It was the fall of 2011 and my first trip to Italy. I was recently divorced and my siblings and I had decided it was the perfect time to make the trip together. Before long, my father and stepmother joined the fray, followed by my nephew and his wife. All told, eight of us on a two week trip, first in Florence, then in Torca, a small town in Massa Lubrense on the Amalfi Coast. Given our group size, we were able to chip in for villas at each destination.

The villa in Florence was amazing, a 14th century villa on the outskirts of town. I was, and still am smitten with Florence and will always consider it my favorite place in the world. I could have spent the entire two weeks in Florence, but my older sister had made a pretty good case for spending time in southern Italy.

The villa in Torca was modern and had large terraces that overlooked the Mediterranean. On one side of the terrace stood a large wood oven and barbecue area. I asked the property owner about the oven and whether we could use it. No, he said, but we could hire a pizza chef for an evening to make pizza. Fortunately, my family was all in so we pitched in to hire the chef for one night.

Up until this point, I had made pizza at various times in my life with varying success. Most was about what you would expect out of a home oven. I had gotten into sourdough about 10 years prior and had been making a form of deep dish pizza with some success - the family liked it anyway - but it wasn't anything I was passionate about.

I was nonetheless intrigued about the wood oven although I don't know that I even had much exposure to Neapolitan pizza. Although we had taken the train into Naples on our way to Torca, we were in the city less than an hour before we took off down the coast. So, no opportunity to try the legendary pizza there.

There weren't a lot of food options in Torca, but up the hill, Sant'Agata Due Golfi had a number of good restaurants, so we headed up the hill for dinner every night and aside from a day trip to a fisherman's cove (Marina di Crapolla) one day and another to Capri, we mostly hung out enjoying the slower pace of the small towns (and Sud in general). 

On the day of our Pizza night, the pizza chef, Claudio, showed up in the afternoon to start the fire and tend it long enough to get a good solid fire to start the preheat. We were starting to congregate around the oven when the chef said he was leaving to let the oven heat up. His buddy worked for the property owner and they disappeared (we found out later to the bar) until around 8:00 pm. We were now solidly on Italian time.

I made the mistake of thinking I was already a pro with dough and missed out on a great opportunity to learn from him on his recipe and process. I know I have missed out on learning opportunities when I think I've learned all I need to on a subject. Fortunately, that was the only area I didn't pick his brain on.

 Looking back at pictures from the evening, the pizzas weren't typical Neopolitan style. Fortunately, my nephew's wife took a lot of great pictures and I was reminded we were making mostly rectangular pizzas without a large cornicione. The toppings were all Napoli with local San Marzano tomatoes and mozzarella bufala. I want to say Claudio told us this was how pizza at home in Naples was made, but that might just be my wine saturated memory of the evening.

The cool thing about the evening was that we each made at least one pizza, from stretching the dough all the way through cooking and serving. I don't know why I don't do that when I make pizza. For those that had problems launching or turning the pizzas, it was all in good fun and we all cheered and consoled our successes and failures. By actively participating it made the evening even more memorable.

We started with the dough balls that were maybe 250 to 270g and we had to stretch them out to fit the oblong wooden peel. This resulted in a pretty thin pizza. From there, we moved the peel over to toppings and could select from traditional sauce (his mother's secret recipe) or get more creative. We had free reign to create whatever we wanted after being coached that we should ignore that American urge to load it up with toppings. 

In retrospect, we did pretty good considering the hurdles we faced. We had very thin pizzas, rectangular at that, that we had to stretch, top, and launch quickly before the toppings soaked through and the dough started sticking to the peel. Then we had to turn the pizzas, precise peel work that was a first for all of us, and then be able to pull it out when done.

When it was my turn, I had the benefit of seeing what to do and not do. I don't know if I had figured out by then that the traditional sauce made the dough a little too wet and thus, more prone to tearing while launching and turning, but I went with a safe topping combination of sausage, mozzarella, and olive oil.

