is inherently superior. As a company, though, I resonate more with 5 Stagioni- and Pivetti- and I'm also hoping a domestic 00 producer steps up their game. GM was showing some promise with their Neapolitan, but, then they got greedy and starting jacking up the price. North American flour that hasn't been marked up by the Italians shouldn't be comparably priced. Ardent Mills came out with an 00 last year. Perhaps they could be the competition that brings down the price of GM. At the end of the day, I think it's kind of ridiculous to sell wheat to to the Italians and then buy it back again. So... it's not that I'm anti-Nuvola, I just, at this point, don't trust Caputo any more.

Somewhere around June 2019, Caputo took the pizzeria flour from 12.75% protein: https://web.archive.org/web/20181024231832/http://caputoflour.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/00-Pizzeria-SPECS.pdf to 12.5% https://www.mulinocaputo.it/en/flour/la-linea-professionale/pizzeria A drop in .25% may not seem like a great deal, but, because the Neapolitans import so much of their pizza flour from North America, and, since strong North American flour is so expensive, they've always formulated these blends with just enough strength- and no more. From a perspective of a flour that's always been a bit borderline, a small drop in protein can be meaningful. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that the pizza that you made yesterday turned out fine, but if you really want to play to the blue bag's strengths, I would recommend keeping it to a day or less, and saving the stronger Cuoco for the longer ferments.

Wait a second. The first Modernist Cuisine says that, with steel plate, "you can cook a pizza that's as fast and good as any you'll find in Naples." Have you finally proven Nathan wrong? :) Seriously, I'm happy that you finally found your Neapolitan style pizza bliss, but, without folks like Nathan, Kenji and Andris (bakingsteel.com) telling home pizza makers that they could make Neapolitan pizza on steel, you likely could have reached this goal many years ago. There's an entire universe sitting between 60-70 second pizza and a 2 minute bake. Had any of these people actually spoken to Neapolitans, they would have understood this. Congrats on finding an Ooni 16 in stock. That's not easy to do these days. If you're going with a 48 hour or longer ferment, I recommend the cuoco, since the pizzeria flour was reformulated last year and doesn't stand up quite as well to long ferments.

Should you decide to pull the trigger on this oven, I wouldn't wait too long, as availability keeps getting pushed further and further into the future. Presently, the best domestic shipping date you'll find is the end of July. https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/ooni-koda-16-pizza-oven/ With your potential move, the present timing might work for you, but, if you wait too long, you may very well see a very long delay. For the last month or so, for every week that passes, availability tends to get pushed two weeks. With the growing popularity of this oven, I expect pre-orders to snowball even more aggressively. In addition, Ooni has not been shy in the past about raising prices to reflect increasing demand. I'm confident that, within a month, the price will go up. This oven has an opening about 4" tall. Although, technically, this allows a wide variety of breads, you wouldn't want to use this for anything thicker than flatbread, as taller breads need steady, even, low heat, something this oven can't do. This device has a 16" square cooking surface. I wouldn't take Pala all the way to the walls, but you could probably do a 15" square pala pie comfortably.

If you're working with a typical 250Cish British oven and what I'm guessing is most likely thin steel, then yes, the Koda 16 will annihilate it. But that doesn't mean that life altering pizza in a home oven isn't possible. A home oven can't make 1 minute Neapolitan pizza, which, for those seeking that milestone, the Koda is a must have. But that's not everyone. What flour are you using?

I think this manual was written long enough ago that your average block of supermarket mozzarella was firm enough to be able to be grated in a Cuisinart. These days, mozzarella is so soft, it would be like trying to grate ricotta.

https://www.cuisinart.com/share/pdf/manuals/dlc-xp.pdf "these discs slice cooked meat, semi-frozen raw meat" The slicing blade on a food processor is very different technology to a meat slicer. A slicing blade uses momentum to hack through food. If the food is relatively easy to cut, it hacks through it quite cleanly, but, if the food offers some resistance, both the cuts can get messy, and the thickness can vary. The large rotating blade on a meat slicer isn't hacking the food, but, rather, it's removing a tiny bit with every fraction of an inch that the blade moves. Simply put, for sturdier foods, a food processor hacks, while a deli slicer slices. I've seen folks try to use the slicing blade with pepperoni, and, while it cuts it, it's a horror show. It depends on how much water/eggs are in your frozen cookie dough, but I would wager that it's going to offer a bit more resistance than a stick of pepperoni.

