Last night’s pizza using the Jim Lahey method of baking the pizza under the boiler

from start to finish.

Forkish and Lahey both have oven methods for pizza and I’ve tried both.

The Lahey’s method comes very close to the results I get using the Ooni and is almost as quick. Every oven is different and after a few tries I’ve found that having the stone in the top of the oven about 6 or 8 inches from the broiler works the best in my oven.

My broiler has a high and a low setting.

Not sure exactly what the difference is, but I found that

preheating the oven to 550°F for 30 minutes,

and then blasting the stone under the broiler on the high setting for another 10 or 15 minutes, launching the pizza and then turning the broiler to the low setting works perfectly.

The bottom crust gets browned and turning the pizza a few times

gets the top cooked even and the rim charred without burning.

I use the same recipe for my pizza crust

that I use for baguettes and boules.

This batard was from yesterday’s dough. I shaped it last night and left it in the fridge until

early this morning and took it out and left it on the counter for 90 minutes before baking.

Over the years I have tried many different “Pizza Dough” recipes and have never found one I like

better than my bread dough.

The basic recipe is 1000g flour; 1.5 g to 2g yeast (1/2 tsp); 30g salt;

and anywhere from 63% (630g) to 68% (680g) water.

I use the autolyze, stretch and fold method and do about 4 to 5 over a 2 to 3 hour period.

Sometimes, like yesterday I leave the dough out on the counter

for 8 or more hours if using the same day.

Or, I put the dough in the fridge and give it a longer cold fermentation for a few days.

Because the dough has so little yeast it has a slow rise.

So if the dough has been in the fridge for a while it will still need to be left out on the counter for a number of hours before it is ready to use.