I don't typically have all that great of luck. In fact, my father has said that if I didn't have bad luck, I would have no luck at all. However, on that warm night in Southern Italy, I had amazing luck. Beginner's luck to be sure, but good luck all the same.

I've botched a launch more times than I can count. Screwed up a turn almost as many times. Dropped a few pizzas on the ground and a handful of times got to talking so much that I've forgotten I had a pizza in the oven. 

That night, it all went perfect. The peels felt perfectly natural and I somehow knew just the right motion to launch the pizza and pull away leaving the pizza in perfect form. I went to do the first turn and saw (more like felt) that it was sticking and then waited a bit to try again. This time, the bottom was a little more done and lifted easily from the floor. A quick spin and then another. Pulling it from the oven just as easily. Beginner's luck all the way. 

The whole evening was magical. Finally being in Italy after decades of dreaming about it. With family at a time when everyone was in sync and everyone was enjoying one another. The beautiful evening with the spectacle of fire, excellent food and wine. We would leave a few days later, back to the same old routine, but that night will stay with us forever.

For me, it began my journey to uncover my inner pizzaiolo. I've always loved the show, the presentation and memorable pizzas I serve, but in writing this missive I realized that I missed the key elements that made that night so special. It was the participation by everyone in creating, then cooking their own pizza. Claudio was undoubtedly a great pizzaiolo, but his greatest talent was in sharing the experience so we were all actively engaged and not just a passive audience. 

I'm still learning and now I know where I go next.

After a catered pizza event and just some changes in life and routine, I fell out of the habit of making pizza. I made some here and there, but I wasn't hosting any dinners and evaluating whether I was properly equipped to continue doing catering (or even wanted to). It really wasn't about those things or even pizza. It was a re-evaluation of all things that were bringing contentment (or not) to my life. In any case, while I knew I would always make pizza for friends and family, I became less certain that I have any aspirations beyond that. More on that in a future post.

Anyway, I lost touch with friends as we both got far too busy and so when we reconnected, I suggested a proper pizza night. They were enthusiastic at first and then broke it to me that she is now gluten free after an exhaustive battery of tests to diagnose some health issues revealed sensitivity to gluten. The whole family is not gluten free, so she was going to be a good sport and "bring something else" while the rest of the family enjoyed my normal pizza fare. However, I saw this as a challenge.

I am most definitely not gluten free. I am enthusiastic about gluten in all its forms. I knew nothing about making gluten free pizza, but felt like I would be no friend at all if I didn't at least try to come up with an alternative for her.

So, off I went in my search for a gluten free recipe, but more importantly, a Neapolitan recipe. Fortunately I didn't have to search for too long. I found this recipe that I followed religiously and I couldn't have been happier with the result. When I found the recipe, the author hadn't yet posted the section recommending the Caputo flour, but since I use only that flour, I had already bought a bag of their Fioreglut. The Caputo Fioreglut is a rice flour-based blend so there are other similar products. I can only speak to the workability and flavor of the Caputo however.

Although obviously the recipe varies in ingredients, the approach wasn't really all that dissimilar from my sourdough or IDY recipes. This recipe still does an initial bulk ferment although this is a room temp ferment rather than the cold ferment I usually do. When that completes, I made the individual dough balls and did a cold ferment for three days and not unlike my regular recipes, these developed quite a bit of flavor. I was concerned there would not be enough sugars for the yeast to eat, but that ended up being a non-issue. The cool thing about this dough is that it won't actually over-ferment.

The Leopard Crust recipe is detailed with video shorts to illustrate preparing dough balls for your bake. This is important since if you use the same techniques to open your regular dough balls, you aren't going to have much success. With these dough balls, you're not opening or stretching them - you're more spreading them by smushing gently. My first dough ball was a complete failure as I wasn't gentle enough and immediately started ripping holes in the dough.