How hot does your oven get? Does it have a broiler in the main compartment?

Mitch, through a pizza lens, which, as you know, I view just about everything, I live in what I call the '6th borough.' Outside of that, I'm a Jersey kid. Bruuuuuuuuuce! Bruuuuuuuuuce! But, thanks for pointing that out, though. It looks like a super fun outfit.

I was actually kind of hoping for a laxer admission policy, so some folks could get in, but completely open doors could result in empty shelves. I guess it's good. Bad for me, but, good for the public who need food. I can live without burgers for a couple months (pretty much all I get there).

I know that you're joking, but, for anyone else who's looking at a 50 lb. bag of flour and wondering how to store it, here's how I do it. Most supermarket bakery departments have large covered plastic buckets that they're constantly throwing out. If you ask, they'll normally give you these buckets for free. You can also try other departments, like the deli, although things like pickles might leave a smell. Bakery ingredients (usually glazes and icings) clean off easily with no residual odors. Make sure you get a bucket with a very tight fitting lid, with a seal that is intact. With some jiggling, I can fit one 50 lb. bag of flour into two 4.25 gallon buckets. Flour stored this way will generally last a couple years if kept in a cool place, like a basement. I've also found these types of buckets at hardware stores like Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace, but they tend to run about $10/bucket.

Over the years, I've heard good things about their customer service, but the typical markup has kept me from sending many folks their way. This being said... Available with a fairly reasonable markup and shipping is far better than completely empty shelves at every turn, so, thanks for bringing this to my attention. Edit: I priced some flour there last year and it's the same price now, so, to their credit, they don't seem to be gouging- and they easily could bump prices up a bit because of increased demand.

It's just a theory, but, considering how hard these distributors must be getting hit, I'm hoping that some of these stricter stores might be a little more likely to look the other way. But you make an excellent point about the public sticking out like a sore thumb. Which is why anyone attempting to talk their way in should try to act as professional/serious/no nonsense as possible. "YO, GIVE ME MY DAY PASS BRO!" is probably not going to get you in :)

I keep checking Restaurant Depot's web site to see if they might open to the public. So far, no. I would think, though, that this would be an ideal time for talking your way in. "I'm opening a catering business and haven't gotten my paperwork together." You generally can't talk your way in more than a couple times, but, a single visit could net you a 50 lb bag of flour or two- which should be long enough to get you through this shutdown (depending, of course, where you live). All of the baking supplies that have just about vanished at the retail level- last I checked RD was stocked.

Here's where I'm at with baker's percents: 150% Salted Butter 58% Trader Joe's 72% Belgian Chocolate (I don't enjoy super chocolate-y brownies) 240% Sugar 100% All Purpose Flour 91% Eggs Melt butter with chocolate (I take it to 170F). Mix in everything but eggs. In separate bowl, whisk eggs and then add eggs to everything else until just incorporated. Bake at 275F for 70 minutes My goal is Two Bite Brownies. I'm looking for an end product that's chewy and a bit dry with a homogenous texture. I don't want any fudgyness- at all, and, right now, even with 70 minutes at 275, my end product has a super fudgy crumb and a crispy exterior. I don't want a cakey texture either. This is the territory that I'm shooting for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDujihI6Es&app=desktop These are not exactly Two Bites, but, if you look at the beginning, you'll see that the crumb is pretty dry. The only major difference I'm seeing between their process and mine is that they add the flour last, while I add the egg last. They don't show the flour being mixed in, but they do show the batter being dispensed into the baking pans and it definitely looks a bit thick- not cookie dough thick, but definitely not batter-y either. The goal is a brownie with more of a cookie texture, which might mean less eggs, but, before I take that direction, I wanted to see if anyone here had some thoughts on this.

