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Who says a pandemic hobby can't rise like perfectly proofed pizza dough? Jimmy Hank Pizza, a charismatic home chef who turned his pizza-making passion into an art form, joins us for a saucy and inspiring conversation. From the tale of George, once a pizza skeptic turned devout fan, to the secrets behind the perfect crispy crust, we knead through the elements that transform a simple slice into a gourmet experience. We reminisce about the good old days of childhood pizza parties and discuss how even the humble Pizza Hut played a role in our pie-loving paths. You can find Jimmy on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jimmyhankpizza
Our doughy dialogue with Jimmy dives into the technical yeast of pizza perfection, exploring everything from the merits of steel versus stone in achieving that dream crust in your home oven to the science behind selecting the best flour for your dough delight. We also dish out advice on using pizza screens and why active dry yeast might just be your new baking best buddy. Whether you're a seasoned home chef or just getting your hands floury, Jimmy's journey from New York-style slices to Sicilian squares is loaded with tips to elevate your home pizzeria game.
The crust of our conversation, however, is all about Jim's meticulous method that crowned him the Frico King of Detroit-style pizza. Sharing his logbook of variables, from atmospheric conditions to cheese choices, Jim's approach is a masterclass in culinary precision. His story of social media stardom is a slice of inspiration, reminding us that a dash of dedication and a sprinkle of creativity can turn a weekend hobby into a competitive craft. And if you ever doubted whether to toss your hat into the competitive cooking ring, Jimmy's leap from observer to competitor will have you reaching for the pizza peel.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, this is Steve from A Better Life.
This podcast is brought to youby our sponsors, premium
Botanical.
They are the makers of HerbalSpectrum, which is a
full-spectrum hemp-based CBD.
They make salves, liquids andthey have a great mixed berry
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You can check them out atwwwmypbcbdcom.
(00:25):
Now our podcast.
Hello everyone, and welcome toour podcast, a Better Life with
George and Steve.
This is a special episode.
It sure is, george.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How are you, I'm great.
Please introduce a specialepisode.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
It sure is, george.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm great, please introduce our special guest
Absolutely A good friend of mine, Jimmy Hank Pizza.
Welcome, Jim.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh, thank you, Pleasure to be on.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Now I got to tell you Jim George always told me he's
never really cared for pizza.
One day we're here and I orderpizza because we're in a rush
and he used to cook, cared forpizza One day.
One day we're here and I orderpizza because we're in a rush
and he used to cook or I cooked.
When I cooked he complained.
But because he's so picky, thekitchen's too messy, the pots
are in the wrong place.
(01:16):
So then we just ordered pizzabecause we didn't have a lot of
time.
And then he loved the pizza andhe made it.
He made me order it every.
We ordered it almost every weekand in between and talked about
it in every episode.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Was that the?
Was it Hartsdale House of Pizza?
Hartsdale House of Pizza?
Yeah, he was sending mepictures of it and I got to say
it looked fantastic.
I'm glad he's turned the corneron his opinion of pizza,
because that's all it takes is,once you have a really good one,
even if you weren't a fan ofpizza or an enthusiast, that's
all it takes, and that's where agood pizza is going to
(01:51):
differentiate itself from a badpizza.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's true.
That couldn't be any truer.
All pizza is not equal, let'sput it that way.
And this pizza that Stevebrought in.
I sent you the pictures andimmediately there's telltale
signs of a good Kraft pizza.
People who care?
The sheet that you noticedright underneath.
That's a talk about it, jim.
What?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
is that?
Oh, you mean the liner in thebox?
So, yeah, so there's, yeah.
So it's crazy that guys thatknow and when they see something
they're like, oh, just seeingthat you know it's a decent
pizza, or that they care abouttheir pizza.
Because there's a box linercompany called Perfect Crust and
they really started blowing upover the pandemic in marketing
(02:35):
their unique pizza liner.
