{"id":2651,"date":"2016-03-29T01:23:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T05:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2016-04-02T11:10:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T15:10:39","slug":"margherita-pizza-two-ovens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/","title":{"rendered":"Margherita Pizza Showdown: Wood Fire vs. Home Oven"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Brad English and I make pizzas.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"_MG_3806\"<\/a>

A beautiful margherita in the making…<\/p><\/div>\n

I have been told by my youngest that I am \u201cruining pizza\u201d for my family. Now, to be fair to myself, she\u2019s a fickle eater! She loves my pizza when I make it her way, which is with pepperoni or salami and \u201cregular\u201d mozzarella, just like she can get at any of our local pizzerias. I say to her, you have no idea what you are complaining about! These are some of the best pizzas in LA coming out of our wood fired oven! Well, maybe the best in the South Bay? Or, Redondo Beach?!! Well, they are some darn good wood fired pizzas anyway.<\/p>\n

In my quest to make pizzas and “ruin” my daughter\u2019s love of pizza altogether I continually do some experimenting.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"_MG_3766\"<\/a>

Caputo 00 – Vera Pizza Napoletana baby!<\/p><\/div>\n

I made some authentic Vera Pizza Napoletana<\/em> dough with some Caputo 00 flour. It was a beautiful day. As I prepared the dough and was stretching and folding it, I was amazed at how smooth it became. As the dough balls sat on the counter near the window to proof, I again marveled at how pretty they were – so pure and simple. I laid a damp towel over them and laughed at the image in my head as I pictured myself tucking the dough balls into bed and covering them with their comforter!<\/p>\n

My wheels started spinning and an idea popped into my head.<\/p>\n

Pizza Margherita: I want to taste this dough on a simple, balanced \u2014 \u201cperfect\u201d pizza. My idea didn\u2019t stop there this time. I almost always make one Margherita when I make pizzas, but I also began to think about what the difference would be if I made a couple of Margherita Pizzas, using this same dough, with the same ingredients, at the same time \u2014 but in two different ovens. My Forno Bravo wood fired Primavera 60 is almost as easy to pre-heat as my home oven with my baking steel and other pizza stones inside. In about the same time, the Primavera can get to a roaring 900 degrees while my home oven tops out at 550 degrees.<\/p>\n

\"_MG_3817\"<\/a>

Into the fire! With a few turns this will be coming out of the oven in about 90 Seconds…<\/p><\/div>\n

The Primavera will take my raw pizza and be ready to return it, transformed into a bubbling hot pizza, in about 90 seconds. The home oven, turned to convection, drops the temperature to 525 degrees, but keeps the heat circulating in the oven and is done with it\u2019s pizzas at around the 6 minute mark when using my Baking Steel, or at about 8 minutes when using my Forno Bravo thick pizza stone.<\/p>\n

What better pizza to do this experiment than with than the Margherita. It\u2019s a perfect example of balance in a pizza. Each of the ingredients\/elements of this pizza holds it\u2019s own and shares the stage with one another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"_MG_3825\"<\/a>

You gotta keep turning the pizza to make sure to balance the char and not let it get out of control. Cooking in the wood fired oven is definitely an interactive and fun experience.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The simple beautiful crust isn\u2019t overpowered by aggressive ingredients. The tomatoes should be warm and sweet with a little tartness. The mozzarella should balance the tomatoes with a creamy goodness and the herbal notes from the basil is a beautiful accent that you smell and feel slide from the roof of your mouth down as you enjoy each bite.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see what happens. My ovens are pretty close together. My WFO is right out the back door off the kitchen and my prep area is almost smack in-between the two. I\u2019m always really happy when I make pizzas in my kitchen oven, but how will it stack up against \u201cthe real deal\u201d???<\/p>\n

The Pizza Margherita:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"_MG_3854\"<\/a>

A nice fresh ball of Buffalo Mozzarella…<\/p><\/div>\n

– Vera Pizza Napoletana Dough Recipe *Link<\/a>
\n– Quality canned tomatoes like Bianco DiNapoli or San Marzano variety from Italy
\n– Fresh Mozzarella *I found a nice Buffalo Mozzarella for this one (mozzarella di bufala<\/em>)
\n– Fresh Basil Leaves
\n– Extra Virgin Olive Oil<\/p>\n

To do:<\/strong><\/p>\n

For these pizzas, I made the sauce as raw as possible – just the canned tomatoes. I hand crushed the tomatoes and added a “bit-of-a-pinch” of sea salt. \u00a0Spread the sauce on the dough. \u00a0Add mozzarella and a few basil leaves and drizzle with a good olive oil.<\/p>\n

They are ready for their journey\u00a0to be transformed in the fire and heat into finished pizzas.
\nSo, what happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wood Fired Margherita:<\/p>\n

\"_MG_3833\"<\/a>

About a minute and a half and there is a good balance of char and just plain old melting cheese and tomatoes. The basil leaves are charred, but still have some green left in them.<\/p><\/div>\n

I would think that a wood fired pizza should always win this head to head comparison, but I\u2019ve had some amazing pizzas from pizzerias without them. Pizzeria Delfina<\/em> in San Francisco was a great example of this for me. \u00a0I am always\u00a0blown away by what they are doing there and they use conventional pizza ovens. \u00a0With the wood fired oven, I\u2019m looking for a fast bake that gives my pizza some good charred areas of the crust and maybe some of the ingredients. \u00a0It bakes fast, in about 90 seconds, so you have to keep moving the pizza within the oven to make sure to get a somewhat even bake all around the pizza. The speed of the bake is what gives you the nice contrast between a caramelized and charred crust with a moist interior. The pizza is baked and melted together with all sorts of textural elements that make it taste and even feel good to eat.<\/p>\n