I'm encouraged to hear that at least one processor knows what they're doing. Let me guess, they're not seeing a lot of Covid 19 cases at the the plant, correct?

Temperature testing is worthless, due to asymptomatic transmission. https://www.contagionlive.com/news/case-study-shows-asymptomatic-transmission-of-covid19-in-china Food workers- from processing plants to grocery stores, should have equal access to the exact same PPE and fast testing equipment that health care workers should be getting. And none of this DIY PPE garbage either. It's important that health care workers stay healthy, but, if the food distribution system breaks down, we're screwed.

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I have a few things to add. First, charcoal in a gas grill is not a good idea. It's not a question of if the ash will clog up your burners, but when. Sure, if your burners do get clogged, you can clean them, but it will be a major hassle to do so. Charcoal also represents very intense localized heat. A gas grill isn't manufactured with this kind of heat in mind. You could end up warping the grate or, if the coals are near a wall, you could warp the wall. Even if you can keep ash out of the burners and prevent damage to the grill, as has been mentioned, the extra heat from the charcoal is the wrong kind of heat, since fast baked pizza requires intense top heat. Even if you put the charcoal to the side of the pizza, with the way the charcoal burns, and the height of the ceiling, you still won't get the top heat that you need for a balanced fast bake. Your average gas grill, out of the box, is a horrible tool when it comes to fast baked pizza. You've got the top/bottom heat balance issue and the peak temp problem. An insert can resolve the top/bottom heat balance, but, you're still severely handicapped by the grill's peak temp. Not to mention, your average insert is typically going to cost you about half of what you'd pay for a real, Neapolitan capable, propane pizza oven. If someone wanted to match their home oven results with a grill, sure, a $150+ insert is a perfectly fine option (I'd probably recommend this one here). But 600 degree pizza is obviously not what you're looking for. If you want fast baked pizza, you want the right tool for the job. $300 will get you an Ooni Koda (gas). You don't want the Karu or the Ooni 3, since the Karu is still too untested, and the pellets of the 3 are a huge, messy hassle. I would also dissuade you from the Ooni Pro, since the thermodynamics of the larger Pro don't seem to be on par with the smaller Koda. If your pockets are considerably deeper, the Pizza Party Ardore is a step up. https://www.pizzapartyshop.com/en/portable-gas-fired-pizza-ovens-ardore-spacesaving/outdoor-gas-pizza-oven-pizza-party-ardore.html The pricing for the Ardore has been all over the map. At one point, it was as low as $600 shipped, but then it crept up to around $1100, and now it's showing a waiting list without any price listed. The Ardore has three advantages. First, a Koda can do authentic 60 second Neapolitan pizza, but an Ardore has the BTUs to do 45 second bakes. 45 second pizza is very advanced, since, at that bake time, it's pretty easy to end up with raw dough in the middle of your crust. If you do it right, though, 45 second pizza can be pretty breathtaking (45 second naan is also otherworldly). The Ardore's second advantage is it's real estate. With a 15.75" x 15.75" stone, it's exponentially easier to turn the pizza in the oven (with a good turning peel). Lastly, the Ardore puts the burner on the side, rather than on the back like the Koda. Having the burner on the side allows you to watch the pizza as it bakes and turn it a bit more effectively. 45 second pizza is not really a dragon that many folks are chasing, and with a sizable learning curve, you can master turning in a Koda. At $600, I think an Ardore is a viable upgrade for the truly obsessed, but, I think $1100 for an Ardore is a bit steep. It depends on how deep your pockets are. If you want to compare some of the specs for the popular brands of outdoor gas ovens, I compiled a spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RkK7rmQMJWUYxp0zHhVLCcjQ1cLIJpUuTMOaOr2iEDk/edit#gid=0

Since it's already Christmas morning, I'm guessing this answer won't be much help, but, for future reference, because of their additional ingredients, enriched doughs have a tendency towards a somewhat weak gluten structure. Fermentation weakens dough. A good enriched dough recipe will give the dough just enough proofing to make it light and airy, and no more. For this reason, I wouldn't add additional fermentation to an existing enriched dough recipe.