Trying again, I dusted the ball generously with chickpea flour and took my time spreading out the dough by just pushing down and out. Because this has a 80% hydration, you need to use quite a bit of flour to make sure it doesn't stick to the prep surface and also to transfer to the peel. As I was alternating between the GF and my regular sourdough dough, I had to keep shifting between the two techniques for spreading. 

Once launched into the oven, it didn't really cook any different from one of my regular dough recipes. This pizza (a truffle chicken pesto) was the first in so the oven was just a little under temp. I got more char on subsequent pizzas. 

Once in the oven, there were no surprises. It was easy to work, no issues with sticking, and behaved like any other pizza. I was using a 1000° oven with ~850° floor temp and it puffed up and was light and airy.

Flavor was definitely different from my sourdough or IDY recipes, but just that: different. It brought a different flavor that was still neutral enough where toppings shined. 

Here's the deal though. As I served one sourdough pizza, then one GF, then sourdough and so on, the gluten free was consistently more consumed. Wait! Is the GF better?

The GF pizzas were good. As good as my sourdough or even long ferment IDY recipes? I feel confident in saying it's not, but it stands on its own. However, as my friends commented, they have ordered gluten free pizzas in probably a dozen different restaurants since they started the whole GF journey, and they've always been wildly underwhelmed by what they were served: thin, pale tasteless crusts.

I was more than a little surprised. There was a learning curve for me and a change in process, but this came out better than what restaurants are putting out? That's pretty disappointing. 

I had a conversation with my nephew who's a salesman for a wholesale food company and he was telling me about one of his customers that has a thriving neapolitan pizza business, but is reluctant to offer any gluten free items. Granted, the flour is stupid expensive in comparison to the Caputo pizza flour, but you could charge accordingly. 

I think though there is the fear of the process change. If you're cranking out 100 pizzas an hour, you have a process, a rhythm, that diverting to make the GF pizzas could throw off the flow of the whole kitchen. So, I understand the concerns of adding that to your offerings, but those that have already commited to it and are just phoning it in, that doesn't make any sense.

While still midway through my bake, my friend was asking for the recipe and sending it to her friends, so this was deifinitely as success. With the first one out of the way - and more expected - it will get easier as I develop my own process. 

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wet blanket on pretty much any pizza parties, which has given me time to work out my recipes and strategies for successful pizza nights.

You may have noticed in past posts that I am not a big fan of surprises when I'm hosting a pizza night. I prefer those evenings go off without a hitch, pushing out gourmet pizzas every few minutes, rewarded by nodding heads and big smiles. When the dough doesn't rise, oven is slow to heat, or any other minor catastrophe, I really feel like I have let my guests down. So, this year has given me time to work out the foolproof strategies for a no-surprise evening.

In my last post, I had described a dough recipe that utilized instant dry yeast with a prolonged cold fermentation. I hoped to eliminate the uncertainty that sometimes comes with using sourdough starter while achieving the same flavor, texture, and digestibility. Over the last few months I have experimented a lot more with this recipe, finding the sweet spot on fermentation time and consistent results.

I've continued to experiment more with the high gluten bread flour. Because the consistency is near identical to the 00 flour, working the dough is very similar. The higher gluten gives me a little longer cold ferment time - usually an extra day or two. Any extra cold fermentation goes a long way in improving taste and texture. I've also experimented with a half and half recipe using 500kg Antimo Caputo Blu and 500g ADM High Gluten, which achieves a nice balance. Whereas an all high gluten recipe will result in a big crumb and puffy cornicione, the 50/50 recipe provides a nice balance between the two. In all this experimentation, I have been using the instant dry yeast, which continues to make for a predictable fermentation and rise.

Now, I feel I need to acknowledge the naysayers and purists who say the recipe or approach is not authentic Napoletana or is blasphemous for using any yeast other than sourdough poolish or biga. Having gone down that road (and spent many years doing so). I can confidently say this approach is as good as the alternatives and conforms to the AVPN regulations while making life easier...or at least less stressful. It's not like going out and buying dough or making it in one day - it still takes time and planning. It's just easier to achieve success when it counts: on pizza night with hungry guests.

