Common Mistakes in a True Neopolitan Pizza

[Pequod]

Me too 

[Pizzaiolo]

18 hours ago, tekobo said:

Sometimes I feel like a bear of very small brain.  I set myself up to start the Pizza Bible Neopolitan yesterday evening only to find that I first needed 18hrs to create the poolish.  So pizza night was pushed on from Friday night to Saturday night.  Tonight I met timetable to start the dough only to "discover" that the dough needs 36-48hrs in the fridge.  What was I reading/thinking when I said the total lead time would be 18hrs??? Oh well, Sunday night is now pizza night.

In the meantime it would be good to get some advice from @Pizzaiolo about cheese.  We heard reference to dry mozzarella cheese for pizza and settled on buying some scarmorza (some unsmoked and some smoked).  Is that OK for Neopolitan pizza or should we be using the wet buffalo mozzarella?

I always go with the “wet” cheeses. However, I don’t like it dripping milk as I’m dressing the pizza. A few hours before your bake, break up some of the balls of cheese and let them sit in a strainer/colander, it’ll dry it out nicely. Gives you the advantage of awesome flavour and texture, without the wetness. Having said that, true pizza napoletana should have a bit of a center flop when cut.

Can’t wait to see what you’re making!

[ckreef]

9 hours ago, Pizzaiolo said:

I always go with the “wet” cheeses. However, I don’t like it dripping milk as I’m dressing the pizza. A few hours before your bake, break up some of the balls of cheese and let them sit in a strainer/colander, it’ll dry it out nicely. Gives you the advantage of awesome flavour and texture, without the wetness. Having said that, true pizza napoletana should have a bit of a center flop when cut.

Can’t wait to see what you’re making!

All I can find locally is whole milk fresh mozzarella. Way more moist than shredded but not enough extra moisture to strain out. I like pulling it apart better than cutting slices. 

 

[Pizzaiolo]

48 minutes ago, ckreef said:

All I can find locally is whole milk fresh mozzarella. Way more moist than shredded but not enough extra moisture to strain out. I like pulling it apart better than cutting slices. 

 

Nothing wrong with that. Fior di latte is ideal, totally works. Buffalo mozzarella is a treat and I use it sparingly, 90% of the time I’m using whole milk fresh mozzarella.

[Syzygies]

So I tried Enzo Coccia's Pizza integrale dough (20% freshly ground Giusto's Organic Wheat Berries (Hard Red), 80% Giusto's Organic “00” Unbleached Flour). Nice recipe; next time we'll double the whole wheat.

Carefully following his kneading instructions, I obtained a dough that was better than I'd ever realized before at not forming thin spots or holes. (I'm sure others have long been here, but this was a welcome surprise for me.)

My attempts at imitating his slapping technique for forming the pizzas was laughable. Yet, somehow, it worked.

 

[ckreef]

13 minutes ago, Syzygies said:

 

My attempts at imitating his slapping technique for forming the pizzas was laughable. Yet, somehow, it worked.

 

Not exactly sure what you're talking about but lately I've been doing the pull, flip, slap.... Pull, flip, slap... Method. I'm getting better for sure. It just takes time until your hands get coordinated to work together and get the muscle memory to do it fast and smooth. 

 

 

[Syzygies]

The physics of baking good pizza

Yeah, that helps. 

[tekobo]

Well, here is the short and long story of Pizza Sunday.

The Short Story:  The Pizza Bible 18hr + 36 hr pizza dough was the favourite of all four tasters.

The Long Story:  I am finding Napoletana pizza making interesting but difficult.  Some new error categories will need to be created for the following.  As always, I am very grateful for critical feedback to help me improve.

Interesting start is the imported Italian tomatoes that The Husband bought for making the sauce.  They came out of this tin and are responsible for the orange, rather than red, sauce that you see in the photos. Tasty.

The Ken Forkish Enzo dough (10 hrs) is in the top row in this picture.  Massively risen and bursting to get out.  The Pizza Bible (18hrs poolish  + 36hrs dough) are in the pan below.