What are you proofing in?

This is all fascinating stuff, but it doesn't explain how sugar becomes amorphous in chocolate. A smaller and smaller crystal is still just a crystal. What's causing the sugar to glass? The heat? The trace amount of water in the chocolate? The electron microscope doesn't lie, so if it's saying the sugar is amorphous, it's amorphous. This may be one of those 'not fully understood' areas, but it would be really nice to know, since whatever it is that causes sugar to glass, might be helpful in getting erythritol to glass as well, although keeping erythritol amorphous, as I said, is exponentially more difficult. Freeze drying definitely sounds intriguing. But, yes, the equipment may not be practical here. Come to think of it, I have made inulin caramels where I added the cream too quickly to the caramelized inulin, and I ended up with a thin hard layer of inulin on the base of the pan that took a very long time to dissolve. If you took this and poured it on a silpat like brittle, Inulin is most likely too hygroscopic to be ground, but perhaps this 'brittle' might be pulverized and then melanged. I'm not sure I'd put this in a blender or a melanger I'd value, though, since inulin in this cohesed, concentrated form is going to be far harder than sugar. I've had old chunks of conglomerated polydrextrose (a close cousin to inulin) that were very stressful to the hammer that I was using to break them down into smaller pieces.

As far as I know, sugar/erythritol crystallization occurs on the molecular level. Because of this, no amount of physical grinding will ever mitigate erythritol's cooling effect. In order to lose the effect, erythritol has to be dissolved, and it has to be kept dissolved, which is extraordinarily difficult to do. I've made at least a few hundred inulin/erythritol/water syrups, and I can tell you exactly how much inulin it takes to keep erythritol dissolved at various concentrations, but, achieving this without the water? Yeesh. I've never tried this, but, it might be possible to make an inulin/erythritol solution and cook it to a stage where the water is boiled off and the erythritol is still a glass. You could then powder that and have no cooling effect. I don't even know if inulin can even be taken to a hard stage, though. Inulin is basically very low sweetness dried corn syrup. Is there such a thing as corn syrup only hard candy? My guess is no. I'm guessing that, since you're reverse engineering stevia based candy, sucralose is most likely your big bad wolf, correct? Erythritol provides almost no sugary texture. It's not in this formula for the bulk. It's being used to help improved the quality of sweetness that you get from the Stevia, which is very poor on it's own with the bitterness of chocolate. If you were open to another high intensity sweetener, you could achieve a very high quality of sweetening, lose the erythritol and, with it, all it's crystallization woes. You could then treat this like real chocolate, and with the help of the talented chocolatiers here, grind the ingredients down, temper it, and end up with an actual chocolate bar.

Are you certain that as sugar particles become smaller they become amorphous? They don't just become smaller and smaller crystals? Doesn't crystallization occur on the molecular level? I've powdered erythritol to incredibly fine textures in the past, and, no matter how small I go, the cooling effect is always there.

The inherent bitterness of chocolate requires a great deal of sugar to balance it. Because of this substantial requirement, It's a confection that, from a perspective of quality of sweetening, separates the wheat from the chaff. Stevia tends to work well when very little is required of it- tea, cheesecake, vanilla confections, etc., but as you use more of it, even high quality extracts, you're going to see an aftertaste that impairs the quality of sweetening. For true sugar free chocolate, not this maltitol silliness, you need a sweetener combination that's indistinguishable from sugar- even in large amounts. This is why you see splenda combined so frequently with acesulfame potassium- and not just in chocolate. Carbsmart is very far from the best ice cream, and the overrun in this recent decade has been downright criminal, but they, for the most part, get the sweetening right: http://smartlabel.breyers.com/product/4019261/ingredients?locale=en-US Sorbitol (bad, but not quite as bad as maltitol), splenda and acesulfame potassium. For years, it was polydextrose, but I'm guessing sorbitol is cheaper. The beverage companies have figured it out as well. Any time you find splenda, you'll see acesulfame potassium and anything with aspartame is going to have acesulfame potassium as well. Synergy (more than one sweetener) = far better quality of sweetness and less overall sweetener used (cost savings).