SeeingEyeBlog

The Encyclopizza has a lot of information on everything having to do with pizza. Anyone who takes pizza seriously should take a look.

I’m mining the Encyclopizza for insights on how to achieve a soft crust in my dough formulation.

I knew I was on to something when I built my brick pizza oven. Turns out pizza helps prevent cancer.

The day came and went, but not before I baked 25 pizzas in one sitting. About 60-80 people showed up to my parents party, and everyone was well-fed.

I kept the oven around 500°F most of the cooking time, by keeping a log burning in the back at all times. This kept the heat gain/loss at an equilibrium. But with the heat from the oven combined with the hot afternoon sun, I got really exhausted and after two hours of cooking I went to lay down and slept for three hours. It took a lot out of me…

After letting the oven cool all night, the new graph shows that after almost 17 hours, the oven is still at 160° F. The coals were left inside the oven, as opposed to being raked out prior to baking. I suspect the curve would be a little steeper if we had raked out the coals. Maybe another trial down the line…

We’re gearing up for a Memorial Day party this Sunday, and today I spent the day firing the brick oven and taking temperature readings every 10 minutes for 10 hours. I’m still in the midst of the observations, so I have to keep checking every ten minutes. What better way to pass the time than blogging about it.

As you can tell from the unfinished graph below, the oven keeps its temperature within the 300°F – 400°F range for about an hour and a half. This is an excellent curve, and the oven demonstrates much better performance than it had before we insulated and finished the exterior. Standby for pictures from the Memorial Day pizza party (25 pizzas planned).