Today I made pizza for the first time in my life. It was a good experience. These are brief notes, may the help you on your pizza baking journeys, as I am sure they will help me in the future.

The oven

• Oven Used: Enro Gas Oven 2
• • It’s a little bit pricey at 54,000 JPY, can probably find cheaper used ones on Mercari.
• • Used 250g LPG cartridges. Make sure to buy a regulator and hose.
• • • One cartridge more than sufficient for 20 minute preheat + cooking 3 pizzas over the next 30~ minutes.
• • • Pizza cook time is about 90 seconds.
• • The cartridges can freeze shut when using them for a long time.
• • • Keep them in lukewarm water to prevent this from happening.
• • • I’ll buy a 5kg camping gas bottle next time, though. Seems easier.
• • The temperature reader reached 450 degrees at one point.
• • • When wind was picking up, the temperature reader became unreliable. Pizza came out great though.
• • Overal, the oven is great and recommend it.
• • Decided on gas over wood, because of smells, temperature control, convenience, et cetera.
• • Oven also has a little spinning mechanism, meaning you don’t have to take out the pizza to rotate.

The dough recipe

• Based off of a recipe from Vincenzo’s Plate
• • 500g tipo 00 flour.
• • 15g salt.
• • 300ml water, room temperature.
• • 1 gram of dry yeast.
• • • I feel that this was too much yeast. I will try with .5 grams next time.
• • • The original recipe asks for 1 to 2 grams. (100% difference).

Preparing the Dough

• Take water, mix it with the yeast.
• Mix until the yeast is fully dissolved.
• Add flour in increments.
• • Keep a small handful behind. You will need this later.
• • • Do not worry about keeping too much behind. You will incorporate it later anyway.
• Keep mixing in the bowl until it starts to form a cohesive ball
• Add salt to the mix
• Continue to until you have cohesive, non-sticky ball.
• • It’s a fairly wet dough, it will take a while before it stops sticking.
• • If you have to, slightly dust the dough with flour while mixing.
• • Do NOT use all the flour you have left over.

Kneading the dough

• LIGHTLY dust your workbench with SOME of the leftover flour.
• • Then, put the remainder of the flour in front of your dough.
• Roll, knead, and fold the dough into your flour.
• • Incorporating more and more of the leftover flour.
• • This helps preventing it from sticking to your worksurface and hands.
• Kneading it will take about 10 to 15 minutes
• It will be done once it passes the spring test.
• • Spring test: make a dent, if it pops out, it’s probably done
• • This is to make sure your gluten network has developed properly.
• When you’re done, put the ball back into a bowl.
• Cover with a damp cloth for 2 hours.
• • This prevents drying out
• Your dough will not rise that much.

Dividing the dough

• With the water + flour + yeast + salt your dough should weigh around 750 grams
• Divide into 3 dough balls of 250 grams each
• • For my next attempt, I will use 200 grams.
• • I think this will fit better in my oven.
• • It’s hard to properly stretch the 250 gram balls to fit the oven, leading to big crusts.
• Rolling dough balls is easy. Do not overthink. There’s tons of tutorials on youtube.

Storing the dough balls

• I made the mistake of storing it on a foil covered oven plate.
• • It’s a super sticky though.
• Next time, I will dust a container with rice flour and store it that way
• Store it in the fridge for 12 to 18 hours.

Do not store dough like this

Making the sauce

• I used one can of whole, peeled Docet tomatoes.
• Dump in a bowl. Crush by hand.
• Add salt to taste.
• Add olive oil to taste.
• That’s literally it.

Shaping the dough and making the pizza

• I took out the dough 3~ hours before making the pizzas.
• • Next time, I will only 30 minutes.
• • I think I overproofed the dough, leading to crust that’s way too big.
• Take a ball, and flatten it with your hands from top to bottom.
• • Most YouTube videos tell you to leave one inch for the crust
• • • I think that’s too much. Just flatten it entirely.
• • There again are tons of YouTube videos on how to do this
• • Your dough is a lot tougher than you think, do not worry about “breaking” it.
• • I Once stopped caring about my dough, shaping it became better.
• Make sure to cover your workbench with a generous serving of rice flour.
• • Rice flour does not add flavor, and doesn’t burn easily.
• • Other recipes might call for semolina, but that’s hard to get in Japan.
• Once you’re happy, scoop up the dough with the pizza scoop.
• • If the pizza does not go onto your scoop easily, it will also not come off easily.
• • Remedy this by adding more rice flour
• • Once it slides on easily, it will also slide off easily.
• On the scoop, add sauce and mozzarella.
• • I used mozzarella balls, they roll of. Crush them before adding.

Cooking the pizza

• Make sure your pizza oven has been on for at least 20 minutes on full power.
• In one movement, move the pizza from the scoop to the pizza stone.
• My oven has a 360 turn table so I used that.
• It will be done in 60 to 90 seconds.

Pizza 1

• Mistakes:
• • I did not flatten and stretch the dough enough.
• • Did not press down hard enough.
• • I left too much space around the edges.

Pizza 2

• Mistakes:
• • Same, did not flatten and stretch enough.
• Was getting better though

Pizza 3

• Decided I did not give a shit, pressed down hard on the dough
• Did not leave any space for the crust
• Crust was still too puffy, probably not enough stretching
• • Potentially overproofed during the 3h rest time outside of the oven.

Postmortem

• In a world where everything is convenient, making pizza was a pain in the ass but very fun.
• The flavor of the dough is great. It’s crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle without being undercooked.
• The sauce is simple but amazing.
• Overal, the pizzas were delicious.
• For next time:
• • Use camping gas.
• • Make smaller dough balls.
• • Properly store the dough balls in a container.
• • Be even less gentle with the dough