Cottura PIZZA nel FORNO DI CASA - Pietra REFRATTARIA e RISCALDAMENTO - Tutti i Segreti!

Hi everyone and welcome to a new video of Handmade Pizza! Today I'm in this particular position because I'm going to make a different video than usual. For today, no dough, but I want to talk to you about a very important thing. How to best use the oven at home. And in particular, how to best prepare it for the cooking of the pizza. As we know, unfortunately, most of the ovens at home don't reach a temperature above 250°C. Sometimes 275°C. Temperatures that, unfortunately, are a bit low for pizza. And that can give us a cooking that makes the pizza a bit biscuit-like. That is, extremely dry. Why is that? Because at these temperatures, around 250°C, 275°C or 280°C, the pizza needs more time to cook. So the cooking times are longer than in an oven that reaches 400°C or 450°C. And by increasing the cooking times so much, the dough, the pizza, tends to dry out a lot, to lose a lot of water, a lot of humidity. So now we know that to improve the cooking of our pizzas in the pan, in the oven at home, we have to, for example, make much more hydrated doughs. That is, they have more water inside, precisely to counteract this excessive drying out. But is there anything else we can do to improve the cooking of our pizza? The answer is yes. That is, learn to use our oven at best and to preheat our oven at best. Unfortunately, I have noticed that often when you preheat the oven, it is always very, let's say, hasty. Instead, preheating the oven for the cooking of the pizza is essential. Another element that can help us a lot in the cooking of the pizza, in improving the efficiency of these not very high temperatures, is the use of a refractory stone. A refractory stone inserted in the oven already during all preheating, this is essential, manages to accumulate a lot of heat, to retain it and then release it in a much more, let's say, violent and effective way on the pan or on the pizza. Well, so let's go and see for a moment how the oven is structured, how it works and how to preheat it at best. Let's go! Ok, here we are. First of all, let's take a quick look at how the oven is structured, so that we better understand some of the mechanisms. Clearly, there is the part above with the knobs, the temperatures, mine even only says max, it also says 250, but it reaches 250, the timer, which is of little interest to us, and the knob with the programs. Ok, the programs will obviously be a little different from oven to oven, but more or less they all look the same. Ventilated programs, only ventilated, ventilated only above, ventilated only below, static, which is what interests us most, grill and pizza program. Ah, one thing I can already tell you for sure, never, really never use the fan for cooking pizza. Although the fan is a much faster cooking and the temperatures that the oven reaches with the fan are more efficient in cooking, despite this, the action of the fan dries the pizza dough too quickly and we will certainly get a biscuit effect. The same goes for the pizza program. I'm not sure it works the same way in all ovens, but in mine and in other ovens I've seen, the pizza program is essentially a fan, so we'll have the same kind of problem. The ovens have two resistances, one at the bottom, which is not visible because it is hidden under the bottom, all this iron plate, and a top that we can see. Obviously they regulate the temperature thanks to a thermostat, which is an electronic device that detects the temperature inside the oven and when the selected temperature is reached, it turns off the oven. That is, when the red light goes out, the thermostat probe detects the temperature inside the oven and turns it off. Now, unfortunately, the thermostat probe in domestic ovens is positioned up here. It is this metal bar that can be seen here. Why is it unfortunate? For two main reasons. One that affects in a minor way is that the heat, as we know, tends to rise from the bottom to the top and therefore it will always concentrate more and more in the upper part of the oven. And the other is that this probe is really very close to this resistance and therefore it feels a lot of the heat of this resistance. So these two combined actions, the heat that tends to rise to the top, the probe of the thermostat that is so close to this resistance, mean that when the probe measures a temperature, for example 250 ° C, the maximum temperature, in reality the temperature is slightly false, because in this area of ​​the oven there is much more heat. But the heat is not distributed uniformly, so the probe will turn off because here it detects 250 ° C, precisely because the heat accumulates upwards and we have this resistance so large, positioned so close to the probe. So maybe the thermostat turns off the oven at 250 ° C, we bake, but in reality we do not have a real temperature of 250 ° C. How can we deal with this problem? In two ways. The first, very important, preheat the oven in advance, at least half an hour, 40 minutes before baking the pizza. When the probe will turn off when selected at the maximum temperature, know that the first time the probe turns off, the oven is not all at 250 ° C, for that speech we said before, because the resistance here has become incandescent, heat has arrived from below and the probe detects 250 ° C and turns off the oven. But the temperature is not homogeneous, so surely the first time you turn off the light, the oven is not all at 250 ° C. So we have to be patient and wait for the light to turn on and off at least a couple of times, so that the resistances turn on a second time and