We will probably never know who made the first pizza, but it is believed that well before the time of Christ, peasants from both the south of Greece and the north of Italy were baking round, flat bread dressed with oils, garlic and vegetables and leftover meat. A strip of crust was left ungarnished for easier handling without the need for eating utensils. Even traditional German culture contains a pizza like dish, which was designed to utilise left over ingredients at the end of the baking day.
The first pizzeria is thought to have opened in 1830 in Naples. By the end of that century, Naples had established itself as the pizza capital of the world. Since then, the Americans have become the greatest consumers of pizza and have since marketed pizza to the rest of the world. Pizza came to the USA by Neapolitan migrants, who found that the abundance of fresh produce more than made up for the different types of ingredients they had to use. A larger, American style pizza evolved. World War II US servicemen developed a taste for pizza (and other regional dishes like spaghetti and meatballs) in Italy and, once they returned home, helped escalate pizza’s popularity to the point that it has become a culinary staple. Described below are some of the more popular American styles of pizza.
Pizza Cooking in Stone Hearth Ovens
Stone Hearth Ovens use the great heat stored in their dense refractory roof and floor to cook pizza and other foods very quickly.
Once chefs become familiar with these ovens, they find them incredibly versatile and are able to cook a wide variety of foods at different times of the day.
Pizza Basics
Dough can be made using a mixer or by purchasing from a bulk dough supplier or your local bakery. Although there may be a million dough recipes, we have provided a generic Pizza Dough recipe in our Recipe Library.
Once you have made your dough, there are 3 ways to roll it out (Roller, Dough Press or Manual). Choose the method most suitable to you.
The first two mechanical methods lend themselves to kitchens with less experienced staff.
The weight of the dough will depend on the size of the pizza you wish to make and the desired thickness of the base. Individual sized 250mm (10″) “gourmet” or “thin base” style pizza will contain 150g (5oz) to 200g (7oz) dough; a large family size 16″ thick base pizza will contain approx 620g (22oz).
Once you have selected the dough weight and style of pizza, you need to determine how much dough you need per day and how to store it ready for use. Busy pizzerias will use either a separate fridge designed to hold pre-rolled pizza or a chrome rack which can hold up to 20 pizzas.
Some people place pre-rolled pizzas on floured metal pans, which are then placed in their storage area ready for prepping and cooking. Some clients who do not use pans at all use round plywood trays the size of their pizzas for storage prior to cooking.
Cooking Pizza
- Allow oven to get to operating temperature. Do not be afraid to experiment to get the perfect temperature.
- Ensure the floor has been cleaned with a moist (not wet) rag on a broom and move around the floor. A wire brush on a handle can also be used.
- Prepare dough into dough balls according the thickness and size required. 150g (5oz) balls are suitable for 250mm (10″) round thin pizzas.
- Roll the dough into bases to the size and thickness required. Use a liberal amount of semolina to stop the dough from sticking to the bench and peel.
- Place finished dough onto peel and place the pizza in the middle of the oven. Pizza can be cooked either direct on the floor of the oven or in trays. Experiment with different areas of the oven. The hottest area will be close to the fire and the temperature will reduce as you move away from the fire. The coolest place in the oven is next to the mouth. Cooked pizza can be left there to keep warm if business is slow.
- When cooking pizzas (either on a pizza-baking tray or directly on oven floor) the pizza should be turned and moved about to ensure even cooking, due to the ambient and reflected heat conditions inside oven chamber. Ideal pans are black perforated, these absorb heat quicker than aluminium pans.
- A typical pizza should cook perfectly in 5-6 minutes. The time taken to cook the perfect pizza will depend on how thick the ingredients are and how thick the dough is. If cooking time is greater than 7-10 minutes, the temperature in the oven is too low. This can be caused by a number of factors. Refer to document “Heat in Oven”.
- The pizza base may puff up during cooking. If it does, simply prick it with a pointy object. A roller with lots of fingers is available which is rolled across the dough. This has the effect of stopping the dough from bubbling.
Food other than Pizzas may also be Cooked in the Oven
Eg. Roast chicken, lamb, beef etc can be cooked in roasting dishes (an oven rack should be placed on oven floor with roasting dish placed on rack to prevent excessive heat from base).
Some meats may require aluminium foil placed over top to prevent fat splattering onto pizzas.
Pasta dishes, eg. Lasagne can be baked in the oven; other dishes such as ravioli, canelloni, tortellini can be portioned into individual servings, placed into ceramic oven proof dishes and finished in oven.
