Best WFO Pizza Yet
I've been making pizza for years with very good results. A few years ago I got a wood fired oven, anticipating to up my pizza game to a point where my pizzas would be better than anything I could get outside of Naples, Italy. Until I followed a tip from Ken Forkish's book THE ELEMENTS OF PIZZA, great WFO pizza proved to be elusive.
The tip? The hydration of dough destined for a WFO needs to be lower than that for a home oven. Since the pizza spends far less time in a WFO than a home oven (60-90 seconds vs. ~8 minutes), using high hydration prevents the crust from baking to the right doneness before the toppings burn.
Being an avid home bread baker and knowing higher hydration generally yields better loaves I had always assumed the same was true for pizza. Forkish educated me. Making pizza dough with 60% hydration (rather than to 70%+ I use for bread) yielded the WFO pizza of my dreams. Here is a pie I made last night, topped with puréed San Marzanos, fresh ricotta, sautéed spinach, nutmeg, and capicola.