My recipes and process weren't the only thing I've been refining. As I was making dough batches every week and COVID prevented any gatherings, I ended up using my older Blackstone gas oven just for convenience. It gets almost as hot as my wood oven and is far easier to get up to and stay at temp. 

It was just so nice to fire up the oven and just forget about that part of the process. It does the job adequately enough to know whether I was getting the dough right. As I do love working a fire, not having to worry about the oven was nice for a change. Which got me thinking about my fuel sources.

My wood burning oven is the Pizza Party, which was imported from Italy back in 2016. I really liked the oven and was considering buying one of their gas ovens. While using gas could have been pizzaiolo blasphemy years ago, the industry has been warming up (Ha! I crack myself up) to the idea.  Sadly the company stopped selling to the US and I have been looking at alternatives ever since. 

I'm something of a mods guy, so there were a few people that had built custom gas burners for the Pizza Party oven and of course I followed suit. After some trial and error, I engineered a pipe burner that I can use when I don't want to use wood. While it still needs about the same amount of time to get to full temp, it's much easier to regulate the temperature. There are still areas for improvement, but it would require more involved modifications that I wasn't willing to commit to. While this fixed one issue with my current oven, I still was looking for a more portable solution.

There have been a lot of new ovens that have come out in the last  couple years, which made it difficult to decide what the next one would be. My wood burning oven, while being more portable than a masonry oven, is still a challenge to move around - especially by myself. Something like eight or nine years ago I had a tiny gas pizza oven that could reach temps in the 700° range on a good day. Not Neapolitan by any means but it still could make an okay pizza. I loved being able to throw it into the car along with a few dough boxes and ingredients and make pizza for my friends or family.

Since then, I've kept thinking that I want that option and after enough encouragement by friends and family, decided to pull the trigger on a gas pizza oven from Italy capable of temps of 1000°. Unfortunately, it was shipped with a subsidiary of FedEx and so it took two days to ship from Sicily to Memphis where it has sat ever since. It has now been in Memphis for almost a month and I still don't know when FedEx will deliver it. That is another post in and of itself.

There have been a lot of great little ovens that have come on the market over the last year. So much so, that I want to put together a post with all the ovens available. Hopefully by then, I will have received my oven and can provide a review on that as well. I am also planning a post on my refined pizza dough recipes as they have changed slightly. While my original recipe is still viable, I've refined a bit in ingredients and process to arrive at my new standard recipes. 

So, a few posts I still need to get to and I'm also coding a new podcast section on this blog application as I'm toying with the idea of launching a podcast. Oh yeah, and I will be spending several days a week calling FedEx to find out where my damn pizza oven is. 

I have worked with sourdough starter - on and off - for about 20 years. It's close to being somewhat of a love/hate relationship. Maybe more like a love/I don't like you today relationship.

When sourdough works, it provides the best flavor, texture, and appearance. It can be a little finicky, especially if you don't dote over it. Which I don't. I keep the house too warm or too cold. I don't feed often enough or introduce too much air and it starts developing new bacteria. I'm always able to go back to the mother and start a new active batch and everything is groovy again, but I know that I'm not as attentive as I need to be for optimal results.

This is all a delicate way to say that there have been some failures on intended pizza nights and I end up ordering pizza delivery or slamming together an alternate meal when the dough just sits. And of course, the next night the dough is perfect and ready to go. Fortunately those outcomes have been few and far between. However, they kind of hang over your head causing an underlying stress every time you attempt a bake.