Usually people just throw like awax paper or some sort of
there's like the corrugatedYou've probably seen the
corrugated cardboard so it justkeeps the pizza off of the
cardboard and gives it a littlebit of airflow.
That box is what you call acoffin, right, exactly, 100%.
Yeah, you throw a hot pizza ina box and you close it.
(02:55):
It's just going to steam todeath in there and all that
moisture you got to release thatmoisture from the bottom to
keep the crust crispy.
And that's where Perfect Crustthey re-imagined the liner and
their thin paper.
But they have a little bit of acorrugation.
I wouldn't really call itcorrugation, more like a relief.
There's some bumps in them andstuff, but they're also low
profile.
It's a craft thing.
(03:15):
They were really marketing topeople that were into the craft
and it caught on.
They're doing really awesome,so it's a unique shape.
So if you see that under apizza, they're doing really
awesome, so it's a unique shape.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So if you see that under a pizza, you know it's
going to be a good pizza.
So, Jim, before we get into the8 million questions we probably
have about pizza, maybe wecould just give us a little bit
of your background.
How did this life of pizza cometo be?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Man, it was all born out of the pandemic.
I've been a fan of pizza all mylife.
I'm sure, like most people are,you grow up eating pizza as a
kid.
Unfortunately for me, I didn'tgrow up in the New York City
area where I had an amazingpizza spot on every corner.
So I'm in rural Pennsylvania.
We had Pizza Hut.
We had the chains Back in theday.
(04:01):
The treat was go to Pizza Hut,you get their signature pan
pizza and you play Ms Pac-Man onthe tabletop arcade and you had
your Coke and the Red Cup andyou were living life.
Man, I miss it.
I'm going to tell you I miss.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Pizza.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Hut.
Those are the first memories ofpizza, right, and then fast
forward to married, have kids,pandemic happens.
I wasn't really.
I dabbled in it here and there,baking and pizza, but nothing
serious.
And then pandemic happened.
Have all this time on our hands, we're stuck inside.
So it started with bread.
I just started baking bread,started exploring that messing
(04:38):
around with different types ofbreads, and then I got to
thinking.
I was like maybe I should starttrying pizza, because pizza is
a little bit more versatile thanbread.
It's bread.
You make a really good bread,you have a sandwich, whatever,
but pizza is really limitlesswhen it comes to creations and
styles and toppings and whatnot.
So, yeah, I just took a deepdive and it just has been going
(05:01):
since early 2019.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You can say, the American pizza renaissance is
happening right now, all theseregional styles of pizza from
obviously New York style, butthen we have the Chicago, but
then a subset of Chicago.
You have the Detroit style,which you're really versed in
and that's become your call sign.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, I started out I wasn't really even focused on
this style and I didn't reallyknow anything about it.
I started out doing what youwould call your typical New York
style, because that's aubiquitous pizza style of
America right Around like 16 or18 inch thin crust with a little
cornichon to grab on to, and soI started figuring that style
(05:43):
out and then I was like, okay,what, what's next?
And that's the cool thing aboutpizzas there's so many
variables like so many styles,so, um, and all the doughs are
different.
I I can't even think of whatthe next style was that I tried.
It might have been like asicilian or something like that,
like pan so, but a little more.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
What were you cooking it with?
How are you doing it?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
how did you get to the just home oven, like I
started out just doing in a homeoven.
You have a stone.
I had a stone.
Stones are a little bit weirdbecause everybody like thinks
they need a stone for their oven, but then I figured out early
(06:21):
on that a steel is the way to go.
You want a piece of steelbecause it'll heat up quicker
and it'll retain the heat better, and it will also recharge the
heat faster as well too.
So if you're making multiplepizzas, it won't lose its heat
as quickly.
So, yeah, so everybody thinkslike stone, like you get your
stone like at Target or Bed,bath Beyond or whatever, like
(06:42):
they're everywhere.
But a steel is really the wayto go if you're going to be
baking in a home oven.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I've seen that.
So what temperature did you use?
