How can I cook a 3 minute pizza?

[Ramiro]

Hi everyone. I'm building a brick oven and I've talked to people who have pizza business that in Italy people cook pizza for just 3 minutes at 400ºC. They usually tell me that cooking a pizza at this temperature would burn it! Have someone cooked a pizza using this high temperature? How can I cook it without burning the pizza? Tips? comments? Thanks!

[james]

Welcome aboard Ramiro,

It works. Really! I had one last night.

It is true that a 400ºC oven will bake your pizza in about 90 seconds, or even a little less. Which will come out very nicely. A cooler oven will take up to 3 minutes to bake a pizza, but you don't want to go longer than that. The pizza will get tough and dry out.

Lot's to look forward to.

Do your friends use a wood-fired oven, or a deck oven? Deck ovens operate at around 550ºF, and bake a pizza in 5-7 minutes. It is a completely different way of baking a pizza.

Enjoy,
James

[nissanneill]

Yes Remiro, welcome aboard (as the captain says)
check out my posting from the other night:
http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f25/...-veg-2158.html (Neill's pizzas, breads and roast lamb with veg)
where the pizza shown was cooked in probably less than 90 seconds. I didn't have any form of temperature measurement but the 'Mississippi method' (putting your hand in the oven and counting 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, etc) was unbearable after the first second count.
I believe that 2 brothers from Sydney Australia made a killing in the United States when they set up pizza takeaways that cooked in 90 seconds rather than the traditional 8-10 minutes. Now multi millionaires.
As James says and I can vouch for his comments, IT WORKS!

Neill

[Ramiro]

Thank you Neil and James. I'm new with all this. It's really interesting to know that there are so many people interested in making brick ovens around the world.

Cheers!

[CanuckJim]

Ramiro,

Another view from another area. Typically, I bake baguette when my bread oven is at its hottest. That means between 600 and 650 F with good steam. Conventional wisdom with gas or electric home or even commercial ovens says you can't do this. Well, you can, and the bread definitely does not burn. At temps like that, my 600 gram baguette bake perfectly in 12 minutes flat and start to spring within a minute.

I've read, but not seen, that in France baguette are the first bake of the day in wood-fired bakeries. There, it seems they use temps upwards of 700 F. Never tried it, but it seems possible if you're on your toes.

Jim

[Ramiro]

Thanks Jim for your Reply. About 4 weeks ago I took some pizza lessons and the instructor was like this when I asked her if I could cook the pizza at higher temperatures. For me, it was too long the time she was taking to cook a pizza, she took half an hour at 450ºF to cook it. Of course, commercial gas ovens usually can't reach 700ºF and I know that a pizza takes about 10 minutes to cook but she really took so much time to cook and it was just so boring to wait so much time. I guess experience and practice will give me the knowledge to make a good bread or pizza at 700ºF. My oven is still under construction and I'm making the brick oven for commercial use. I'm opening a pizzeria and I've never cooked in a brick oven so it will be a really new experience. I think brick ovens are not like commercial ovens because each brick oven has its own "personality", I guess I really need to know and understand my oven so that I can get the best of it.
Sorry if there are some mistakes in my writing, I'm not a native english speaker.

Thank you all!

[CanuckJim]

Ramiro,

First off, your English is just fine; don't sweat it. You'll find that you become quite comfortable with the 90 second pizza on a hearth floor of about 800 F. Think of it this way: in a commercial setting, you'll be making more and better pizzas faster. More pizzas, more volume, more volume, more income. More income, happy proprietor.

Jim

[Bacterium]

Hi Ramiro and welcome

2-3minute pizza is just awesome (and surprisingly easy once you've done a few). Its great fun to watch the edge crust rise and then brown off to perfection. Pull it straight out, slice it up (grab a slice yourself first and "test" it ), hand tray around to your quests and then watch it being promptly being devoured ( the pizza not the tray )

as the song says........
"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
That's amore...........etc."

[Ramiro]

Hi Bacterium, thanks !

I'll try it as soon as my oven is dry!

Cheers!