I haven’t really compared my bake times for a long while since I had played around with using different temperatures in the deck oven. I did time a lot of regular pizzas made with the preferment Lehmann dough yesterday. The bake temperatures were running between 500-525 degrees F. My bake times on all the pies that I did time were between 4 ½ minutes to 5 minutes. I wouldn’t think the pies would bake that fast with the lower temperatures, but they do. I also didn’t take any videos of Steve cutting the regular preferment Lehmann pizzas, but all of them do have a crunch when cut. Maybe next week, if I remember, I will take a few videos of the preferment Lehmann pizzas being cut. It now makes me wonder what temperatures other pizza operators are running their deck oven at and what are their bake times.
For the first Greek style pizza made, the steel pan was oiled with 2 tablespoons manteca. As can be seen, there was a lot of oil left in the pan after the bake. For the other Greek style pizza, made later in the evening for a customer that wanted a whole Greek style pizza, I only used 1 tablespoon of manteca to grease the steel pan. There still was manteca left in the pan after the bake. I don’t know if my steel pans are becoming more seasoned or what, but it doesn’t seem like I need as much manteca to grease the pans. The bottoms still have a nice crunch either way. The only problem I now might have is the Mexican store where I purchased the Mexican manteca was flooded in the storms we had last week. When I went past the Mexican store recently, the store is empty, and I am not sure if they had insurance. or if they are going to open again.
For the cheesy breadsticks I did open the dough balls up by hand this week. I had been rolling the dough with my rolling pin for awhile. I don’t know what other members think, but I think I do like the cheesy breadsticks better, when they are opened by hand.
Norma
