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Woo hoo! I am soooo excited. I love the Netflix Chef's Table series and savour every programme. As if the BBQ series was not enough, they now have a September date for release of a six part series on pizza. Includes my new pizza hero Franco Pepe. Great start to my day here.

Wagyu Brisket here- my parents were in town so it was time to show off the KK…

Been working on it for awhile, but I’ve found a method that produces perfect Neapolitan pizza dough and it’s super easy. The result, perfect thin pizza with a light airy crust that is delicious. Stadlermade.com is a fantastic pizza site. They have an excellent pizza dough calculator that figures the exact ingredients needed for different style pizzas and the number of pizzas you want to make. They also have great YouTube videos. For this cook, I tried the Cold Fermentation process. The dough takes 5 minutes to make with fresh yeast. Popped the dough into the fridge for 3 days, made three dough balls and let them proof at room temp for four hours, then prepare then off to the KK. Enjoy 👍 K K. The results were fantastic. Easy and incredibly good 👍

"I don't need one." Famous last words, you'll soon wonder how you lived without it.

@Poochie, "need" has nothing to do with it... Nice bread!

Approximately 6 weeks after it’s arrival (we were away for almost a month just after delivery) I finally got a forklift guy to move the crate to my back porch (yard is gravel and slightly slanted. No other way to do it. Uncrated yesterday finishing just before a monsoon downpour started. We had hoped that the blue would match the pizza oven and it does! Better pictures later if the monsoon clouds go away but wanted to get this picture of the brothers from another mother posted. What everyone says is true, they are more beautiful in person and this thing is incredibly well built! Will get side tables on and get it fired up soon!

One thing that I've never read on this forum is "Save your money. You don't need that!" MacKenzie, you and Tekobo could talk a moose into buying a hat rack. David, my pretzel recipe called for "malt". I was sure I could find that at Whole Foods...wrong! I also thought I could find pretzel salt there. Nope! Lye wasn't in the recipe...what function does that serve?

Thanks again everyone for the tips and tricks. I made a homemade proofer/starter gizmo to take care of the sourdough starter. It's simply a seed starter mat with a controller on it. I set it to 80 degrees and my starter is happy and my dough rises like a champ. It's in one of the photos below. There's also a probe to keep the controller on point... just like for the KK. You'll also see where I won first prize for the ugliest pretzels ever created. However, my sourdough bread has come along fine in texture and flavor. I made a sourdough banana nut bread for my son and his family yesterday and it came out very good. No photos of it....but it did happen. It's a fun hobby but I'm thinking about a wood fired oven now. Even though I know I don't need it.

Thank You for your reply and …….. that is one beautiful oven you have👍👍. Stadlermade.com, their pizza calculator is an excellent tool and his YouTube videos are excellent too. The three day ferment is the easiest dough process I've tried and the results were great. I’ve tried many flours but the best so far is Caputo Tipo 00 Pizzeria flour. As far as temps, I found that 650 - 700 for the 23 Ultimate is a good sweet spot. I’ve tried hotter temps 700 to 800 but I find that the bottom crust burns a bit to fast. This can probably be mitigated by using a heat deflector below the pizza stone. It takes about an hour to get everything heated up and ready to go. 10 minutes before baking the pie, I push the pizza stone back, open the grate door, and toss in wood chunks. Once the white smoke turns to heavy blue, I begin prepping the pies and by the time they are in, you get nice wood baked flavor. Thanks for your reply!!

Looks darn tasty. I do pizza in my pizza oven at about 900° (See pic) however this looks great and you may have me convinced to try it when I am not in the mood to fire up the big oven! The dough is probably slightly different than what I use but you can’t argue with results! The 3 day ferment makes a huge difference in taste too, much deeper flavor. Congratulations! That is a complete success!

yes, i'm very looking forward to the franco pepe episode. but these chef's table series... i don't really want to see any more chefs picking ingredients from their manicured organic garden over dramatic music. just give me the god damn recipe..😇

The Japanese Grill book includes a recipe in which you slash chicken thighs, apply marinade and then cook relatively quickly. I applied that principle to the whole bird and came out with good, juicy chicken in less time than normal. And you get more surface area exposed to your marinade. Yum. I used two KKs to cook the five birds but I do have the BIg Bad rotisserie cradle and wonder if I could have got more chickens in and got as good results using that. I must remember to use the cradle more often! @tony b I went searching across the forum for references to octofork and finger. I was sure I would find 20 and that they would all have your name on them. The search function can't be working that well this morning. I only found two. Like Mac, my fingers are fine.

