So I'm leaving my job at VTech to become the pizzamaker at Portobello. We still have a bunch of kinks to work out pizza-wise, but I promise you, we will be serving some of the best pizza in Portland in the near future.
I'll try and keep this here updated with pizza developments as they occur. Last night was the first time I used the oven—a two-deck Bakers Pride, natural gas-fired deal. The temperature hits 650 on the dial, so it's kind of a step up from my home oven.
We've got the opposite problem though. Heat is from the bottom in the Bakers Pride (as opposed to from the top element on the broil setting at home), which is good in that it's more efficient as warm air rises and all. However in the current set up, the pizzas are cooking too fast on the bottom, and are barely cooked at the top of the cornicione when the bottom is practically a block of char.
As possible solutions we're looking at shrinking the height of the decks to make the floor and ceiling temperatures more even or adding a reflective material to the top of the decks to bounce the heat back down (and keep it from escaping as quickly via heat transfer). If anyone else has any ideas, I'm all ears.
So we're experimenting with some dough mixtures. Last night was 100% white whole wheat, and a 75% unbleached white-25% white whole wheat blend. Tonight is a 50/50 whole wheat-unbleached white mix and a 100% unbleached white. All Bob's Red Mill. I forgot to drop the dough balls in the fridge this morning. Hopefully they haven't over risen.
Photos are TK. I totally spaced on bringing my camera yesterday. I'll try and make up for it this evening.
1 comment:
Major Congratulations, Will! I only hope I can can get up there sometime before I die.
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