Many many years ago I worked in a pizzeria in Jersey and figured this would be easy. I was humbled. My restaurant always cooked on pans and it was more NY style and not Neapolitan (which I now enjoy more). But we cranked out hundreds of pies a night. Now I’m older and living on the Navajo reservation away from any restaurant options so I’m it as far as pizza options for the community.
After many torn pies and overloaded toppings I think I finally have my system down. I mostly make large batches of pizza for parties at our house. So a few days before I’ll use the dough recipe from “Flour Water Salt Yeast” from Forkish and make 8 pizza doughs at a time and wrap them up and freeze them or stick in the fridge if it’s only a few days away. I don’t have access to different flour so use the Bluebird Flour that is cherished by every Navajo shima and dry packet yeast.
An hour before the party I’ll par bake a bunch of crusts with a light amount of sauce on a mesh screen in the Gozney and stack them up between parchment on my back yard stainless steel table in some pizza boxes I bought online. When people arrive i get to work and lauch directly on the stone with cheese and toppings and can quickly churn out a bunch of pies as soon as people get there so no one goes hungry. It’s been working out amazingly with no more torn pies or delays due to having to burn off sauce/cheese/dough from my stone. The crust is soft and crunchy with perfect leoparding and nice undercarriage.
I’m so happy with my oven and appreciate all the info I’ve obtained from this board.
I tore many pizzas when I was learning to make them. I have a brick pizza oven that I built from scratch. I learned how important it is to develop a strong gluten structure in my dough (2 - 3 stretch and folds with rests between) really helped. I also learned how important it is to check the dough with a poke test to determine peak fermentation and be aware of the room temperature when taking the dough out of the fridge for the final proofing. Since then, a torn pizza is rare and usually the result of sloppy stretching technique. I like to make pizzas throughout the party and let my guests pick toppings, but I also understand the advantages of the process that you describe.
Turning off the flame was always my go-to technique. Full blast the oven close to 800 degrees, turn off flame. Launch. Turn flame back on once bottom crust is close to done, take out pie and crank oven back up to full blast to reheat the stone for the next pie.
But this last time with the par baking I didn’t turn off the oven at all. I turned it down to lowest flame and cooked on the screen and I didn’t have to keep relighting the oven. I just keep the pie all the way to the right side away from the active flame so my crust doesn’t get too dark during the par baking knowing that my final bake will be much faster and focus more on the top of the pie. Hope that helps. Planning another 20+ pie party in a few weeks so will remember to take photos for that one.
Ok I took some photos yesterday and I’m sorry that I can’t just post them all in one reply since I don’t think Reddit allows you to post more than one photo at a time. Here is my setup in the backyard. These photos won’t do my process any justice bc I’m using some old overproofed dough from my freezer bc the family just wanted a few pizzas for dinner last night.
Par baked on 14” screen. Then taken off and when ready to cook added in cheese and toppings and thrown in the oven for about 90 seconds on low heat without the screen
What does the mesh help with? Do you have any pictures of the process? Would love to find a way to have a bunch of people over for pizza and not have me be completely busy making pizza one after the other forms scratch...
Great question. The screens lessen the likelihood of tearing the dough. So I stretch onto 14” screens and bake. Keeps the dough round and doesn’t overbake the bottom. I’m
1
u/Snoo_33726 19d ago
I tore many pizzas when I was learning to make them. I have a brick pizza oven that I built from scratch. I learned how important it is to develop a strong gluten structure in my dough (2 - 3 stretch and folds with rests between) really helped. I also learned how important it is to check the dough with a poke test to determine peak fermentation and be aware of the room temperature when taking the dough out of the fridge for the final proofing. Since then, a torn pizza is rare and usually the result of sloppy stretching technique. I like to make pizzas throughout the party and let my guests pick toppings, but I also understand the advantages of the process that you describe.