Coal Fire Pizza, Ellicott City, MD

Opening in April 2009 in Ellicott City’s new Shipley’s Grant development and influenced by Anthony’s Coal Fire Pizza in Florida, Coal Fire Pizza has been creating quite a buzz in Howard County, with multiple mentions and reviews including some comments on Adam Kuban’s superlative pizza blog Slice and two excellent reviews on HowChow and on GrubGrade. I’ve now been to Coal Fire Pizza (CFP) seven times and have talked with CFP’s general manager, Steven Santos. Steve is the person you want to see manning the oven when you visit here. You can see a picture of Steve, as well as a nice shot of the oven at Coal Fire, here.

Service during my visits has generally been very friendly and attentive. Service is sit down and along with pizza, a variety of other items are offered as well, including some items which are also cooked in the coal fired oven. There is a full service bar at CFP and among the beer selection is Anchor Liberty Ale, which goes very well with most pizzas.

About the oven. There has been a lot of speculation as to what it is and how it works. Steve even mentioned some patron comments have included, “that is the best looking decorative coal I have ever seen”, among other comments as to whether coal is in fact burned in the oven at Coal Fire Pizza. Here is the skinny on the oven, once and for all.

The oven at Coal Fire Pizza is manufactured by Wood Stone and is a Fire Deck Series Coal Fired Pizza Oven. The custom ceramic domed oven utilizes three heat sources in an effort to help combat the loss of heat that occurs when pizzas are cooked, particularly when business is heavy and many pizzas are baked over a short time span.

Custom Tiled Wood Stone Oven at Coal Fire Pizza

On the right side of the oven is the coal pile, which is definitely real. Looking through my camera lens while zoomed, I could clearly see the hazy, moving air emanating from the coal, which indicates a lot of BTUs coming from the pile. Steve mentioned he has an infrared thermometer which reads up to 1400°F and when he points it towards the middle of the coal pile, the thermometer immediately pegs out at its maximum reading. The Wood Stone oven even has ventilation which helps induce air flow into the coal pile in order to keep it happily fueled with oxygen.

The left side of the oven is where you can clearly see the flames from the gas fueled portion of the oven. This side of the oven is used to help moderate temperature loss, as the intensity of the heat from this side of the oven can be quickly increased to help maintain oven temperatures while many pizzas are being cooked. Finally, there is also an infrared heating element in the floor of the oven, which is automatically triggered when the temperature of the oven floor falls to a minimum “Hearth Set Point”, which has been set at 580°F in my prior visits to CFP. In the picture below, you can clearly see the hearth set point programmed at 580°F and the actual oven floor temperature, as measured by the temperature gauge buried one inch under the oven floor, at 619°F. I didn’t want to ask Steve to point his infrared gun towards the top of the oven, but with a floor of 619°F, I speculate the heat reflecting off the top of the dome is somewhere in the 700°F to 800°F range.

Oven Guage and Hearth Set Point

Check out this link to see what the oven looks like before being closed in with the nice looking small, glass tiles used by Coal Fire Pizza. You can read more technical details about the Wood Stone Oven Coal Fired Pizza Oven WS Fire Deck Series, if you like. Wood Stone also has an interesting page which talks about the challenges of using coal and additional specifics about their coal fired ovens. All of your coal fired oven questions can be answered in these pages. I have never seen or heard of a pizza being cooked in a coal fired (either only coal or a hybrid) oven with a floor temperature this low and was worried the longer bake time may result in a crust which would be dried out, which in fact can occur with the pizzas at CFP from time to time.

On my initial visit, my margherita pizza clocked in with a cooking time of 4:54 and had been transformed from a thin disk of dough to a char crusted, thin disk bubbling with sauce and melted mozzarella. After a quick application of fresh basil, my server Caitie brought the finished pizza, sliced and presented on a short-handled pizza peel, to my table and rested it on a metal stand. Given all the hype surrounding Coal Fire Pizza (CFP), I couldn’t remember the last time I ate a pizza in Maryland with this much anticipation.

