Pizza Porn- 800 Degrees in La and Varasano's in Atlanta

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
21

Thanks Charlie, it does look like Southern Cal has most of these concepts.

22

Blaze is a knock-off of 800 Degrees, founded by Rick Wetzel (the mall pretzel shop guy) and bankrolled by some of LA’s really rich guys.

23

A cheap knock off :smiley:

24

Fu- Have you had the Pizza at Bottega Louie? This thread gave me a push to head there today and it was pretty money.

25

I’m pretty eh about it. Their crust doesn’t have any char to it. Too flabby and soft

26

Not Poppy but I have some experience in this area; by far the easiest and cheapest way to get close to these temps is the Blackstone Pizza Grill:

This thing is cheaply made, but cheaply priced as well, and it’s pretty much impossible to get the results you get from it without spending 5-8x more. The 2stone is the “well built” version of the same concept, for $2K:
http://www.2stonepg.com/2stone-infern2.html

For me these are missing a smoky element you get from a wood-fired oven, but that will run in in the thousands and any home WFO available today IMO has some serious compromises and I find none of them to be worth the money. Probably the best is Four Grand Mere Four Grand Mere - The Bread Stone Ovens Company

The Blackstone is so good it has Lori wanting to kill my plans to build a brick oven.

Of course the oven is the smallest part of the battle. Most of the work is in perfecting the dough. Varasano has been most generous over the years and has meticulously documented his process online:
http://www.varasanos.com/pizzarecipe.htm

…although (no offense Poppy) I’ve found most people who start getting serious do start finding some issues with his methods.

27

Larry- what issues ? I haven’t tried anything yet as home as I can’t get close to the temps without investing in what you listed ?

I’ve eaten at both of his locations now in Atlanta a few times and the pizza is terrific as shown above [cheers.gif]

28

Just had the Olive and Caper with Prosciutto di Parma at the Varasano’s Airport location -

29

No doubt Jeff makes great pizza! The issues are primarily around his use of cold fermentation with sourdough culture. The sourdough yeasts he recommends from sourdo.com are dormant at fridge temps, yet he recommends fermenting your dough in the fridge. It turns out his yeast isn’t actually the one he recommends, but one he cultured from a piece of dough he got from his favorite NY pizza place. And it was later uncovered that that pizzeria uses instant yeast, so Jeff’s isn’t actually a sourdough culture at all. This is a minor issue though really because it means you can make Jeff’s dough without having to mess with sourdough.

There are lots of hackers who mess around with getting high temps out of home ovens, including Varasano - I think his history involves bypassing the self-clean lock so he could cook pizzas in his home oven on self-clean cycle.

Look here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/board,26.0.html

I made pizza on a Big Green Egg for about 5 years, and just got the Blackstone last September and haven’t looked back. Instant jump in quality. At $270 or whatever it is now, it’s IMO a no-brainer for people wanting to make 60-90 second pizzas at home, even if you decide to install a wood-fired oven, it gets you in the game during construction. You can see some of my results in the Pizza thread. Beware there is a lot of heartache down this road. The higher you push the temps, the more you put yourself on the razor’s edge between disaster and nirvana.

30

You guys are making me hungry!

31

A couple of things from the bread baking side. A “cold ferment” is usually called a retard in bread baking, and it isn’t about the yeast (which makes the dough rise), it’s about the enzymes that create flavor. The dough will still rise, but slowly, even in the fridge. Also, any dough that is used as a starter (sometimes called a pate fermente or a biga or a poolsh depending on the amount of water), meaning that it is fed with more water and flour, will become a “sourdough” starter. The question of how sour it gets is a matter of how long you let it mature before using it and what percentage of that starter you use in feeding the new starter.

The last thing that’s always funny is when people talk about using a starter (or biga) from some other location. Basically, a starter will grow based on the native airborne yeasts in the current location, eventually replacing whatever was in it to start with. So a starter that is brought to Atlanta from Brooklyn will over a very short period of being fed in Atlanta become identical to an Atlanta-born starter. The biggest way to create flavor differences with starters is to use different types of flour or to play with the length of time you let it mature.

