14 hours ago, scott123 said:If you're going to be a purist- and I applaud your zealotry
then you should be aware that there is no Neapolitan pizza 'direction.' Either you have an oven that can do 90 seconds or less, and, along with an unmalted flour, you make Neapolitan pizza, or, you don't have the right oven, and you work with the temperature you're able to reach and make other styles- with other flour.
My purism is about the pizza being awesome and have certain qualities I like. It's not about following arbitrary rules, whether the AVPN's or anyone else's. And I precisely mean taking pizza in a "Neapolitan direction." Because the best pizza I've had has been a hybrid style. I've had purist AVPN-compliant pizza, and I've had variations that I think of as "Brooklyn Neapolitan," and I like the latter better. So that's what I go for.
The differences aren't relevant to my points above, because the Brooklyn variations are no easier to make, and are just as demanding of a blazing hot oven.
With the right kind of home oven, however, people have been able to get into 90-ish second territory. Because the high-powered infra-red broilers on the pro-sumer ranges kick out serious energy. Between this and the heat capacity/conductivity of a 30lb slab of steel, you can recreate wood oven conditions.
Incidentally, the Modernist Cuisine crew has put to rest the idea that there's anything magical about a wood-fired oven (besides ambience). It doesn't matter what the heat source is. As long as you have enough power, and can balance the conductive energy delivery from the deck and the radiative energy delivery from above, you can do anything. Including a perfect Neapolitan pie. Even if VPN rules say you have to use wood. People who have hacked their home ovens to cook on the self-clean cycle figured this out decades ago.