General
The pizza oven is designed to cook pizza very quickly at high temperature. With experience you can utilise the effective available heat from the oven by cooking items requiring a lower temperature outside rush hours. By letting the oven cool down to 200°C (392°F), you could bake breads / all prep food etc between peak periods. Half an hour before your peak demand time, raise the oven temperature with fresh timber and it then ready for maximum temperature and throughput. If you have a particularly demanding peak period, dough bases can be par baked for 1-2 minutes or until the dough holds its shape and stored on individual aluminium / stainless plates in readiness for orders. These can be prepared with tomato paste and cheese prior to par baking.
Once finished cooking for the day, simply leave the fire burn down, place the door in place in front of the flue or place another log on the fire.
Recommended Reading
- Pizza Lovers Cookbook
- Gourmet Pizzas, Recipes from the Red Centre, Gregory Boock & Kirk Stuart
- River Café Cook Book Two, Rose Gray & Ruth Rogers – Ebury Press
Operational Advice
Beech Stone Hearth Ovens are designed to cook pizza very quickly at high temperatures. With experience you can utilize the oven more effectively by reducing the heat output from the oven and cooking items requiring a lower temperature outside busy service hours. By letting the oven cool down to 180°C -200°C, you could produce pizza toppings such as semidried tomatoes, roasted capsicums, smoked chicken or even bake bread. Half an hour before your peak demand time, reset the oven temperature and it’s then ready for service.
If you have particularly demanding peak period, dough bases can be par-baked for 1-2 minutes or until the dough holds its shape and stored on individual aluminium / stainless plates in readiness for orders. These can be prepared with tomato paste and cheese prior to par baking.
Once finished cooking for the day, simply place the plug door in the opening according to the Operation Manual Specification. This will allow the chamber to stay warm (approx 100°C overnight, so when the oven is reignited the next day it will take less energy to reach operating temperature and hence will save on fuel costs.
Equipment
For cooking pizza a peel (sometimes referred to as a paddle or pizza spatula) is an essential piece of equipment. The large flat surface allows pizza and light trays to be moved around the oven with ease. Some Pizzaiolos require two peels to cope with the heavy workloads, one in use for the oven and one for loading the raw pizzas.
Heavy duty brass brushes are used to keep the floor of the oven clear of debris, stainless steel shovels and rakes are needed if you are burning wood within the cooking chamber, allowing the moving and disposal of the coals and ash.
Labour
The biggest drawback for general cooking in a Stone Hearth oven is that it requires skilled labour – even more skilled than a qualified pizza maker. Cooking meat and fish requires more sensitivity and skill than does pizza. Still, easy-to-cook items, such as vegetables, appetizers, baked pastas and desserts are all within the scope of accomplished Stone Hearth oven pizza cooks and it probably won’t take much to train them to cook the more specialised items.
How would broadening your Stone Hearth oven’s repertoire affect your operation? That depends upon the percentage of pizza on your total menu. If pizza accounts for only 10% to 25% of sales and you are only using the oven for pizza, then you are definitely under utilising your oven’s potential. Adding some items to the Stone Hearth oven in your operation would definitely make much more efficient use of that piece of equipment and could increase the return on your investment, with added choice comes more customer satisfaction and you are also using your labor to its maximum potential. However, if 50% to 75% of your sales come from pizza, then you might even consider adding a second oven.
If, however, your operation is at its full capacity, then perhaps just adding one or two signature items, such as baked appetizer, pasta or even a dessert will be just about all you can squeeze in.
More often than not, many of these ovens are under utilized and experimenting with adding different dishes will certainly make your bottom line more attractive. For example, let’s say that the outlet prepares only 50 or so pizzas per evening. If you are open from 5 until 10 in the evening, that averages out to 10 pizzas per hour, in this time they could be using the oven for extra entrees, vegetables, baked pastas, roasted meats or desserts which could take the pressure off some other part of the operation and add extra profit all out of the same piece of equipment, while still turning out 50 or so pizzas per night.. Here is where diversifying items at the Stone Hearth station will come in handy.
Menu design is also a critical factor these days and if the menu is designed to take advantage of your equipment and your labor force is not being pushed to their limit then the overall effect will be to increase profits through efficiency & lower staff turnover. It’s plain to see how easy it is to increase the productivity out of a Stone Hearth oven. Try it. You won’t be disappointed.
Recommended Reading
- Pizza Lovers Cookbook or
- Gourmet Pizzas, Recipes from the Red Centre, Gregory Boock & Kirk Stuart
- River Café Cook Book Two, Rose Gray & Ruth Rogers – Ebury Press
For further information about cooking pizzas in stone hearth ovens, please contact us for a free cooking video.