I'm happy to say that I haven't experienced an epic fail for quite some time and have a fairly predictable process. The key is the cold ferment - that extended rise in the refrigerator. Since you start your dough on Tuesday for a Saturday bake, you can watch it over the next few days and be sure that it is rising and will be ready on your pizza day. If the dough looks stuck, you can even pull it out of the fridge for a few hours to give the yeast a chance to get more active and then putting it back to cold ferment further. While I had used cold ferments in the past, I never went beyond a couple days. Observing what many pizzaiolos do, I discovered that three, four, five or more days of cold fermenting allows for a lighter, more delicate crust with exceptional flavor (and provides a window into your dough's development for a surprise-free bake).

The basic process is this: mix ingredients, knead, rest, short knead, cold ferment bulk dough for 24 hours; make dough balls, cold ferment for another three days, remove from refrigerator a few hours before bake and you're ready to make pizza goodness. Easy, right? Yes. Fool proof? Ummmmm...

On sourdough recipes, I have had a lot of success with this process. But, I did have one batch recently that took an additional day for reasons unknown. Which got me thinking. 

Cold ferment adds to flavor, texture, and digestibility. Sourdough already has a head start in these areas, but what about a dry yeast recipe? Could you take away the rising issues while adding in the flavor and texture qualities just by using the same method?

I made my dry yeast recipe on a Tuesday, putting the bulk dough in a sealed container into the refrigerator for 24 hours. Despite sitting in a cold environment, the dough nearly doubled in the container. On Wednesday, I took it out and let it rest and warm up a bit. While I don't actually let it come to room temperature, the less cold it is, the easier it is to form into balls. With the balls formed in the dough pan, it goes back into the fridge where I don't even look at it until Saturday morning to see this...

After letting the dough warm to room temperature, they were a dream to work with. Opening the dough balls to form the pizza was about as easy as it comes. It opened easily and the dough stretched well without tearing. 

The crust developed a nice char and had that light while crispy texture I look for in my sourdough crust. The flavor, while not quite sourdough level, was very good nonetheless. Certainly miles above the same recipe when prepared and baked in a single day. 

That's all well and good, but if it's not repeatable nothing has been gained.

So, the next week I tried it again and even let the dough go for additional days. While six days is still within the success window, it's pushing it. Four days has been the sweet spot while five days still provides great results.

Over a few test batches, my process wasn't always consistent, which is good, because I'm not either. On the first attempt, I put the bulk dough ball in the refrigerator as soon as I formed it after the second short knead. The dough never really doubled although it had risen some before I took it out the second day to form into balls. I was taking that into consideration on the second attempt and left the container out before putting it into the refrigerator. 

Then I forgot about it.

I had been upgrading one of my computers and the dough sat out for several hours. It had visibly risen by the time I remembered it and the next day it had more than doubled. Like, more than I was comfortable with. I was in some new territory here. 

I had been planning to have my friends over for a socially distanced pizza night and decided to do another batch of dough as backup even though I knew it would be one day behind.

Come Saturday, the original dough batch was fine. It had slowly risen and by the afternoon had developed nice air bubbles meaning it was ready to go. The extra couple hours at room temp and increased initial bulk rise had no adverse effect. The backup batch wasn't quite there, but I had thrown a curve on that one since it was one day behind. Also since I always use the Antimo Caputo 00 Blu flour, I wanted to experiment a bit with the backup batch by using a high gluten bread flour. I did end up using one of the bread flour balls and I could tell it wasn't quite ready. Despite sitting out for four or so hours, I popped that dough batch back into the refrigerator and by the next night it was ready to go.

This backup batch was quite the surprise. While definitely not a Napoletana dough it made for a completely different pizza. The high gluten flour made for a light, chewy crust that puffed up considerably in the oven. The areas where air bubbles developed on the edges charred in the high heat. While neapolitan crust will be somewhat chewy, it retains some crunch on the outside. These bread flour ones weren't crispy at all - and not in a bad way. 

While I do like this recipe and will likely do a batch to add in a few of these pizzas to the regular pizza night (leaving a number of balls left over to make sandwich rolls), I prefer the standard Neapolitan dough. 