Just out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Just crank it like 500.
My oven only goes to 500.
Some will go to 550.
But the cool thing about thesteels too is you can crank on a
broiler.
Just crank that top heat andthe steel will actually get
hotter than your oven will go.
Like you can get your steel to650, even if your oven only goes
(07:10):
to 500.
You just blast it with thebroiler.
So yeah, that was the thing.
I messed with that for a while.
And then another thing that'sreally good for home baking is
you've seen the pizza screenswhich, like every pizza shop has
them.
You can buy them for five buckson Amazon.
Even if you don't have a steel,a screen is awesome because
(07:31):
it's almost like a cheat code,because you can stretch your
pizza out and you have aperfectly round template to put
your pizza onto, and then youdon't have to worry about the
stress of launching your pizzadough like on a peel.
A lot of people have trouble,especially starting out
launching that pizza, and it'sgoing to stick, and then it's
not going to be round, it'sgoing to turn into a calzone,
(07:52):
worst case.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So what about flour?
So what about flour?
In the beginning did you,because I know my friend started
a pizza place and he had theregular ovens that every Italian
place.
I almost used the slang termevery.
Italian place uses and he wastrying to make more artisan
pizza and he started using 00flour and all that things and
(08:15):
then he learned that his ovensdidn't get hot enough to use
those kinds of flours, that heneeded to switch to a fine
crafted all-purpose flour and itchanged his pizza completely.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, flour is huge.
That's one thing like it'smisleading in a lot of ways.
Of course, on the Internetthere's all these Facebook
groups and it makes me laughbecause there's these pizza
groups where people are like, oh, you got to use double zero
flour if you want to make pizza.
I'm like you only want to usedouble zero flour if you're
trying to go for a trueNeapolitan 90 second bake at 950
degrees Fahrenheit, like that'sthe flour you want to use.
(08:48):
That is not.
You don't want to use doublezero.
If you're doing like a New Yorkstyle, like you want to use
almost like an all purpose oryou can even blend like an
all-purpose and a bread flour,you want something with a little
bit more protein content.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's going to give you this structure and you're
going to get a stronger,significantly higher in protein.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, you're going to get a much stronger dough, and
that's because of your equipment.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Right your home oven you can only get to that 500,
550 mark.
So you need flour with, andI've actually heard some guys
add a little bit of sugar so youcan get that leoparding and and
all that char well, yeah, andsome will add and a lot of
flours are already malted somepeople add diastatic malt to get
that coloring too, which helps.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I've messed with that too, and it definitely works
I've done that too flour iseverything and, and knowing the
work, the right flour for thestyle that you're using or the
style that you're making, makesa huge difference.
There's no one flour for justpizza.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Did you use regular yeast?
You didn't use the instantyeast, right?
No, I just used active dry and.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I still do to this day.
I dabbled in sourdough a littlebit.
It wasn't for me.
I made my own starter.
I just couldn't get in thegroove of feeding it and
maintaining it.
I do still have my starter inmy fridge.
I can revive it anytime I want.
You have it frozen or do youkeep it just in the fridge?
It's just in the fridge.
Yeah, I'll just dump off thehooch every now and then.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, if you take it and put it in the freezer.
You can leave it in there for adecade still.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
My starter's really old.
I was lucky I got starter fromBoulez when I was there once
taking a class.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
He gave me some of his starter.
I went in his basement Ishouldn't say it's not really a
basement, it was a kitchen hehad a 55-gallon drum of starter
and the thing was like alive,you could see it coming out.
It was like a science fictionmovie.
And he took a Chinese containerand put it in and gave it to me
(10:54):
.
And then I added that to mystarter and it made a
significant difference.
It certainly is.
And then I have two I starterand it made a significant
difference.
It certainly is.
And then I have two.
I have one that's organic wholewheat and then the regular.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So I like that.
You said organic whole wheat,because so what I landed on,
rather than doing sourdough, isI do a poolish and I blend 50%
whole wheat organic whole wheatwith 50% of the flour that I'm
using for the pizza that I'mmaking.