I started taking various close-up photos of the pizza and smelling it. At this point, Steve came over and mentioned “You’ve got me all nervous now” and we struck up a short conversation while I ate. While some pizza makers are somewhat reticent to talk about specific ingredients or aspects of how they make pizza, Steve was very friendly and forthcoming about CFP. Having worked for many years in an Italian restaurant/store in West Virginia, Steve’s involvement with CFP apparently started while tailgating at a Redskins football game with the owners. While I did not ask Steve all of the questions going through my mind, I did learn some interesting tidbits about the pizzas at CFP.

Coal Fire Pizza formulates their dough with Gold Medal All Trumps high gluten flour and allows the dough to cold rise in their walk-in for forty-two hours, which is a much longer rise than most pizzerias would ever consider. Generally, a longer rise allows more flavors to be developed from fermentation by-products. In addition, while bakers yeast is added to the dough bill, Steve also mentioned he adds a portion of “old” dough from the previous batch into each new batch when making pizza, which usually gives a finished pizza varying degrees of additional flavor to the crust, depending on the amount of “old” dough added to the new dough. After the cold rise, the dough balls are then allowed to warm up during a final bench rise and then are hand patted into a circular shape before being fired in the oven.

Since talking with Steve about the process on my initial visit, I do not know if the process is the same or not. Hey, on to the pizza already, ya blabbering fool!

Margherita at Coal Fire Pizza

CFP now makes their mozzarella in house, after initially sourcing their mootz from Ceriello in The Market at Baltimore’s Belvedere Square. Most pizzas are topped with a restrained amount of mozzarella, allowing some areas of the pizza to just have sauce alone, which is just how I prefer a margherita to be cooked. High quality ingredients, restraint and good balance is a big part of what very good pizza is all about. The end crust at CFP is usually a bit pocked and uneven in places and personally I would like to see a more risen, uniform cornicione on the pizza, but that’s just my preference.

These are quite thin pizzas, about the same thickness as Joe Squared and maybe a tad thicker than Iggies, two Baltimore City locations offering solid interpretations of thin crust pizza, which seems to be gaining popularity as a pizza style here in Maryland. The very thin slices do experience a little tip sag, as evidenced in the picture below, but do not collapse due to the strength of the All Trumps high gluten flour. Upskirt peeks underneath the crust will usually reveal a good char, but lately it seems like the pizzas at CFP are overcooked.

Upskirts on two pieces of pizza.

Tip Shot

On a good day the margherita at CFP can be quite good…..I’ve actually eaten a whole damned pizza and didn’t feel bogged down or greasy in the least when finished. When running on all cylinders and when Steve Santos is cooking the pizzas, the crust is usually crispy-chewy, with the outside of the crust having a nice, thin crispness to it, which yields to a decent chewiness inside. However, too often the crust here can be a little dry inside of the thin end-crust and given the lengthy fermentation time and adding a portion of old dough from the previous batch, one would expect more developed flavors in the crust here (assuming the yeast is added in an appropriate amount as to not consume all of the freed-up sugars in the dough before being fired in the oven).

On good days, the “Classic” tomato sauce at CFP is very fresh and does a fine job of balancing out the crust and the bittering notes from the char. It can have a pleasing tomato flavor, is naturally sweet, bright and is often kicked up with a healthy dosing of fresh pepper. Steve confirmed my questioning about the relatively large amount of pepper being added and mentioned the Margherita gets a nice dose of pepper added to the sauce. The amount added is noticeable, but not irritating and compliments the herbal pepperiness of the fresh basil very well. The tangy, slightly salty quality of the house made mozzarella, added in a thoughtful amount, melds in perfectly with the sauce, basil and crust on the margherita.