This is the Ken Forkish dough looking very sorry for itself prior to shaping.  I used fresh yeast in place of the instant yeast that he called for.  Multiplied quantify by 4 to come to a minuscule 0.4g of fresh yeast if I remember correctly.  

This is the Ken Forkish dough cooked.  Shaping sticky dough is not my strong suit.  The stone temp was approx 500F and dome temp varied, over the span of the 7 pizzas I cooked, between 550-650F.

Here is the Pizza Bible dough being released from the cling film.  More flouring required?  Or ditch the cling film?

Here is the Pizza Bible dough, cooked.  I added the mozzarella two minutes from the end of the cook and we added basil leaves at the table.

Here are the Nancy Silverton dough balls.  They were the most complicated to make and included ingredients such as wheatgerm and honey.  They were covered with a tea towel and had a skin on them which collapsed when I came to work it.  Can't remember if she said to wet the tea towel.  I probably should have. 

The Nancy dough was easiest to shape.  Interestingly, the first thing one of the tasters said was that it tasted more "bread like" than the others.  Given Nancy says she developed the dough using bread making principles that is probably not surprising.  At 4.5hrs from start to finish it came a close second to The Pizza Bible dough.  

[MacKenzie]

That was a great read, sounds like the Pizza Bible was the winner but if one decides to have pizza tonight then Nancy's dough would be a great way to manage that. All those pizza pixs have me wanting pizza, I guess I'll have to start a batch of dough. Usually I like to load my pies with ingredients but if I could do 2 pies then I could do one loaded and one Neopolitan.  

[Bruce Pearson]

Wow Tekobo that’s a lot of dough!  Did you put anything on the pizza stone? I’ve never done pizza before but soon as my daughter gets back from Hawaii we are going to do a pizza night. I’ll probaby just use storebought dough though. I have no  experience making pizza dough.

[Pequod]

@tekobo - now for the questioning (or the “grilling” as it were):

1. I’m familiar with Forkish and that he would have you using unmalted 00 flour at 550F with no other browning agents (sugar, Oil! etc). In short, he’s using a Neapolitan dough in a home oven. In my Forkish experiments, it works only because of direct top heat via a broiler, but results in a crisp crust, not a soft Neapolitan. Did you use 00 flour or something else?
2. The Pizza Bible recommends high gluten flours such as All Trumps, and also adds in diastatic malt powder. In short, the Pizza Bible recipe is for a NY style pizza with browning agents and is amenable to a lower temp (550F-650F). Did you use such a flour and DMP, or the same as the Forkish dough?

In my experience, The Pizza Bible recipes work well on a KK. Forkish is batty (on pizza...great on bread). YMMV.

[ckreef]

Rather than comment on the doughs themselves I'll comment on a few of the finer points. 

For the sauce - my guess is you used a blender of some sorts (maybe an immersion blender) to help chop up the tomatoes. If you're not careful blenders inject a lot of air into the sauce making it more orange than red. With San Marzano tomatoes I hand crush them and try to remove the inner "stem" part and any extra seeds if possible. I then chop them with a knife. After chopped I'll very gently use an immersion blender on low but it's really easy to do it too much. I'll strain them for a few minutes to remove excess water and finally add a little salt and sugar. 

 

The first really sticky dough - check out this this tutorial. It features a high hydration (sticky) dough. Even if you use a different recipe the techniques for shaping the balls and stretching into a round pie should held you. 

 

Sticking to cling wrap - a simple trick is to lightly spray the tops of your balls with a cooking spray. That tiny amount of oil won't hurt anything and the cling wrap won't stick. 

 

The top skin - as you've figured out the top skin is from the ball starting to dry out. The easiest way to combat this is with the cooking spray/cling wrap as mentioned above. 

Having said all the above still good looking pies and I'm sure they were tasty. 

 

[tekobo]

3 hours ago, Bruce Pearson said:

Did you put anything on the pizza stone?

Nope.  Just floured the pizza peel to make a skid pad and they all launched well.  Bar one.  That one made a big mess.