So typically, when I'm making aDetroit style pizza, I am using
(11:30):
King Arthur, sir Lancelot,which is a high gluten bread
flour.
It's like 14.5%.
It's super high protein, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I've never used it, but I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah, it's a very strong flour and it's really
good.
King Arthur flours are amazingbecause they're super consistent
and you can find them in anygrocery store in the United
States and the flour is going tobe the same For us.
It's local, it's produced inVermont.
I like keeping things local.
That's the other thing If youwant to really get into weeds on
(12:01):
flour.
The crazy thing about thoseItalian flours most of the wheat
is grown in the US, it'sshipped to Italy to be milled
and then they're shipping itback.
So it's like this flour istraveling like 10,000 miles,
like why we make amazing floursin the United States.
All the wheat is grown here.
So why not go?
You're getting the Americanwheat, it's getting milled in
(12:22):
America and especially if it's alocal, like if it's something
on the East Coast, you're goingto get that the flour is going
to be fresher.
So I'm a huge fan of KingArthur.
I've always used it.
I've tried other flours, but Ialways come back to it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So there's a local by local Hudson Valley, by us mill
that you could go up and gettheir flour, and their flour is
exceptional.
It's like an old mill, an oldgrist mill, that's not even run
with machinery.
They do it old school.
Yeah that's cool.
So it's actually on the water.
(12:55):
So the water churns the thingand churns it whatever.
There was one of those when Iused to live in Vermont.
There was one of those theretoo, but I didn't realize what I
was missing when I did it.
That's important.
Okay, you bake bread, you'rebaking pizza.
I'm not quite sure how you getto the obsession part.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I guess the obsession came when it was a combination
of things.
It was like pandemic cooped upinside, can't go and do anything
.
Social media got really big.
There was a huge surge insocial media activity at that
point.
So I started just searchingpizza on Instagram, facebook,
whatever.
I think this was even beforeTikTok.
(13:33):
When did TikTok come out?
I think it was before TikTok.
Instagram was like the bigthing then and still is to a
point.
But so, yeah, I just startedsearching pizza and the styles
and what style to do next.
And then I started seeingDetroit style, which Detroit
style took a crazy trajectoryupward.
Nobody knew what Detroit stylewas eight years ago.
(13:55):
And then Sean Randazzo, whobasically put it on the map, guy
Ressa solely passed away a fewyears ago.
He won the best pan pizza inVegas.
I think it was like 2017, maybeand that sort of put it on the
map and really people were likeDetroit style what's this?
This is pretty unique.
There's nothing like it.
So it started to spread outsideof Detroit and then other
(14:20):
people started putting their ownspin on it and it really
intrigued me.
I started seeing it's got likethe caramelized cheese and the
thicker crust.
So I started following guysthat were specializing in that,
and then I was like I becameobsessed with trying to get that
cheese crust exactly like justthat caramelization, like
(14:43):
nailing that.
So that's how I just honed inon that style.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And little by little, and now you're known as the
Frico King.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Right, yeah, so that was.
You know, it came justiteration after iteration,
trying different cheeses, tryingdifferent things, different
temperatures, different parbake,not parbake just so many
different factors.
And then I finally I can goback in my Instagram feed and I
can scroll back and I can pointyou to where I got it and I was
like that was where the lightbulb went off.
(15:11):
I was like, holy shit, there itis.
And then from that point on youcan see like all of my pizzas
that I posted were the same andI kept most bakers keep a
notebook, like if you're workingon a recipe or you're trying to
figure something out, you keepnotes.
I'm sure, steve right, Likeyou're into sourdough you keep
notes like the type of flour,the hydration, how long you went
in your fermentation, becausethe only way you're going to
(15:34):
know is to refer back and seewhat worked and what didn't work
.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And if you don't refer back, you find you stray.
You don't refer back you stray,you don't even realize you're
straying.