This baby came out nice! What you see is exactly what I got. This is no operation where I\u2019m doing test pizzas and getting them right for the photographer (me). I\u2019m making the pizza, taking the photos and eating it up! This was as good of a Margarita as I have ever pulled from my oven. Fun stuff!<\/p>\n

\"_MG_3839\"<\/a>It has just enough char — that is one of the benefits of baking in a wood fired oven, which gives an added flavor to the big picture that is harder to achieve in a lower temperature oven. This pizza was nice and balanced. It had a nice crispy charred crust that was warm and soft on the inside and the sauce and mozzarella was melted and blended beautifully. Even the basil has some char to it, but sank into the sauce blending it\u2019s aromas throughout the pizza.<\/p>\n

Very happy!<\/p>\n

To the kitchen\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Kitchen oven Margherita:<\/p>\n

\"_MG_3852\"<\/a>

This is kind of exciting. The same dough. The same sauce. The same mozzarella and the same basil plant!<\/p><\/div>\n

What about the kitchen oven Pizza Margherita? This one has a tough task ahead of it. Everything about it is the same except for the heat source and time. Adding time to the bake changes things for sure. Baking a pizza is a balance between time, temperature and the ingredients. A longer baking time in the wood fired oven at pizza temps would result in delivering a charcoal disc rather than a beautiful pizza. A longer time at lower temperature is going to affect how all of the ingredients bake and perform in my kitchen oven. The dough\/crust is probably the big difference that I am expecting. I have my home oven set up churning out pizzas at about the 6 minute mark off of my Baking Steel. This seems to be a sweet spot for me, allowing the pizza to rise to life, caramelize, and begin to even char a little.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What else is different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"_MG_3859\"<\/a>

Here it comes from the oven – after about 6 minutes of baking. Looking pretty good!<\/p><\/div>\n

The dough came out with a crust that was a little tougher – maybe a little thicker outer layer. The inside of the dough is still moist and airy and puffy. It\u2019s well caramelized and even began to char in a few places.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll also see that the cheese has begun to caramelize more than the wood fired version. This gives it a hint of difference in the flavor – almost giving it a skin (which isn\u2019t necessarily a negative). It\u2019s just different. I could have domed my wood fired version and the same thing might have happened in that pizza.<\/p>\n

The pizza is equally beautiful and though different – a truly a nice example of a Margherita.<\/p>\n

\"_MG_3864\"<\/a>

This pizza is balanced too. It isn’t as charred, but it is charred. The ingredients are melted and the crust is puffed up and bubbled. Looks delicious!<\/p><\/div>\n

What is the difference?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The balance of time is a little different here. The balance of flavors is similar but a little different. The balance of textures is a little different.<\/p>\n

The winner?<\/p>\n

I am a lunatic who loves the process as much as the end result. I am always going to prefer something over a fire. How can pushing a few buttons \u201cBake\u201d – \u201c5\u201d – \u201c5\u201d – \u201c0\u201d compare to stacking wood, starting a fire, adding wood, moving the coals around, timing the bake and standing working the wood fired oven? It can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"_MG_3869\"<\/a>

This baby was no slouch! My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the pair!<\/p><\/div>\n

For me the edge has to go to the fire. But, in the end, it\u2019s just applying heat to the pizza until it\u2019s done and managing the time\/balance. I think the winner on this one was my wife and I. We got to enjoy two delicious Margheritas with amazing ingredients that I made with my own hands from scratch. Win-win.
\nEnjoy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My name is Brad English and I make pizzas. I have been told by my youngest that I am \u201cruining pizza\u201d for my family. Now, to be fair to myself, she\u2019s a fickle eater! She loves my pizza when I make it her way, which is with pepperoni or salami and \u201cregular\u201d mozzarella, just like she can get at any of our local pizzerias. I say to her, you have…Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":351,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,9],"tags":[137,31,41,136,67],"class_list":["post-2651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brads-corner","category-s9-recipes","tag-baking-steel","tag-margherita-pizza","tag-pizza","tag-pizzeria-delfina","tag-wood-fired-ovens"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMargherita Pizza Showdown: Wood Fire vs. Home Oven - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pizza Margherita: I want to taste this dough on a simple, balanced \u2014 \u201cperfect\u201d pizza.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Margherita Pizza Showdown: Wood Fire vs. Home Oven - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pizza Margherita: I want to taste this dough on a simple, balanced \u2014 \u201cperfect\u201d pizza.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PizzaQuestFornoBravo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-29T05:23:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-04-02T15:10:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/03\/MG_3806-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad English\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brad English\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/\",\"name\":\"Margherita Pizza Showdown: Wood Fire vs. Home Oven - Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-29T05:23:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-04-02T15:10:39+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/5c45b9d10b57201e2ba13337f1724018\"},\"description\":\"Pizza Margherita: I want to taste this dough on a simple, balanced \u2014 \u201cperfect\u201d pizza.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/margherita-pizza-two-ovens\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Margherita Pizza Showdown: Wood Fire vs. Home Oven\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/\",\"name\":\"Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart\",\"description\":\"A journey of self-discovery through pizza.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/5c45b9d10b57201e2ba13337f1724018\",\"name\":\"Brad English\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f997b270bc5efdfb1b6bf71fedbd9f7e?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f997b270bc5efdfb1b6bf71fedbd9f7e?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Brad English\"},\"description\":\"Brad English is a producer based out of Los Angeles, CA. 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They contacted Peter to see if he was interested in taking this show on the road.\u00a0 The Quest had begun.","url":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/author\/brad-english\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/351"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2777,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions\/2777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fornobravo.com\/pizzaquest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}