pizza disk/screen? deck oven

[souspizzaiolo]

Hey y’all. I’m trying to get away from rice flour and wooden peels. I got a quik disk and a hex disk from lloyd. They eliminate the rice flour completely which is great, but the bake isn’t so hot. The disks warp upwards at the edges so the bottom of the pie is over done in the center and underdone on the edges. Lloyd told to leave the disks in the oven overnight with some weight on them to simulate lots of bakes and that would relax it. No bueno so far, still seeing some warpage even after 30 hours in a 600 degree oven.

Anyone have any other disk advice? do all disks just act like this? should I put them in the oven for 100 hours? Should I just do screens? I liked the disks cause they seem sturdier over time, and cause they will actually hold a pie up on a speed rack. They also just seem more thermally capable than screens.

I wanted to try some carlson disks since they are thicker and maybe wouldn’t but they won’t sell me just one to do a test on. It’s a dozen ($350ish) or none with them. Tempted to risk it, but thought I’d check here first…

Thanks y’all!

 

[souspizzaiolo]

pics…

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Your selection of baking platforms, while very good, are not the best for your intended application. In your specific application I think you will be better served using just plain pizza screens. Be sure to season them prior to the first use and lightly oil them once or twice after that, then you should not have to season or oil the screens again. Be sure to keep the seasoned screens out of the sink as hot soapy water will result in the seasoning peeling from the screen. The other option is to start the bake on either the disks that you have and then “deck” (remove the pizza from the baking platform and place it on the deck surface) the pizza for the remainder of the bake. Unless you deck the pizza you will never get the same quality of bake on any of these baking platforms as you would baking directly on the deck surface, reason being, the baking platform creates an air gap between the dough/crust and the deck surface so the heat transfer is not as efficient. Now, if you were baking in an air impingement oven, your selection of baking platforms would be at the top of the “A” list.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[souspizzaiolo]

Thanks Tom. I’m really trying hard not to “deck” the pies, although we have gotten the best results so far doing so. We are just too busy and in too tight of quarters to do that efficiently. Maybe with some time and (self) training and not having to sweep out the oven between loads we could pull it off though? Just seems scary for big 12+ pie orders… Anyhow, I think I’ll get some cheapo chinese screens from my local restaurant supply and if we can make it work, upgrade to some nicer ones. I don’t think I really want to go here, but do you think adjusting the dough recipe would help at all? We do something like…

%100 flour (%50 KA Sir Galahad %50 KA Sir Lancelot)
%64 water
%20 sour starter (1:1:1 flour:water:sour)
%4 olive oil
%2 salt
%2 honey
%0.15 yeast
25 oz dough ball on an 18" pizza

Thank you for your time again Tom. You got me thinking about a dough press after reading your last article in PMQ. With the screens and the press we could get rid of rice flour AND bench flour! We would all have at least 15 minutes less clean up time every night with that being the case and the line would constantly be sooooo clean!

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Not really, you will still need some type of peel dust to facilitate transfer of the dough from the peel to the oven deck and that is where your problem/issue is stemming from. You say that you need t sweep out the oven between every load, this is a lot more frequent that what I am used to seeing. Perhaps you are using too much peel dust? While I recognize the fact that if you survey twelve people and ask them what makes the best peel dust you will get at least twelve different answers. Here is the composition of the peel dust that I use and from years of experience using it I know that when used correctly you typically don’t need to sweep the oven until about four loads have been baked. Give this a try to see if it makes any difference.
Tom’s Peel Dust
Regular flour (1-part)
Corn meal (1-part)
Semolina Flour (1-part)
Put another way, equal parts of your regular pizza flour, corn meal and semolina flour. When I’m making it in small batches I normally use a full Styrofoam coffee cup of each ingredient, blend together and put a light application on the peel immediately prior to placing the pizza skin on the peel, give it a quick shake and you’re ready to go to the oven. Note: Once you begin dressing the skin DO NOT STOP, get it dressed as quickly as possible, give it a shake to ensure the skin is not clinging to the peel and make the transfer. Let us know if this helps any.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[BspaPizza]

I’d have to agree it sounds like too much flour on the peel, you shouldn’t have to sweep out the oven after each load. I generally do it once at the end of the night and that’s it.