There's things you forget thatyou don't do, and I cook
barbecue.
So I have a huge smoker.
It's not huge but it's big.
I could do 10, 12, 15 racks ofribs in one shot, full racks.
(15:59):
And same thing, what theweather is, what the temperature
is, what the humidity is, whatdid I do?
How long did I dry?
All those things went down andthen you start as you refer to
them, you build that process,and that's the same thing with
bread and I'm sure it's exactlywith pizza.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, 100%, and you don't want to change more than
one or two variables at a timebecause then it's hard to
isolate what worked and whatdidn't work.
So, yeah, so that happened andluckily I stumbled upon it
pretty early in my wholeInstagram journey, because I
started the page what was it?
I think it was September of2020, where I was just posting
(16:39):
pizzas to my personal page andpeople were liking them and
stuff and I was like, oh, theremight be something here.
So I started the Jimmy Hankpizza page separate, where all I
did was pizza, and it startedgrowing not crazy.
But it was like, oh, there'ssomething here.
So I just started doing thatmore and posting my process.
(16:59):
And, yeah, so it just became ahobby that grew into more of a
side hustle to where I am now.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So, steve, I've known Jim for most of the pandemic
and probably a few years prior,and I've watched this
metamorphosis of his journeybecoming this pizza wunderkind.
The moment he started talkingabout hydration and then a
72-hour fermentation process, Iwas like uh-oh, this guy's going
(17:29):
way deep down that rabbit holeand, little by little, the
following's growing.
The other day, I think, one ofyour posts, jim, it hit 13
million clicks.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
It's been crazy because social media is such a
weird thing.
Love it or hate it, itdefinitely has a place and a
purpose and for marketing it'svery powerful.
And I was slogging along likedoing my posts and getting a
couple followers here and there,and then at one point I don't
even know when it was I was likeyou know what I'm going to post
(18:02):
every day for?
like 30 days and see whathappens At the same exact time
every day.
So 8 am every day, I wouldschedule posts.
I would the night before putsomething together, post it, and
this just came out of.
I have this huge library ofphotographs, which is a whole
other story, but I'm a photo nutas as well, which was another
(18:23):
hobby.
That sort of the light bulbwent off and I was like, why
don't I just start taking reallygood pictures of my pizza,
because I have all this gear.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So I started what kind of camera you use.
Come on, let's get I have asony.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I have a sony a7 4 full frame.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're right, I have a.
I have an fx3 which I justupgraded.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I was always a canon guy, always canon guy from like
the beginning, like I used to doskateboard photography when I
was a kid.
That's like where I got startedin that whole hobby.
But yeah, so I love the Sony,I'm loving it.
But yeah, so I morphed thephotography into the pizza game
and started building this wholelibrary of pizzas.
So I was like all right, so Ihad all this library of stuff.
(19:04):
That was like, okay, I can justpost a picture every day, and
that's the other thing.
Social media doesn't have to bestuff you did today.
You can go back and pick stufffrom your library and post it,
nobody knows, just post it.
So I started posting stuffevery day, just come up with a
little one-liner what it was.
And then things started growingmore so, getting more
(19:25):
engagement.
So I continued that, tryingdifferent things here and there,
and then fast forward to Iguess it was December of last
year or two years ago.
I had a reel that went crazy.
It didn't hit a million, it waslike 600 and some thousand.
And I was on vacation, we werein Aruba, and I saw this reel
started gaining all thismomentum and I was like holy
(19:47):
shit, what's going on and got aton of followers from that.
And then this past January iswhen I hit a crazy streak this
reel and it's a stupid littlesix second clip of me sliding
the spatula into the pan torelease the cheese frico, that
cheese crust it's at 25 millionviews now.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That is insane.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And from that one reel alone I think I got 20,000
followers.
You can see the analytics andit's still going.
And I have multiple reels.
Some of my friends I'm prettygood friends with some good
pizzas We'll call theminfluencers, even though I hate
the term.