That's not to say this won't be the favorite of others. I usually run a pizza over to my next door neighbor when I'm doing bakes. Typically she doesn't give any feedback on whether she liked it. I assume she did, but really didn't know. After dropping off a cheese and sun-dried tomato pesto pizza with the bread flour, she texted me a short time later raving about it, especially the crust.

They say "know your audience" so this may become part of the rotation if more people like this recipe.

Short recipe variation aside, the four day cold ferment process is proving to be both consistent and as good in taste and texture as the sourdough. Purists may argue that point, and there will likely be a slight edge to the sourdough in a side by side comparion, but otherwise I find it difficult to justify sourdough when the end result of a more consistent process is so close.

I'm keeping an open mind and will experiment more, but I feel confident enough in the results thus far to share.

Pizza dough is one of the most important parts of the pizza and also the one thing that is unforgiving on your bake night. You can have a problem with almost anything and a little improvisation and luck will get you out of trouble. Dough that hasn't risen however, well...there's nothing you can do. Except get it right the first time.

I should mention that there are some styles of dough that are more forgiving, but since I primarily bake Neapolitan pies, that's really what this post is about. The ideal Neapolitan pizza crust is chewy with a nice Cornicione or cornice - an airy puffy rim, that has just a bit of crispness to it. The hot oven will give it some nice leoparding - or char if you will. In a 1000° oven, the pie will puff up and char in just about a minute.

For Pizza Napoletana, there are a few absolutes. The dough consists of Type 00 flour, water, yeast, and salt. No olive oil, cornmeal, or anything else - this much is absolute.

The flour is usually Antimo Caputo 00 tipo from Naples. The Blu is best as it is intended for high heat, but the standard works as well. The 00 flour is super-fine with almost a consistency of corn starch. I use spring water when I can or at the very least filtered.

There are three types of yeast you can use: natural (sourdough), active or dry yeast, cake or fresh yeast. As I don't have a source for fresh yeast, I only work with either the sourdough or dry yeast. It should be mentioned though that most pizza chefs in Naples will use either the fresh yeast or sourdough.

As I had gotten into sourdough years before I started making pizza, it was my go-to once I did start. It's not a path I would recommend to someone starting out as so many conditions affect the dough. However, since it is superior in flavor and texture (IMO) it remains my preferred dough. I will use active dry yeast when I want fool-proof though.

The sourdough I currently use came from a Camaldoli strain sold by Sourdough International which I have been working with for several years. Sourdough takes a lot of time and effort to maintain and while worth it in the long run, is not for the faint of heart. It requires a commitment to ensure the starter remains vital and active. I plan on doing a post just on sourdough since I'm only skimming the surface here.

So, for the purposes of this particular post, I will just concentrate on the dry yeast and a short fermentation since it is the most predictable route. Also, I've spent a great deal of time tweaking recipes: more/less water, salt, yeast. Again, I will just cover what I've been using currently as I'm pretty happy with the recipe and it eliminates a lot of the guesswork. My recommendation is if you are starting out, find a recipe that works for you and is consistent and once you develop your skills, then experiment away to see what YOU like better.

For pizza Napoletana, your dough should be well-hydrated. So when you launch your pizza in the 1000° oven, the moisture in the dough makes steam and creates a light fluffy crust that is lightly crisp on the outside. Over the years, I have had hydration up to 70% and as low as 58%. What is working best for me right now is 62%. This is a nice balance of hydration and dough workability.

So, what's this 58%, 62%, 70%?

Most pizzaiolo's have adopted the baker's method for recipes through weight percentages. You start with the weight of your flour and that becomes the base measurement for 100%. Then all other ingredients are a percentage of the base flour weight. This is easier to explain with my actual dough recipe:

• 1 kg (1000 gram) Antimo Caputo 00 Blu [100%]


• 620 gram Spring Water [62%]


• 32 gram Fine Sea Salt [3.2%]


• 2.1 gram SAF-Instant Dry Yeast [.210%]

Based on this formula, I can increase/decrease my recipes by first adjusting the flour weight and modifying the remaining ingredients so their percentage is always the specified recipe amount. So, I can halve the flour to 500g and the water remains at 62% or 310 grams and so on. Everything is done by weight and I don't have to bother with cups, tablespoons, etc.