start to heat up a little more homogeneously in the oven. Second escamotage, and in my opinion this is the most effective, is to use the fan that, I repeat, we do not have to use for the cooking of the pizza, but to use it to our advantage for the preheating of the oven. This is because, I turn on the fan for a moment, when you turn on the fan, here you see it has started to rotate, that fan, what does it actually do? Rotating, it distributes the heat in the oven, that is, it rotates the air in the oven and therefore, let's say, it mixes the air in the oven and therefore mixes the heat. And so it slightly contrasts that problem we had of having an accumulation of temperature in the upper part. Let's say that that fan distributes the heat in a more homogeneous way. This has as a consequence the fact that by distributing the heat in a slightly more uniform way, the probe will detect the temperature later and therefore we will obtain a more uniform heating of the whole oven. And we preheat the oven with the fan at the maximum temperature. When the red light will be turned off, then with the fan program we will be at the maximum temperature, then at that moment we will switch to static, always leaving the temperature at maximum. And from that moment, after 10 minutes, we can start to bake. Because we were sure that we had reheated the oven in a more uniform way. We turn off the fan because we don't want to cook with the fan. And at this point we start our cooking. And now let's see if and how the refractory stone can help us further in the cooking of the pizza in a domestic oven that has this temperature, let's say, a little inefficient for the cooking of the pizza. So, in my experience, I noticed that the best place to place the refractory stone, both for heating and cooking, is in the lower part of the oven. Because it is there that it accumulates more heat, because it receives the heat from below, it takes advantage of the greater action of the heat that, in fact, goes from the bottom up, and there it manages to reach a higher temperature and above all more stable, because it is always fed from below. Someone also heats the stone just under the grill. In my opinion, it is not a very efficient choice, because even if it receives a very strong heat wave from above, let's say it remains quite superficial on the stone, and in addition it does not have a constant power from below. It is as if I were trying to heat a pot of water by shooting a flame on the surface of the water. Yes, I reheat it, but it is much less efficient than heating it with a flame from below. Ok, I take the stone for a moment. The refractory stone, thanks to the materials with which it is built, has the property of storing a lot of heat, of being able to retain it and release it more violently than other materials. Therefore, a good cooking system can always be the first part of the cooking in the lower shelf, without the cups, whatever type of pizza you are cooking, white or red, without the cups. When the pizza is half, three quarters of the cooking, raise a couple of levels, a couple of shelves, depending on the type of pizza you are cooking, insert the cups and finish the cooking in the highest part of the oven. And now, out of curiosity, let's do a little test. I'll show you how, preheating the oven properly, as I told you, with the fan program at the maximum temperature, and then I will measure the surface of the stone with a laser thermometer to show you how much more heat it can accumulate. So I turn on the oven and I put it on the fan at the maximum temperature. I close it and I'll see you in half an hour. See you later. So, preheating is over. This you see here is the paw of my dog. So I preheated the fan at the maximum temperature, so the light is now off because it has reached the temperature. Now with this device we measure the stone for a moment. Quickly. Here it is. And it marks 302°C, the surface of the stone, so well over 250°C of the temperature of the oven, because it manages to store heat, hold it and then release it on our pizza. So from this moment we go to static and we can bake the first pizza in 10 minutes. With the usual system, starting the first part of the cooking in the lowest part of the oven, at half, three quarters of cooking, we will go up two levels and we will add the dairy products, or if it is in our program, and we will finish the cooking of the pizza in the upper part. Well, I hope that these little suggestions will be useful to you in baking pizza in the oven at home. And so, in general, we understood that the oven needs to be preheated in advance, at least half an hour, 40 minutes before the cooking of the pizza, that the fan program, which we must never use for the cooking of the pizza, actually manages to preheat the oven in a more efficient way. So preheating with the fan and then, 10 minutes before baking the pizza, go from the fan to the static. Using a refractory stone helps us further. It is not absolutely essential, but let's say it gives us a lot of help. Last point, always do the first part of the cooking of the pizza in the lowest level possible of the oven, when the cooking of the pizza is at half, three quarters, move to finish the cooking of the pizza and insert the dairy products in the upper part of the oven. I hope you enjoyed the video, let me know with a comment and maybe leaving me a nice like, and in the comments, if you like, leave me suggestions for other topics to deal with in other videos. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel and activate the bell to stay updated on the next videos. Thank you all and see you next time! Bye!