Return To Firedome

Earlier today, I got the urge to have a go at the Firedome again. Kind of fitting since the first deposit into the Brick Oven Fund happened earlier this afternoon. Since the urge hit me kind of late, nothing was homemade. I used Mastrianni dough and a can of Hannaford's Nature's Place Organic tomato sauce (which is surprisingly good sauce). I lit a chimney of charcoal and dumped it into the back of the grill before it was fully lit. I topped that off with what I had hoped were the driest pieces of apple wood I have out back. Mostly smaller twigs with a few thicker branches. Put the grate on, placed the new 13" pizza stone I picked up in Syracuse and plopped the lid on. Then the smoke came (Sorry neighbors - it was worse than I expected). After about 5 minutes of smoke, everything settle back down.

I put the first pizza in. This one was topped with black olives. I don't know why, but the kids like olives on their pizza. I'm not opposed to olives on pizza, but in the pizza topping world there are many better choices.

I had used too much dough and the bottom was cooking faster than the top. The Weber lid doesn't reflect the heat that well. Still tasted pretty good though.

As the cooking session went on, I go better at handling the dough. Also in the dome, a 4 ounce piece of dough cooks much better than an 8 ounce piece. Lesson learned.
 

The pizza stone worked very well. Check out the crust on one of the last pizzas.
 

Lessons learned from this firing:
1. To better cook the top of the pizza, I think I need to have flames coming up the back of the dome.
2. Bring the cheese and any toppings to room temperature so they require less time in the oven.
3. Start making my own dough. I have so many recipes to try and I'm pretty sure any of them will be better than store bought.
4. Nature's Place Organic Tomato Sauce is surprisingly good.
5. I currently smell like a campfire.

Return to the Firedome

Thursday night I made a variation of a no-knead pizza dough and let set in the fridge over-night. Friday after work, it was time to play with fire again. Firedome, that is.

This time I used more fuel to get it hotter. I loaded the coals in two batches. I was able to hold the temperature of the cooking surface at over 800 deg F for around an hour. Here's the set up.

The heat had more time to reach an equilibrium temperature. Kind of tough to read, but the heat gun is showing 807 deg F. There were a few that were closer to 850.

Time to make pizza. Turns out that I really suck are shaping pizza dough. Maybe I'll do better with a lower hydration rates, but "suck" appropriately describes my pizza shaping skills. I need a lesson from someone that knows what they are doing.  My brother used to make pizza back in the 90s. Maybe I can talk him into a class around Thanksgiving time. Had 3 kinds of pizzas. 2 pies with tomatoe sauce and fress mozz. 1 pie with garlic oil and fresh mozz and another just without the garlic. I grated Parmesan on each pie too.

They came out OK. I think I liked the last dough better. Similar proportions, different kinds of flour, but I think the kneading added something too. I also need to rig something up so that heat reflects back down from the lid. The bottoms were consistently done before the tops. A work in progress....

Fire in the hole!

Back when I did construction inspection, I used a seismograph to monitor some blasting. This big gruff guy with a scraggly beard was in charge of placing and setting off the explosives. Before a blast, he used an air horn to signal every one on the site. One long honk from the horn meant a blast was about 5 minutes away. Two long honks meant get out of the way, I'm setting these charges off in a minute. Three long honks meant you better start running and screaming because if I don't see you in the next few seconds, you are going to have a very bad day. After the set of 3 honks, he'd look around once more and with the kind of grin you'd see on a kid's face he'd quietly say, "Fire in the hole." And then the ground would shake from the explosion.

Well, this fire in the hole was slightly less dramatic than setting off explosives and making people think there was an earthquake. But I was looking forward to it all day and couldn't wait to get going once I got home from work. Here's how I set up the space I was using. Two tables with toppings and space to prep the dough and the Firedome.

I started two chimney's of lump charcoal on top of the support bricks. I hoped they would heat up with the charcoal.

Then I spread the coals around and started to heat the cooking bricks.

I added more charcoal and a few branched of apple tree to the fire. Felt like 20 to 30 minutes later (I should have timed it), I wanted to get going on the pizzas. The kids weren't going to wait forever. I check the temperature of the cooking bricks with my new super awesome hand held thermometer. Most of the surface was around 600degrees F. Some spots were a little hotter. 700 or 750 degrees would have bee nice, maybe next firing with a little more time and coal.

The first pizza in was a margarita. It came out nicely. Next was a prosciutto with chopped kalamata olives and cheese pie. Both were very good. I think both would be improved with a little more pizza making experience.

Next was a sausage and cheese pizza which got devoured by the kids. The piece I had was tasty too. That was leftover sausage I made. It is always a nice ego boost when the kids go for something like that. My wife isn't the biggest fresh basil fan, so I left it off the last pizza.

Lessons learned: the dome needed more fuel and more time to heat. More wood making flames on the side might help cook the top of the pizza. And the fresh mozz needs to be a little drier. I also need to learn how to shape dough.

Definitely worth it. Not a bad pizza oven for under $50. I am looking forward to Round 2.

Prepping for pizza

I'm going to light up the Firdeome tomorrow. First order of business: make some dough. I've read a bunch of recipes online and in books. I'm trying a variation of one I found over at the Forno Bravo website. That's where I drool over brick ovens. Many there say to use an Italian type OO flour. I found a small bag of it at Cardona's. So here's what I did. I dispersed 10 grams of fine sea salt in 500 grams of the OO flour. I added 325 grams of water and a little over a gram of yeast. I mixed it all together with the help of a stand mixer for about 2 minutes. Then I let it sit for 20 minutes. After the 20 minute waite, the stand mixer kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes. I left it on the counter for about 90 minutes. Separated the dough into 4 balls and put them in the fridge for a slow, overnight rise.

The one gram of yeast seemed low, but that was recommend by a guy in California who built an amazing oven. The photos of the food he has prepared give him a very large benefit of the doubt.

If I knew anything about HTML, I'd rotate the next picture. Don't know why that happens. If you put your right ear on your right shoulder, you will see the neatly organized and pre-measured ingredients on a clutter filled counted in my trashed kitchen.

 
Here is a very wet dough. It didn't look very we to me, but then I tried to pick it up.  It's wet.

Ready for the fridge.

Tomorrow, there will be fire.... and a fire extinguisher nearby. I'll let you know how it goes.