u/KamadoJosh

I’m waiting on a new bottle of propane so convinced the other half that what we really need is a pizza steel for the oven midweek.

Blown away by the results from a 250c oven.

Have any of you tried changing out the XL stone for something with greater thermal conductivity?

I really like the top down heat for charring and toppings but I’ve never had this good of a base from the arc.

I find that the temps needed for a longer bake don’t translate well into crust spring and base browning.

Usually launch at 400c on low heat and then turn heat off once sides are browned to let the base finish - Pulling around 370c.

The Gozney ran out of gas so I convinced the other half what we really need is a pizza steel for midweek.

Blown away by how good it came out, we ate the entire Cheese pizza and this is spicy chorizo.

For NY style it’s better than the Gozney Arc XL, the only thing it misses is the top down heat to crisp the meats but you can always do that post bake with a blow torch or broil.

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For the nerds:

**This dough was immense today, it was the Goldilocks of strong but extensible and full of air**

16’’ Pizza:

60% Hydration dough using strong bread flour (90/10 Allinsons Strong Bread with Canadian strong wheat because I ran out)
3% Oil
1.5%Sugar
2% Salt

Mix for 10 mins (less than normal but when cold fermenting the gluten will develop plenty by itself) and pulled out of the mixer at 23C
Bulk for 3 hours (it will still be sticky and rough when you ball it, don’t worry the cold ferment will fix this)
480g Dough Balls into the fridge for 4 days.

Take out and room temp for 8 hours (was meant to be 3 hours but change of plans meant we ate at dinner)

Pre-heat steel at 250c (Max Temp) on top of an old pizza stone I have for an hour. FYI the steel hit 297c when placed at the bottom of the oven near the heating element.

Semolina to dust, stretch and place on a wooden peel.

Simple leftover cooked San Marzano sauce and cheap pre shredded mozzarella cheese.

Launch and bake until deep brown.

Learnings:

First pizza was 8mins with 1 min of broil - Rest took longer as the stored energy ran out as I’ve got a cheap oven.

Tried oil on the crust pre bake when I made the marinara, imo with a long bake it went too crisp but this could be because of the increased time (13mins total)