Just to complete the thread

pan de cristal recipe here: https://claudio-perrando.com/produkt/recipe-media-cp-pan-de-cristal-2020-edition-english-deutsch-espanol/ one of the most difficult handling breads, but totally worth it…

yeah not suitable for sloppy joes 🤓

Looks like lots of chickens gave their lives to the BBQ cause last weekend. Here are my five from Saturday.

Very nice @C6Bill! Last night was pizza night here. Hadn't done any in ages and got a wild hare (hair?) Upfront - storebought pizza dough and sauce (Trader Joe's). Did 3 personal sized ones - Margarita (homegrown basil), N'duja and mushrooms, and a no-sauce one with slices of fresh homegrown tomatoes, bacon and caramelized onions. Sampler plate with a very nice local beer!

Or use a Dutch Oven.

@Poochie unless you are baking with starter every single day, keeping the starter outside in room temp or with a proofer will basically require daily feedings. it's more trouble than keeping a plant alive..so this is not necessary when you bake once a week or less. once you place an active starter in the fridge, the yeast goes to sleep. take it out from fridge to room temp and feed and it will be active again. I took this starter out to room temp and fed it 1:1. it doubled in size in a warm kitchen in about 3-4 hours. for me, temp control for bread is more critical for preferments. sometimes i need to keep biga or poolish for 10-14 hours at 4c, 8-10c, 18-20c, 22-24c. i bread proofer is too hot for this, i find a wine fridge the best because it can perform cool, but not frigid temperatures on multiple tiers. this is an example of 4 preferments for pan de cristal. 22-24c or 18-20c for several hours, then placing in a 4c fridge prior to mixing. and lastly, when baking you want a steam assisted oven. if not, you will need a steam tray and pour hot water over lava rocks or use a dutch oven. if you don't want to mess with any of that, buy an anova precision oven because this thing will proof bread too... good luck and show us your results!

Sunday was a good day for yardbirds, here is mine along with roasted veggies fresh from the garden

I keep mine in the fridge. The morning before i'm going to bake i take it out and feed it. After feeding i leave it on the kitchen counter no matter what the temp is, 6 hours or so after feeding i will start making my dough and return the starter to the fridge. After i have done a couple stretch and folds the dough goes into the fridge to ferment overnight. In the morning another stretch and fold and into the banenton bowl to proof. I proof in my oven on the Proof setting, 95 degrees, for about 3 hours. Then it is ready to bake.

This. Indispensable if you're serious about sourdough.

I've used the proof setting on my oven; it uses the oven light to maintain a constant temperature. I say "constant" but I haven't actually checked it; I do know that it has a fairly large swing in convection roast mode. I've also used my dehydrator to proof yeast bread but it tends to dry the top of the lump even with a dish of water included.

If you have an Instant pot, use the yogurt "more"setting, or sous vide setting set to 100 degrees. Fill the pot partially with warm water and set your sourdough container in it. No need to put the lid on. Or oven with just the light on. Sourdough and yogurt like the same temps.

i would say 78 is my average with humidity. my outside environment is like south florida. if you want to expedite things, you can place the starter in the microwave or oven with a bowl of hot water.

@Poochie i just keep the starter on the counter room temperature to feed to peak. i put it back in the fridge when done and they go to sleep.

@Poochie, https://ca.brodandtaylor.com/products/folding-proofer-slow-cooker I've had mine since they first came out and it's done a great job on sour dough starter, putting bread in to rise, and I always use it to make my yogurt.

Bravo! The rest of this treatise is making my brain hurt! The one thing to note about both of these devices is that even when the fan is not running, there is still airflow through the unit into the KK. That's why @Syzygies discussion on the addition of the damper on the fan unit is important. Like I said, on a windy day, you can get enough vacuum drag across the top hat to draw too much air into the KK and you'll lose temperature control from the fan unit. I've had it happen to me before. I usually set the Guru fan damper at least 50% close, will go even lower if it's a windy day.

Here it is installed on my Billows ... ... And plugged into my KK