Ooni Pizza Oven

[Bigheaded]

Thank you for your insight. I will keep your points in mind when I make my next pie. A couple things in particular struck me.

I like the suggestion of heating the turning peel before using it. I'll definitely try it next time. Last time, I ended up having to wait for the crust on the front of the pie to harden a bit before I could turn it. The back of the pie burned a bit while I waited.

I use "all purpose" flour that I get from the local Kroger. That will give you some idea how sophisticated I am about flour <smiles>.

I am following recipes from the pizzamaking site, which generally assume the pie is cooked in an oven inside, so they offer little insight into how to adapt recipes to the Ooni. I'll start paying a little more attention to the flour I'm using in the Ooni.

I hit over 900 degrees on the stone last time. The result was not bad in terms of crispness of the crust, but 700 might be easier to manage from a turning perspective. That said, managing temperature is a bit tricky with the Fyra.

My favorite pizza style is Chicago thin. That requires that sausage is applied to the pie raw and cooked while the pizza is cooking. That presents a special challenge with the Ooni. I find that, upon launching the pie, I need to close the damper by at least 50 percent very quickly to avoid burning the top of the pie and ending up with sausage that's not done. Closing the damper reduces the temperature on the top of the pie, allowing the sausage to cook longer before the rest of the toppings are "done".

Unless it's the organic house Krogers brand, that flour isn't gonna work for Neopolitian bakes. It won't matter how fast or how often you turn it, it'll burn before it's cooked properly. At best if you manage to get it out before it burns, it'll still be semi raw in the middle.

Sorry, I forget these are forums mostly for people into smokers. To be more specific on flour, look at the ingredients. It should only list flour, if it says malted flour, or it says anything about being enriched it's not gonna work unless you bake at a lot lower temp. Enriched flours will have Nician, Iron, Riboflavin & folic acid in them. The brand doesn't matter, the more expensive King Arthur or Bob Red Mill won't work any better than the generic if it's not unmalted & non enriched.

At least in So Cal Ralphs (Krogers) has Simple Truth Organic Unbleached AP flour. While I haven't made a 900f pizza in years (I do NY's now) for a few years it's mostly all I made, and unless something has changed that and King Arthurs 00 were the only 2 suitable flours I could find. And the KA stuff's like $8 for a 3lb bag. But it's the easiest for me to find.

With lower temp bakes you'll also get a much more crispy crust. I don't know anything about Chicago thin crust, but higher temps lead to softer crusts. I do 6 minute NY bakes, the dough's pretty thin and it comes out crispy but still has a nice chew in the middle. Just a guess but in Chicago they probably use gas deck ovens for thin pizzas, so the temp would be around 600f'ish.

As for the Sausage, you could cook it halfway in a pan and then finish it on the pizza if you're struggling. I'm on pizzamaking.com forums and a decent number of the regulars there don't put raw Sausage on their pizzas. Cooking it halfway you'll still get some sausage grease that'll make the cheese taste even better :D

 

[PulledPorkSandwich]

Unless it's the organic house Krogers brand, that flour isn't gonna work for Neopolitian bakes. It won't matter how fast or how often you turn it, it'll burn before it's cooked properly. At best if you manage to get it out before it burns, it'll still be semi raw in the middle.

Sorry, I forget these are forums mostly for people into smokers. To be more specific on flour, look at the ingredients. It should only list flour, if it says malted flour, or it says anything about being enriched it's not gonna work unless you bake at a lot lower temp. Enriched flours will have Nician, Iron, Riboflavin & folic acid in them. The brand doesn't matter, the more expensive King Arthur or Bob Red Mill won't work any better than the generic if it's not unmalted & non enriched.

At least in So Cal Ralphs (Krogers) has Simple Truth Organic Unbleached AP flour. While I haven't made a 900f pizza in years (I do NY's now) for a few years it's mostly all I made, and unless something has changed that and King Arthurs 00 were the only 2 suitable flours I could find. And the KA stuff's like $8 for a 3lb bag. But it's the easiest for me to find.

With lower temp bakes you'll also get a much more crispy crust. I don't know anything about Chicago thin crust, but higher temps lead to softer crusts. I do 6 minute NY bakes, the dough's pretty thin and it comes out crispy but still has a nice chew in the middle. Just a guess but in Chicago they probably use gas deck ovens for thin pizzas, so the temp would be around 600f'ish.

As for the Sausage, you could cook it halfway in a pan and then finish it on the pizza if you're struggling. I'm on pizzamaking.com forums and a decent number of the regulars there don't put raw Sausage on their pizzas. Cooking it halfway you'll still get some sausage grease that'll make the cheese taste even better :D

Again, thanks for your insight. I think the key for me is I need to dial down the temp on the Ooni. When I cook this style pie in my home oven, I crank the oven to about 500 and it takes 15 minutes or so for both the top and bottom to be done. I use two racks and stones, as specified in the recipe -- one close to the upper element and the other close to the lower one.

I did try a much lower temperature on the Ooni once and wasn't satisfied with the results. The toppings got done before the crust because the top of the oven was much hotter than the stone. I need to find a setting that balances the top and bottom temperatures better. Managing the temperature on the Fyra is a bit fiddly, but it's fun to keep trying. It's so hot here in North Texas right now I dare not turn on the oven in the house. I'm content to suffer through some more failures rather than heat up the house!

By the way, the recipe I use is from one of the regulars and it calls for AP flour. If dialing down the temp on the Ooni plus using semolina or corn doesn't improve things for me, I'll change the flour. Certainly, when I get around to making a Neopolitan pie (I'm looking forward to doing it sometime), I'll use the kind of flour you specify.

Whether to use raw sausage on a Chicago thin style pie or cook (or partially cook) it beforehand becomes somewhat of a religious debate. I've done it both ways, and the flavor profiles are very different. I've never had undercooked sausage, it's just that I might have under or overcooked crust when the sausage is done.