3 Biggest Mistakes Made When Making Pizza

Making pizza using a wood-fired pizza oven is a game-changer. Nothing beats that authentic taste of wood-fired pizza, with its smoky flavours and gnarly, charred crust. An Igneus Pizza Oven unlocks the potential to recreate restaurant-quality pizza in your very own garden. However, if you’re new to it, there can be some common pitfalls that people fall into that have the potential to ruin your creations! The good news is, if you read this short article, these mistakes are easy to avoid. So, let’s dive in!

Not Letting Your Dough Proof for Long Enough

If you’ve had a go at making your own pizza dough, well done! You’re already winning, because homemade dough tastes SO much better than the ready-made alternatives. (Plus, it gives you the bragging rights that you’ve made your pizzas completely from scratch!) However, of the whole process of making great pizza, the dough is certainly the most ‘technical’ and therefore gives us the biggest area for making mistakes.

One of the key areas in making great dough is the proofing process. In reality, this is the easiest bit of the whole pizza-making process, as it requires you to do absolutely nothing, except wait. Proofing is the process of fermentation, where the yeast gets to work, and the dough develops flavour and texture. We always recommend making the dough the day before you plan to make pizza, which means you can proof it overnight (but for no more than 16 hours). If you skip the step or rush the proofing process, the finished dough can be too dense and result in a tough dough, instead of the airy, chewy texture that characterises great pizza. A well-proofed dough also gives it elasticity, meaning it’s able to be stretched without tearing.

Using a Rolling Pin to Shape Your Dough

Keeping on the subject of dough, this is a common mistake that is super easy to fix. Basically, stop using a rolling pin to shape your dough. Doing this knocks the air out of the dough and destroys a lot of the hard work you’ve done during the proofing process. The little air pockets that develop during proofing are what give your crust that light texture and leopard spotting. By using a rolling pin, those air pockets are popped and the dough flat, both in appearance and texture.

Instead, use your hands to stretch the dough into shape. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfectly round; who cares? Press the dough ball from bottom to top using your fingers. Then open the dough out using the backs of your hands and fingertips. Once you’ve got a rough shape, further stretch the dough using the backs of your hands and knuckles, then, using your thumbs, begin to rotate and work the dough.

Not Keeping an Eye on Oven Temperature

It goes without saying that temperature control is one of the most important factors to consider when making great pizza. From the initial heat-up period to stone temperature and fire maintenance, it’s vital to keep an eye on what’s going on inside the oven.

The first thing is getting the internal temperature of the oven up to around 450°C. To make this a little easier, all Igneus Pizza Ovens (except the Igneus Minimo) come with a built-in thermometer, with a colour-coded ‘sweet spot’ for where the temperature needs to be. Because wood fire is a living, breathing thing, it can fluctuate due to a number of factors such as the type of wood used, outside temperature and wind conditions.

The biggest thing people get wrong in relation to oven temperatures is getting the stone/firebricks up to the desired temperature of around 350°C. It often takes longer for the stone or firebricks to reach temperature than the ambient temperature of the oven, and it’s tricky to know exactly what the temperature is without an Infrared Thermometer. Not getting the stone or firebricks up to the correct temperature means the dough will cook slowly from below, leading to an undercooked, doughy base. Perfect, crisp pizza cooks from below as well as above, so making sure the temperature is spot on makes a huge difference to the finished pizza.

Final Thoughts

Making pizza in your Igneus Wood Fired Oven is a truly rewarding experience, but avoiding a few key mistakes can make all the difference between good pizza and great pizza. From allowing your dough the proper time to proof to shaping it by hand, and ensuring your oven is at the right temperature, following these simple steps will help you master your pizza-making technique.

If you have any questions about our range of ovens, feel free to get in touch with us at 01423 575885 or explore our full selection of products here.