[tekobo]

3 hours ago, Pequod said:

@tekobo - now for the questioning (or the “grilling” as it were):

1. I’m familiar with Forkish and that he would have you using unmalted 00 flour at 550F with no other browning agents (sugar, Oil! etc). In short, he’s using a Neapolitan dough in a home oven. In my Forkish experiments, it works only because of direct top heat via a broiler, but results in a crisp crust, not a soft Neapolitan. Did you use 00 flour or something else?
2. The Pizza Bible recommends high gluten flours such as All Trumps, and also adds in diastatic malt powder. In short, the Pizza Bible recipe is for a NY style pizza with browning agents and is amenable to a lower temp (550F-650F). Did you use such a flour and DMP, or the same as the Forkish dough?

In my experience, The Pizza Bible recipes work well on a KK. Forkish is batty (on pizza...great on bread). YMMV.

@Pequod - now for the evidence for the defence (or the "plea bargain" as it were):

1.  The defendant was unaware that there is more than one type of 00 flour.  She just bought loads of one kind and used it indiscriminately/appropriately depending on your view.

2.  The defendant used 00 flour for the Forkish and Pizza Bible and bread flour for the Nancy.  The exhibit for the former is to be found here:  https://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct/italian-white-flour-type-00-118.htm

3.  The defendant omitted the diastatic malt from The Pizza Bible recipe because it was said to be for a home oven and the defendant was under the impression that a KK is not a "home oven".  

4.  The Pizza Bible and Forkish both use the same basic ingredients - flour, water, salt, yeast.  The big difference is the 18hr poolish that you have to create for the former.

Guilty or not guilty?  The defendant pleads: maybe.

[tekobo]

@ckreef, thank you for those top tips.  Spraying the pizza balls with oil and your sloppy* dough shaping tutorial will be very helpful for my next attempt.  We will also try your tomato sauce making technique.  The Husband has made the sauce the same way, using a blender, for quite a few pizzas and he commented that these tomatoes were more orange than normal.  I can vouch for his character but not for his eyesight so I will check myself when we next open a can.  

*Note that "sloppy" has been selected as a descriptive term for the dough so please do not take it as slur on your character.  

[Pequod]

15 minutes ago, tekobo said:

@Pequod - now for the evidence for the defence (or the "plea bargain" as it were):

1.  The defendant was unaware that there is more than one type of 00 flour.  She just bought loads of one kind and used it indiscriminately/appropriately depending on your view.

2.  The defendant used 00 flour for the Forkish and Pizza Bible and bread flour for the Nancy.  The exhibit for the former is to be found here:  https://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct/italian-white-flour-type-00-118.htm

3.  The defendant omitted the diastatic malt from The Pizza Bible recipe because it was said to be for a home oven and the defendant was under the impression that a KK is not a "home oven".  

4.  The Pizza Bible and Forkish both use the same basic ingredients - flour, water, salt, yeast.  The big difference is the 18hr poolish that you have to create for the former.

Guilty or not guilty?  The defendant pleads: maybe.

The jury is out. We'll get back to you. 

[ckreef]

15 minutes ago, tekobo said:

@ckreef, thank you for those top tips.  Spraying the pizza balls with oil and your sloppy* dough shaping tutorial will be very helpful for my next attempt.  We will also try your tomato sauce making technique.  The Husband has made the sauce the same way, using a blender, for quite a few pizzas and he commented that these tomatoes were more orange than normal.  I can vouch for his character but not for his eyesight so I will check myself when we next open a can.  

*Note that "sloppy" has been selected as a descriptive term for the dough so please do not take it as slur on your character.  

 

But I make sloppy look so easy

 

[Pequod]

3 hours ago, tekobo said:

@Pequod - now for the evidence for the defence (or the "plea bargain" as it were):

1.  The defendant was unaware that there is more than one type of 00 flour.  She just bought loads of one kind and used it indiscriminately/appropriately depending on your view.

2.  The defendant used 00 flour for the Forkish and Pizza Bible and bread flour for the Nancy.  The exhibit for the former is to be found here:  https://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct/italian-white-flour-type-00-118.htm

3.  The defendant omitted the diastatic malt from The Pizza Bible recipe because it was said to be for a home oven and the defendant was under the impression that a KK is not a "home oven".  