Sorry for the thread drift.

Poppy, we like Settebello a lot as well.

32

Larry - Ahh, I never messed with the sourdough culture. I buy fresh yeast from a local Italian deli and the flavor is great.

Thanks for the advice on the pizza oven! Your link doesn’t work - Is it this one: http://www.amazon.com/Blackstone-1575-Outdoor-Oven/dp/B00CELFJ4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415209609&sr=8-1&keywords=blackstone+pizza+oven

That will have to go on my wish list!

33

And, the high heat (800 degree oven, whether wood burning or gas or even electric that makes that 60-90 second pie is not everyone’s top choice. In fact, though that’s the method of the true “Neapolitan” (i.e., from Naples) pizza and is the rage with Italian restaurants and pie places in the US in this century, it is not my cup of pie…nor that of anyone I know. Though they make good pictures, the pix of pies cooked at those high temps, with their leopard spots and wide corniches (puffy outside crusts) and with “fresh” mozzarella don’t ever excite me.

Pizza is , like many things, a matter of taste. So, I can’t argue which is better. But…I do say that some of the people who are into the super-quick, high heat pies are a bit oblivious to the fact that they might not appeal to everyone…and that making the toppings as exotic and picturesque as possible don’t necessarily add to the appeal of the pie.

For me, the thin-crusted, crispy most of the way through, east coast pie cooked on a deck at around 550 degrees for ten minutes or so is pizza heaven. (And, after figuring that out years ago, I bought a used restaurant commercial oven that cooks at those temps (the temps of most non-Neapolitan pizza places.) I don’t like “fresh” mozzarella, as it leaves too much water on the pie and eschew “tomato sauce” for freshly pureed tomatoes (usually from whole canned).

I raise this not to argue which is better, but to point out, which often goes unsaid on pizza threads on WB, that the high heat, Neapolitan imitation pizza is just one style of pizza and is not necessarily the “holy grail” except for those who like it best. People reading pizza threads for ideas might not get the idea that there is even another desirable way to make pizza.

Now, the dough is yet another story…and one that is , IMO, way over-analyzed… [soap.gif]

34

This is an often repeated and hotly debated point from which no consensus is ever drawn. Count me in the camp that believes that a healthy starter involves a yeast and lactobacilli that are symbiotic in a way that creates an environment too competitive for new bugs to take over. I haven’t done a genetic profile on my starters, but I keep a couple and both have unique flavor and leavening properties, so I have no reason to believe that they’ve been colonized by homegrown bugs.

35

Except that this thread was started with pictures of and questions about 800 Degrees in La and Varasano’s in Atlanta.

Maybe your favorite pizza is being talked about in a different thread? I promise I won’t go in there just to tell you that it’s not my favorite kind of pizza.

36

Thank you Poppy. For some reason my Lowe’s link works for me. It’s the same oven at Amazon but the price is cheaper at Lowe’s.

37

Sorrrrr-y…I thought this thread was about two restaurants which make pizza, and turned into how to make high heat pizza with post #26. (Wait a minute…that was you…whoops.) I guess I misread what developed?? [highfive.gif]

38

because… both these restaurants do high heat pizza and poppy brought up replicating pizza from Varasano?

39

Awesome thread drift. Yes it started out about those 2 specific restaurants.

Stuart- I’m in east coast traditional Pizza guy my whole life and the pizza at Varasano’s was the best I’ve ever had and oh yea I was the OP who started the thread but some thread drift is good to keep the discussion going.

There is about to be an explosion of quick service high heat assembly line pizza concepts across the country. Lots of folks are pouring serious $$ into this concept. Doesn’t mean though the pizza will be any good. 800 Degrees seems to be one of the best. Varasano’s new location will be quick service.

Anyone been to MOD out of Seattle ?

St

40

Thank you C.Fu.

Yeah the “high heat” pizza stuff is kind of buried in this thread rolleyes for example, you don’t see anything until posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…