Caputo flour pizza on the BGE

I am lucky and have some customers not far from "Fred's BBQ & Music" store in PA. So when I stopped in on Thursday for some Blues Hog I picked up some Caputo Tipo "00" flour. This was my first atemp at using this Neapolitan pizza flour. I made the dough with a poolish and a 65% hydration on Saturday and then after rising separated into individual balls and let it proof over night in the fridge. I took it out this morning and let it sit for eight hours.

I made the sauce from San Marzano tomatoes and did nothing more than crush them with a bit of garlic and oregano. I hit the sauce with a immersion blender. For toppings nothing more than some fresh mozzarella, grated parmigiana, fresh basil and a touch of salt and EVOO.

I have no idea what temp the egg was cooking at because the thermo died on me. I did incinerate the poor thing and melted the new gasket I put on only two weeks ago. The first pie came out the best. The three after it had more of a biscuit style crust with less oven spring so I need to work on that. All in all the results were amazing. Best pizza I ever made by far.

The set up:


The incinerated Big Green Egg:


The first pizza Neapolitan:


Check out the perfect char on the bottom:


A slice of heaven:

landarc said:

Oh, very nice. Do you think the flour made a difference?

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Yes it did. It was baby bottom soft. I have always used olive oil in my dough but not this time. The dough was so relaxed it was a joy to work with. As far as the taste goes i am not sure you can tell a difference but as far as the feel of the dough you sure can.

1_T_Scot said:

Pizza lookes awesome! 2 questions. What does Poolish mean? How do you measure 65% hydration or is it calculated?

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A Poolish is a preferment starter. 50% flour and 50% water with yeast. Like a sourdough starter. I made it the night before I made the dough. Let it sit out overnight and you have bubbly goodness.

Yes the 65% hydration is calculated. I measure by weight so for instance 100 grams of flour would use 65 grams of water. There are calculators on line if you google it also in most good bread books.

Brauma said:

Awesome looking pie. But you've got some weird ash build-up or blow by on the back half of your Egg. The front looks like it's sealing well. Have you done the dollar bill test? What fuel/lump are you using? Or is what I'm seeing some excess flour?

Part of me says don't fix what aint broken seeing the excellent pie. But I just thought I'd ask.

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What you are seeing is ash. The egg is a medium about 14 years old. I mostly use it for cooking low and slow so I guess it just fried everything from the heat. I put a new felt gasket on it about two weeks ago and I set it with a low heat cook. I cleaned and scraped the ceramic before putting on the gasket.

I was using a mixture of RO lump and aFire coconut extruded charcoal. Man the thing was hot.

Rick's Tropical Delight said:

what diameter and brand of pizza stone is that?

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It is the BGE brand pizza stone. The egg is a medium so I am guessing 14" to 16".