4.  The Pizza Bible and Forkish both use the same basic ingredients - flour, water, salt, yeast.  The big difference is the 18hr poolish that you have to create for the former.

Guilty or not guilty?  The defendant pleads: maybe.

The jury rules not guilty by reason of insanity! 

Just some tips based on my experience with the Forkish and Pizza Bible books, plus loads of lurking at pizzamaking.com.

I don't know about flours in the UK, but most flours in the US contain malt, which is a browning agent. In spite of this, some recipes add diastatic malt powder (DMP). From the glossary at pizzamaking.com:

Quote

Diastatic Malt: A barley malt commonly used in flours to increase the extraction of sugars from the flours for use as food for the yeast during fermentation and to increase the residual sugars in the dough at the time of baking to promote increased crust browning.

Many of the better NY Style doughs posted at pizzamaking.com add a small amount of DMP in spite of the fact that they also use high gluten flours that already contain some malt. NY pizzas cook at mid-range temps, meaning from around 500-700F because they contain malt or other browning agents, and would turn to carbon if baked at a higher temp.

00 flour, on the other hand, is processed to such a degree that it contains no malt. Hence, pizzas made with 00 flour need either very high temps, high heat transfer mechanisms (e.g., the broiler method in Forkish and Pizza Bible), or added browning agents. Neapolitan pizzas use 00 flour and bake at very high temps. 

The difference between Forkish and Pizza Bible:

Forkish is focused on Neapolitan style doughs using 00 flour, but then baking at low, home oven temps using the broiler method for browning. If you don't have a broiler you won't get browning. Even if you do, you don't really get Neapolitan pizza, even though it sort of looks like it.

The basic Pizza Bible dough is a NY style dough that calls for high gluten, malted flours -- bread flour. The particular flours that are recommended really do make a difference. These flours already contain malt, and most at pizzamaking.com feel that the added DMP in the Pizza Bible recipe is excessive.

My recommendation: try making the Pizza Bible recipe with bread flour. Added DMP is optional. I suspect you’ll like that pizza best of all.

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Pequod

[Syzygies]

On 6/27/2018 at 9:23 AM, Syzygies said:

This is the book he waives at the end. I couldn't find stock in Italian, but a few copies in English are still available from Italy. I paid € 38,90 ($46.30) delivered to California.

Ok, the book came. Beautiful production values; the paper is so sturdy that I was sure I was skipping pages.

Until page 100, dry and technical to a degree one wouldn't expect in a parody. How to fulfill the EU standards for making Neopolitan pizza. Some interesting details on proportions, mixing, rising.

Pages 100 to 153 is an entirely different book. Each pair of pages is a stunning photograph, and a detailed description of a way pizza can go off the rails, and what to do about it. Worth the price of admission.

[tekobo]

Helpful explanation about the role of the diastatic malt, @Pequod.  The Pizza Bible Neopolitan recipe does call for 00 flour + the malt so I will try that combo next.  The browning effect is interesting but potentially more impactful will be the effect on how the yeast behaves.  The Pizza Bible balls rose the least out of the three recipes tried.  Not a bad thing necessarily but it will be good to see what they do when I actually follow that part of the recipe.  

My experience with dough to date has been with bread and, looking at @ckreef's dough tutorial and the YouTube videos I have watched, I see that pizza dough needs a different type of handling.  Less heavy handed and more purposeful.  Learning that difference will help.

I was afraid that the Neopolitan Pizza book by Paolo Masi would be as @Syzygies described the first 100 pages i.e. dry and technical.  I am sooo tempted by the pretty pictures and explanations in the latter part of the book.  There was a lot of uninformed theory flying about last weekend when I was trying to get critical feedback from The Husband and our friends.  It would be good to have the definitive text.  At £40 that is only the cost of 3-4 pizzas from our local pizzeria.  It is in my Amazon basket.  I will meditate on it overnight and will likely then push the "buy" button.