The above recipe is for my standard batch which yields about six 270g dough balls. There are two ways to initially mix the dough: mixer or by hand. There are two different camps on which is better. Some believe a mixer will get the dough too warm and potentially kill yeast. I've done both and have not noticed a discernable difference, but I'm only doing small batches. For the last year, I have been mixing by hand and appreciate the process. Once the dough ball is thoroughly mixed and become less sticky, I transfer to the counter and start kneading.

I typically use little to no flour. The hydration of this recipe is wet enough for a good Neopolitan crust, but not so wet that it sticks to hands, counter, dog, etc. It's still sticky and will take 5-10 minutes of kneading before the stickiness is reduced and the surface of the ball is smoother.

At this point, I lay some plastic wrap over the top of the dough ball and let it rest for 20 -30 minutes. The ball will have relaxed and spread out a bit. I knead it again for another few minutes and then let it sit for 5 - 10 minutes. At this point, it's time to make dough balls.

It's taken me a while to come up with the best size (for me) dough ball. Many will say 250g is the right size and I won't say that's wrong. Since I will at times struggle with opening a dough ball, I find the 250g size doesn't give me enough dough to make a pie when it isn't cooperating. Some day when I grow up, I will make 250g balls, but until then the 270g works well.

Making the dough ball is an art and the pizzaiolo's in Napoli make it look easy. Grab the side of dough and squeeze out perfect size and shaped dough balls repeatedly. Not me. I lay plastic wrap over my scale and measure out 270g lumps of dough and then form balls. The trick is really to create a uniform surface so forget perfect round, but make sure you shape, then form the ball, eliminating seams.

I purchased these Doughmate Artisan trays from Amazon. They are a bit expensive, but easier to work with. I've used in the past individual Rubbermaid containers but you end up having to scoop the dough out of them which can have adverse effects when you go to open up the dough ball. These trays are easier to work with and are stackable. While you can find much cheaper restaurant quality pans, they are much bigger and won't fit into a residential refrigerator. Starting out, you won't need to refrigerate the dough, but when you get into longer fermentations, then it becomes a factor.

You could also use something along the lines like a couple casserole pans - just make sure you leave a lot of room around the dough balls to allow for the spread.

The other nice thing about these pans (just go on Amazon and search for 'doughmate artisan') is they are naturally nonstick, so you don't need to oil or flour the pans. Sometime you may need to toss a little flour on top of the fermented balls to prevent them from sticking to each other when removing.

Anyway, I shoot for six balls at 270g each and usually end up with the last one at 280g. Not the end of the world. At this point, I place the lid on the dough pan and put it in a location where the temperature is fairly stable. The ideal temperature is 68° - the yeast amount is specific to a seven hour rise at that temp.

IDEAL is an ugly word. Life seldom delivers IDEAL. It's hotter than you expect or someone leaves the door open in January and your warm kitchen turns into an icebox. While this can throw some chaos into your perfectly planned pizza dinner, here the dry yeast route really comes to the rescue. You can warm/cool the dough in brief periods to adjust to any emergency. There have been times where A/C was running and the dough was really slow to rise. I brought the tray outside the last couple hours to warm up. Knowing that ideal is 68 for seven hours, I can warm or cool to adjust as needed.

When you lift the lid and see the dough balls have grown up and out, you are ready to go. The beauty of the dry yeast is that the fermentation is pretty predictable, For a number of reasons the fermentation could be off, one way or the other, by an hour or so.

It's not the end of the world.

