The three-and-a-half-minute gourmet pizza
That looks pretty good, doesn't it? I must be hungry. It's a photo of Joe Squared Pizza's new coal-fired pizza oven, which owner Joe Edwardsen says cooks a pizza in three and a half minutes. I want someone to go RIGHT NOW (I can't), have a pizza, and tell me if a pizza cooked in three and a half minutes really tastes as good as he makes it sound. Here's his e-mail, which I'll just copy so I don't get any of the technical details wrong: ...
The oven burns off of anthracite (or hard coal) from reading pennsylvania. Hard coal burns at 25000 btus per pound and, being 90 to 93 percent pure carbon, it burns with very little smoke. We'll be keeping the oven around 900 degrees at the floor, which would mean the roof of the number is reflecting 2000 degrees. It takes three hours for the oven to reach temperature starting from 500 degrees, which is about what it retains from the night before. It cooks one of our pizzas in about three and a half minutes, leaving the crust beautifully charred on the outside while tender and bubbly inside. The cheese come out nicely browned and the drying problem we experienced with our old ovens has been completely eliminated
Comments
On one hand we have pizza (and a good looking pizza, I might add) in three and one-half minutes.
On the other hand, we have anthracite-burning pizza ovens contributing to global warming.
Oh, what to do, what to do...
Posted by: Bucky | October 16, 2008 9:10 PM
I have been twice since the installation of the coal fired oven and it is excellent. The crust is cracker thin and charred just enough. Not as good as those in New York but light years ahead of Phat Pug. I do wish they were more serious about wine but a good beer selection pretty much makes up for the poor wine list. On a recent Friday night though about half of the tap beer selections were sold out and it was only 8:00 pm. Considering how serious they are about food I see this just getting better.
Posted by: Elite Elephant Lover | October 16, 2008 9:23 PM
Bucky, doesn't carbon burn off at 900 degrees?
And if so, unless they're baking raku in that hot box, wouldn't that mean the only element released into the atmosphere is pepperoni vapors?
And at 2000 degrees, shouldn't the pizza turn to a fine gray dust in seconds? I mean, they're firing that thing to cone 8 or thereabouts.
Frankly I'd be less concerned about global warming than the asbestos content of that pie.
Posted by: jl | October 17, 2008 5:18 AM
The object is to get a very hot oven - coal can do that but it has a whole collection of carcingens that volatilize when heated. I suspect the product they are using is "coke" - coal that is almost pure carbon.
However, when this topic came up before, I called several suppliers of "cooking coal" and none could give me a product analysis - that is, how much of the nasty stuff is still in the coal (coke). And granted wood also has some nasty things in it, but nowhere near coal. I'll stick with a gas fired oven until more information is made available.
Posted by: EdG | October 17, 2008 9:28 AM
It seems to me that crematoriums burn at about 2000 degrees.
Posted by: Eve | October 17, 2008 9:57 AM
What is cone 8???
Posted by: Eve | October 17, 2008 9:58 AM
jl, they probably line the oven with something like refractory brick, the stuff they use to line coke ovens and kilns. I once helped run a document burner with an air blower that would get up to around 1600 - 1800 F. Lined with brick.
Today, if anyone were caught with asbestos anywhere near a kitchen (or restaurant for that matter), they would have to live to be 150 before they could settle all the lawsuits.
Posted by: Retired in Elkridge | October 17, 2008 10:02 AM
R in E, that's a good point.
This dude came close, but no cigar:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1047397/Worlds-oldest-man-dies-age-138.html
Posted by: Sam Sessa | October 17, 2008 10:47 AM
I've passed by that place SO MANY TIMES and I NEVER KNEW!
AUUGGG!!!!!
I'll definitely be making a trip, or two, or three in the next few days :-D
Posted by: attgig | October 17, 2008 11:04 AM
Tried this earlier - seems to have flown off into the black hole in the blogosphere.
On the pizza show on The Travel Channel, they were saying that in NY such ovens are illegal unless you already had one and thus were grandfathered in. I'm guessing because of the ecologic impact, but could be fire laws or just about anything else. My mind only holds but so much information before it's saturated.
Posted by: Joyce W. | October 17, 2008 11:12 AM
Oh My - things look worse!
I googled cooking coal - seems no domestic producers (domestic sellers yes) of cooking coal - it's coming from India, China, etc.
And among the google listings are peer reviewed medical articles showing increases in lung cancer when solid fuels - particularly coal - are used.
EL - looks like a good topic for an investigative article! If ovens are sealed so that coal is being used for its heat content with no fumes, that might work - but who knows?
Posted by: EdG | October 17, 2008 11:37 AM
EdG - per Joe, "The oven burns off of anthracite (or hard coal) from reading pennsylvania."
Posted by: sean | October 17, 2008 12:15 PM
I believe this is where the anthracite comes from:
http://www.readinganthracite.com/
Posted by: sean | October 17, 2008 12:22 PM
After all this, I had to go there for lunch. We had the Mushroom Lovers pizza with andouille sausage added. It was mahvelous. Joe came out & checked on everything - apparently it was only the 5th pizza of that type from the coal oven, and the other 4 gave them problems. I'm not sure if it took 3.5 minutes, but it was pretty quick. The crust was just blackened on the edges.
The crab soup was reported to be delicious.
Posted by: sean | October 17, 2008 1:55 PM
Well, that explains a lot! I'd been to Joe's a handful of times over the past couple of years, and I loved the food but the wait time was horrendous.
My family and I visited a couple of weeks ago, and three pies were out in no time. Not dry at all, truly superb.
Posted by: Paula | October 17, 2008 1:56 PM
Wow, two good things actually come from Pottsville PA: Yuengling's and pizza oven anthracite.
Posted by: voodoopork | October 17, 2008 3:25 PM