Wood Burning Characteristics
What type of wood is best?
Beech Ovens recommend the use of properly seasoned hardwoods with a moisture content of 20% or less. Soft woods, such as pine, cedar and wet or ‘green’ wood, will cause a build-up of residue throughout the exhaust system and will produce more smoke compared to aged wood. The symptoms of poor heating performance related to wet or green firewood include:
- difficulty getting a fire going and keeping it burning well,
- smoky fires with little flame,
- dirty glass,
- rapid creosote build-up in the chimney,
- low heat output,
- the smell of smoke in the kitchen,
- short burn times,
- excessive fuel consumption and
- blue-grey smoke.
Although hardwood is more expensive when compared to softer woods there is value for money because hardwood is denser and therefore will provide more available fuel in the same space. Hardwoods will also burn longer and if the wood is properly seasoned it will burn very hot. The fuel available in hardwood enables the oven to sustain high temperatures for significantly longer periods. Also, hardwoods will keep a hot live coal bed for days increasing the ovens heat retention capacity.
NEVER burn any treated or painted wood. The chemicals used can release dangerous amounts of arsenic and other toxic compounds. Never burn plastic because it also releases toxic chemicals.
How much wood is required?
The amount of wood required will vary depending on the oven size and usage conditions however you could expect the oven to use approximately 1 cbm of wood per fortnight (dependant on wood type eg. a dense timber such as hardwood will have better heating abilities). Adding about 10kg of wood per hour should bring the oven temperature up about 100 degrees per hour. Do not over-fire the oven. If flames are spilling out of the door opening, or if oven floor temperature exceeds 400 degrees C, you are over-firing the oven.
Lighting, maintaining and re-igniting the fire
The fire should be ignited a couple of hours before the oven needs to be at cooking temperature. The fire can be located in any position inside the oven chamber. If the oven is being used daily, the fire can be ignited by using the glowing coals from the previous day’s fire. The oven is heated more evenly and effectively by the fire positioned on the side rather than in the rear of the oven.
Once the desired oven temperature is reached, maintain it by addition of wood as needed. Don’t throw wood against the side or back walls of the oven. At the end of the work day, place the removable stainless steel plug door supplied with the oven into mouth/door opening to retain residual heat inside the oven overnight. Remember to place the door correctly inside the oven moth past the exhaust spigot (refer to operation manual for further advice) .
At the start of the following work day rake the glowing coals out of the ash pile and carefully remove the ash with the ash shovel, leaving the remaining live coals to start the day’s fire. Place the removed ash into a metal container with a tight-fitting lid. The closed container of ashes should be placed on a non-combustible floor or on the ground, a safe distance from all combustible materials pending final disposal. They should be retained in the closed container until all cinders have thoroughly cooled.
CAUTION: Never use an ignition fluid such as petrol or gasoline-type lantern fuel, kerosene, charcoal lighter fluid, or similar liquids to start or reignite a fire. Keep all such liquids away from the oven while it is in use.
Storing Firewood
Firewood should be kept up off the ground to promote drying and prevent mould growth.
Characteristics of Wood Species
SPECIES | HEAT | EASE OF LIGHTING | COALING QUALITIES | SPARKS | FRAGRANCE |
Apple | Med – Low | Difficult | Excellent | Few | Excellent |
Ash | High – Med | Fairly Difficult | Good – Excellent | Few | Slight |
Beech | High | Difficult | Excellent | Few | Good |
Birch (White) | High | Easy | Good | Moderate | Slight |
Cherry | Med | Difficult | Excellent | Few | Excellent |
Elm | Med | Very Difficult | Good | Very Few | Fair |
Hickory | High | Fairly Difficult | Excellent | Moderate | Excellent |
Oak (Red) | Very High | Very Difficult | Excellent | Few | Slight |
Grey Box | High | Difficult | Excellent | Few | Fair |
Red Ironbark |
| Poor | Excellent | Few |
|
Yellow Box |
| Poor | Excellent | Few |
|
Red Box |
| Poor | Excellent | Few |
|
Yellow Gum |
| Poor | Excellent | Few |
|
River Red Gum |
| Poor | Excellent | Moderate |
|
Blue Gum |
| Fair | Good | Few |
|
Red Stringybark |
| Good | Good | Few |
|
Narrow Leaved Peppermint |
| Good | Good | Few |
|
Mountain Ash |
| Excellent | Fair | Moderate |
|
White Cypress Pine |
| Excellent | Poor | Many |
|
Radiata Pine |
| Excellent | Poor | Many |
|