Ooni Pizza Ambassador Scott shares his top tips for the perfect pizza

10 Aug, 2021

We recently spoke to Ooni Ambassador Scott, who shared with us his top tips for making the perfect pizza and of course his favourite Quicke's cheeses to put atop his pizzas.

Scott's top tips

1. If you're new to pizza making, stick to lower hydration dough. Handling high hydration dough can be very difficult. Once you're feeling confident handling the dough and have had plenty of practice, that is the time to slowly increase the hydration (if desired).

2. Keep the toppings to a minimum (less is more). The heavier you make the pizza the more difficult it will be to launch from your peel.

3. Use fine semolina to stretch out your pizza and on your peel. If you're still struggling with the pizza sticking to your peel on launch try using a tiny bit of coarse semolina on the peel too.

4. Aim for a temperature in the middle of the stone of at least 420°C. These high temperatures help give you that nice rise in the crusts and achieve the iconic "leoparding".

5. The length of time you ferment your dough should be tailored to the flour you are using. If your flour is low in protein you'll want a shorter fermentation whereas if your flour is higher in protein it will be able to handle a longer time fermenting. Dough calculators like the Ooni calculator are also very useful as they tell you how much of each ingredient you require depending on the different variables you've put in (room temperature, amount of pizzas you are making, dough hydration etc).

6. Make sure you have highly accurate weighing scales. You will probably be weighing yeast to one or two decimal places so it's important your measurements are correct.

7. Most of all, have fun and take your time. Rushing things and cutting corners can make the whole experience stressful which is not what pizza making should be like. If you take your time and prepare properly you will be rewarded with amazing pizzas.

Scott's favourite Quicke's Cheeses

"This Margherita (pictured below) was made using three awesome cheeses Devonshire Red, Oak Smoked and Buttery, and all were unbelievably tasty. I instantly thought triple cheese margherita, especially as I knew the red cheddar would give it a really cool colour. I fired up my Ooni Karu 16 and washed it down with a delicious rhubarb cloudy cider. The Ooni flew past 500°C in less than 15 minutes meaning this pizza took less than 60 seconds to cook!"