COAL FIRE PIZZA IN CHICAGO?

Hi guys, was wondering if anyone knows of any pizza places in the chicago area that bake their pizza in a coal burning oven? I know they say thats the only way to make a pizza in NYC.

This has been discussed ad nauseum on LTH. (Do a search for pizza or NYC stule pizza.) I believe the answer is no, but I could be wrong (what about Caponies?)

Caponie's oven is wood fired.

I don't think coal-firing has been discussed that much. Coal ovens are apparently illegal to build new but a few very old ones are grandfathered in. The only one I know of serving retail is the D'Amato's next to Bari, 1124 W. Grand. Bread and the pan pizza bought there (but not necessarily those bought at the other D'Amato's location) are from a coal-fired oven.

Yo,

I think the whole coal vs. wood vs. gas oven debate is a little overblown, to be frank. The places in NYC that turn out a coal-fired pizza are great, to be sure, but if one has a big-ass Blodgett, gas-fired oven with a stone in it, properly heated to the 7 or 8 hundred degrees needed to blister a crust, a great pizza can be created every time without fail that matches up to the coal. Having the right kind of dough, stretched to the proper thinness, with not too much on top to weigh it down or make it soggy, is the key to getting the crisp/chewy/blistered crust so valued in good pizza. Combine that with intense heat (no matter the source; could be goddamn nuclear power, really, if it weren't for all that steam from the cooling rods) and the stone bottom (which retains heat and makes the crust "bounce" and react) and you're about 90% of the way to what makes a pizza (and, more specifically, commercially made pizza) special. The other 10%? Love, baby, love.

Rebbe

I guess I dispute the original claim, that you need a coal-fired brick oven for NYC-style pizza. I know Follia uses a wood burning oven, and they sure do a fine job in getting the oven hot enough.

I know there is a limit to how hot you can get a gas-burning oven.

According to verace pizza napoletana, you must use a wood burning oven with bricks made of volcanic stone. I think they're onto something there...

Rich4 wrote:I know there is a limit to how hot you can get a gas-burning oven.

There may be a limit, but it's in the thousands of degrees range. (Just ask any crematorium or steel mill operator).

There may be a limit, but it's in the thousands of degrees range. (Just ask any crematorium or steel mill operator).

You're onto something there: The Pizzatorium

Pizzas delivered in a hearse. Don't ask about the toppings

stevez wrote:

Rich4 wrote:I know there is a limit to how hot you can get a gas-burning oven.

There may be a limit, but it's in the thousands of degrees range. (Just ask any crematorium or steel mill operator).

I'm pretty sure steel mills burn coal not natural gas.

We had this discussion before on Chowhound (I got too many other windows open right now to find the link), but I think natural gas only gets up to about 600 degrees, while coal and such can get much hotter.

Vital Information wrote:We had this discussion before on Chowhound .

And on LTHForum, though not in reference to pizza.
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=16537#16537

G Wiv wrote:

Vital Information wrote:We had this discussion before on Chowhound .

And on LTHForum, though not in reference to pizza.
http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=16537#16537

note, I only said that steel mills burn coal, I was silent on the muerto carne

Vital Information wrote:

stevez wrote:

Rich4 wrote:I know there is a limit to how hot you can get a gas-burning oven.

There may be a limit, but it's in the thousands of degrees range. (Just ask any crematorium or steel mill operator).

I'm pretty sure steel mills burn coal not natural gas.

We had this discussion before on Chowhound (I got too many other windows open right now to find the link), but I think natural gas only gets up to about 600 degrees, while coal and such can get much hotter.

Keep in mind (being at work I can't offer the precise citation right now) Jeffrey Steingarten's essay about how, hoping to bring his gas oven to the proper temperature for making pizza, he disabled its thermostat, and almost set the building on fire but still managed (IIRC) to melt a substantial part of the oven itself. Also don't forget that commercial equipment can reach temperatures deemed unattainable by home cooks.

Outside the North End and perhaps the Bertucci's pizza chain around Boston, almost every place I ever ate pizza in my first 39 years used a gas oven. I've got no problem at all with gas* as long as the ingredients are good.

* I leave this straight line as an exercise to the reader.

Vital Information wrote:I'm pretty sure steel mills burn coal not natural gas.

Some do and some don't.

stevez wrote:

Vital Information wrote:I'm pretty sure steel mills burn coal not natural gas.

Some do and some don't.

I do know they use oxygen to increase the temperature of the flame, a technique I would not recommend for you folks at home.

Glass blowers generally use gas for their ovens. I have worked Pyrex glass in a lab using natural gas and air without supplemental oxygen.

With gas and air you can easily get a high enough temperature to melt fiber glass oven insulation to a puddle in seconds. Ovens need some heat limitation of they could self-destruct. Back when Markellos Bakery was on Rockwell just south of Lawrence, one of their ovens did self-destruct.

My understanding is that blast furnaces often use coal to make producer gas, which is then burned to provide the main heat. The reaction of coke, iron ore and limestone in the blast furnace is exothermic, which provides more heat. Producer gas is something you don't want at home because the reaction of hot coal with steam gives off a lot of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

I just found this when Googling for the temperature of burning natural gas.

the highest reached burning temperature in air for methane is 2148 degrees C and for propane 2385 degrees C

I've never been real good at the Centagrade to Farenheit conversion thing, but I'm pretty sure this is hot enough to cook a Pizza no matter what part of the country it is from.

stevez wrote:I just found this when Googling for the temperature of burning natural gas.

the highest reached burning temperature in air for methane is 2148 degrees C and for propane 2385 degrees C

I've never been real good at the Centagrade to Farenheit conversion thing, but I'm pretty sure this is hot enough to cook a Pizza no matter what part of the country it is from.

Who's perfect...

Coal fired, schmoal fired. As the beneficiary of my father's foundry supply business (hey, it put me through college), I know a thing or two about melting down metal. Hey, I can even tell you what a chaplet is (my dad sold them by the millions!) Anyway, here's the real deal; what say we cook a pizza on one of these babies: Furnaces for Real Men. It may require a Clean Air Act permit ... but hey, that's my specialty!

Jim's furnace is for wusses. Real men use lava.

Are you kidding??? Any fire you can stand within 8 feet of without wearing an asbestos suit or losing all your facial hair is NOTHING! New age hippy lava cooker .... rrrrrr....

stevez wrote:I just found this when Googling for the temperature of burning natural gas.

the highest reached burning temperature in air for methane is 2148 degrees C and for propane 2385 degrees C

I've never been real good at the Centagrade to Farenheit conversion thing, but I'm pretty sure this is hot enough to cook a Pizza no matter what part of the country it is from.

Puts a nice blister on the crust, too.

I live within sniffing distance of D'Amato's and my neighborhood often has a (wonderful) kind of burned bread smell on the air. One day, when it was particularly strong, I had my husband convinced that D'Amato's used its unsold bread to fire its ovens. (I was so happy to finally find someone more gullible than me, I married him.)

Bread fired ovens. It's an idea...

JimInLogan Square wrote:

what say we cook a pizza on one of these babies: Furnaces for Real Men.

Cool! It'll be fun watching a pizza vaporize.