If it's been a little slow, you can stall a bit. Ply your guests with more wine, appetizers, until the dough is ready. Or just start in. The first ones would benefit from another hour, but will still make a good pie. By the time you are cooking the last ones, they are perfect. And being a little past that sweet spot just means a little more relaxed dough. Give them a little more flour and take the time to open them up.

For this post, for this dough recipe, the last most important piece has nothing to do with the actual dough.

No matter what the dough is doing, if your oven isn't hot enough, the crust will suffer. A well hydrated dough is made for launching into a hot oven and cooked in 60 - 90 seconds. You can be a little off on your dough, but if you launch into a 800° oven or cooler, then the crust doesn't puff almost immediately. It becomes harder, crunchier.

I mention this because I've rushed a bake and started cooking when the oven hadn't warmed up enough or I was having difficulty maintaining the high temp. While dough can be finicky, it is the one thing that is more forgiving from a time standpoint and also one aspect that even when it doesn't go as planned, it's still likely better than the neighborhood pizza parlor.

I love pizza. Who doesn't?*

While I will order delivery and go out to pizza restaurants occasionally, there just isn't anything much better than homemade. 

Over the years as my exposure to different styles of pizza increased, so did the desire to recreate those variations at home. I realize much of this comes from my love of cooking. If homemade pasta is better than the local Italian restaurant, the same can be said for pizza.

It's not always attainable however given the heat of ovens necessary to attain perfection. The typical residential oven will only reach 550° at best. A commercial gas pizza oven is in the 600+ range. Some ambitious home pizzaiolos have modified their ovens to cook in the self clean heat range to attain temps upwards of 900° although this is far from ideal from both a safety and temperature control perspective.

Most aspiring pizza chefs start out with a standard residential oven, usually starting with the first crucial accessory: the stone. Designed to provide even radiant heat on the bottom of the pizza, the stone is a required component from the home chef all the way up to commercial gas to wood fired ovens. Well, unless we get into deep dish or any of the pan styles like Roman, Sicilian, and Detroit. I will dive into that in another post.

Now, this evolution really describes my own personal experience more than anything. I started off with store-bought dough or ready-made Boboli crusts. Then ventured into sourdough starters and making my own dough. Dabbled with deep dish and pan style and then hit a plateau. Deep dish was satisfying but I kind of lost interest for a while.

In 2011 I had an epiphany. I was on a trip to Italy with my family and we had rented a villa on the Amalfi coast. The house had a wood pizza oven on the terrace and we hired a pizza chef to do a pizza night. As he prepared for the bake, he explained what he was doing. After starting the fire and getting it stoked good and hot he explained that it wouldn't be ready until the bricks were glowing white. He and our property manager disappeared then until the oven was ready - we found out later they went to the bar to get in the right festive mood.

When he returned, he started laying out ingredients explaining the key was to use simple and fresh and not to load the pizza up like us Americans normally did. Little did I know beforehand, we were all going to have the opportunity to make a pizza. After I selected a couple ingredients and topped the pizza, he described the launch motion. I launched the pizza into the hot oven and and less than a minute later was turning the pizza according to his instruction. A minute after that, I gently slid the peel under the cooked pizza ("quick, quick" he said) and removed it from the oven. It was a great night with family and memorable. It also set me off on a new course. I knew as soon as I held the pizza peel and leaned in towards the 1000° oven suddenly wondering if pizzaiolos all had their eyebrows intact, that this was the begiining of something.

Once home, I tried to achieve creating the pizza from that night and fell far short. Before long I was studying the Neapolitan style and what I needed to create it. The short answer: 1000° and well-hydrated dough. 

And thus started a journey that is far from over but I'm getting closer to recreating that pizza from that night in Torca, Italy. The people, experience, and those few hours on a warm night on the edge of the Mediterranean is a memory I will never forget and will never be duplicated. The pizza, however, I'm sure I can.

*Blanket statements are a bad thing, so let me say that there are some people that don’t like pizza. I just don’t trust them.