Margherita at Coal Fire Pizza on an off-day. Overcooked and dry

CFP also offers two other sauces, a “Spicy” sauce (not tried) and a “Signature” sauce, which is a mix of the Classic and Spicy sauces. For me personally, the Signature sauce is entirely too sweet and the “Coal Fire Signature” pizza is very much so (see 11/29/09 update below).  However, those of you who enjoy sweeter flavors may be all over this pizza, so enjoy if you do!

It is readily apparent, both from talking to him and from the pizzas I tasted here when they first opened, that Steve is committed to making a high quality product, to using local ingredients and, more importantly, he cares about the pizzas being made here. A lot of the time most of the attention is given to the ingredients being used or to the type of oven being employed to cook the pizzas at a particular establishment. It’s easy to forget the most important asset at any pizzeria is the person making and cooking the pizzas. If you visit Coal Fire Pizza and see Steve manning the ovens, you are in good hands. By the same token, some of the newer pizzamakers are not up to speed and the pizzas at CFP suffer when Steve is not making them.  Hopefully this will improve soon as the new crew gains experience.

This pizza is not in the same league as some of the more well known New York coal fired pizzerias, but on a good day Coal Fire Pizza can be pretty darned good. With Steve’s commitment to making good pizza, tinkering with making house made mozzarella and already crafting  well balanced, thin crusted pizzas with very good char and high quality toppings, Howard County residents appear to have a bonafide winner if the quality and, most importantly, consistency of the pizzas at CFP return to what I experienced over the Summer and early Fall of 2009.

End crust and pizza detail in sunlight from a good day

(UPDATE: 7/8/2009) Susquahanna Photographic has posted an awesome pictorial review of Coal Fire Pizza here. Papa Blogger, a tough pizza critic in his own right whose opinion I trust, phoned me yesterday with another positive affirmation, mentioning his margherita was “very, very good”. An another note and to be fair, I do see some grumblings about Coal Fire Pizza on some forums and comments on other blogs, many of which come from people visiting Coal Fire Pizza during busier evening hours and peak weekend hours. Coal Fire may still have some kinks to work out during busier rushes and I plan to visit during the weekend to see if this may be true. For now, I definitely recommend going to Coal Fire Pizza, or any pizzeria for that matter, during slower mid-afternoon or early evening week day hours to help ensure you obtain a quality pizza.

(UPDATE: 11/17/2009) Read about a recent visit to Coal Fire Pizza as part of the recent Margherita Wars.

(UPDATE: 11/21/2009)Another disappointing visit to Coal Fire Pizza on an early Saturday evening. Mrs. Blogger and I ordered two pizzas, a 16″ margherita ($14.95) and a 12″ Coal Fire Signature (roasted red peppers, red onions and signature sauce, $13.95). The combination of sweet red peppers and the signature sauce on the Signature pizza is too sweet for my tastes, but may work very well for someone who likes a sweet note in their pizza. Steve Santos was not manning the oven and the resultant pizzas showed it, with dried out crusts. Hopefully the pizzamaking and oven staff will get up to speed quickly.

(UPDATE: 1/5/2010) Is CFP losing it’s way or is this just a bump in the road? Papa Blogger chimes in on another disappointing outing to CFP. Steve Santos, I’m a big fan of you and am rooting for you guys….let’s get the ball rolling again!

Snapshot: On a good day, pizza here is thin crusted, pleasantly charred and tasty goodness topped with quality sauces, home made mozzarella cheese and high quality toppings which are used with restraint, resulting in pizzas with a good balance of flavors and a solid harmony of crispy, soft, dry and wet textures. CFP can be one of the very best places to order pizza in the state of Maryland on a good day, with a nice space, good service and a friendly staff  to boot. However, inconsistency has raised its head here over the last three months and the pizzas have suffered as the result during my last four visits.

Coal Fire Pizza
5725 Richards Valley Road (directly off of Route 108, map)
Ellicott City, MD 21043
(410)480-2625

Hours
Sunday to Tuesday: 11:30am to 10:00pm
Wednesday, Thursday: 11:30am to 11:00pm
Friday, Saturday: 11:30am to 12:00am