They're like just they're likepost another one that's similar
in style but different, like allright.
So I post another one and, sureenough, it caught and it like
(20:35):
that one's at 5 million,whatever.
So I posted three or four thatwere like very similar but a
little bit different, and it'sjust something like that's how
the algorithm works.
It like catches the visualappearance that is similar and
it just pushes it out to people.
So, yeah, it's just.
It's really interesting howthat shit works.
And the following has beencrazy since January this year
(20:57):
and it's with followers.
They're basically currency inthe social media world.
So now people reach out forendorsements.
They want to like work with youon products and whatnot.
So it's that's like the otherpart of the side hustle to
making actually making pizzathat people can eat.
People are like consuming thepizza online visually.
(21:18):
So it's like those two differentlike streams of revenue are
working out out of this crazyside hustle that came out of a
pandemic.
It comes from passion.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It comes from persistence, consistency.
You're making pizza for yourfamily and then some of your
neighbors said they wereinterested and so you start
baking for some neighbors andthen all of a sudden it became
the neighborhood.
You would have guys come overand make orders and there's
plenty of apps out there whereyou can schedule.
So you had scheduled pickupsand whatnot.
And then you put yourself evenfurther out there and you went
(21:51):
to Vegas and competed last yearfor the first time and then this
year you just came back and wecaught up on our group chat and
I said why don't you come on ourpodcast and talk about your
journey?
So it's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Let's talk about Vegas for a minute.
So did you do othercompetitions before you went
there?
Yeah, no, so paint the picturefor us.
So how many people arecompeting?
Where is it there?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Is it invite or do you submit your application?
How did you?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
get involved there.
So I'll go back to thebeginning.
So the first pizza expo I wentto in Vegas was let's see what
we're 2024.
So it was, 2022 was the firstone, and I just went out.
I didn't compete, I just wantedto go because they took a pause
for COVID, obviously.
And then the first one afterthe COVID startup was like a
(22:40):
mini expo.
It wasn't like the full-blownthing because it was like still
like people weren't traveling,especially the Italians.
I remember like Italy was reallylocked down during the end of
COVID.
They did one and I rememberfollowing people, like my
friends on Instagram, followingpeople that were going to it,
and I'm like man that looksreally cool.
Everybody's together, hangingout, like all these people that
(23:09):
you really only met online andchatted with about pizza and
you're just like nerding outabout hydration and fermentation
online.
They're all hanging outtogether, and so I was like I
got to go next year.
So I made it a point to go, butI didn't compete Like I didn't
even know about the competitions.
Really.
I just wanted to go toexperience it.
So I went.
It was awesome, got to hang outwith everybody and it's
basically a trade show, typicaltrade show that's on a
(23:30):
convention center floor.
You got all your vendors, fromyour equipment to your ovens,
mixers, dough rollers to yourcheese vendors, your pepperoni
all the big guys are thereHormel Grande, Cheese, everybody
.
So you get to meet people thatyou've only met online.
In addition to makingconnections with vendors and the
(23:52):
other, the cool thing about itis now these vendors are really
like embracing the small guyslike me, because before COVID I
couldn't get a call with any ofthese guys.
They were like oh, you're onlygoing to buy like 60 pounds of
cheese a month.
We're not going to talk to you,we're talking pallets, we're
not talking to anybody that'snot buying a thousand pounds of
(24:13):
cheese a month.
So that was cool.
And then I saw the competitionsand some of my friends were
competing.
So then the following year Iwas like, oh, I was like maybe
I'll do it.
And one of my best Instagramsort of mentor guys who lives in
Pittsburgh Eddie Staluski,eddie's Pizza he was like just
do it, man.
He said what do you have tolose?
Just do it.
It's fun.
Like just go for the experience.
(24:35):
Like just go in without anyexpectation and just have fun
with it.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's the end of part one of our interview with
Jimmy Hank Pizza.
Thank you all for listening andwe'll see the finish in the
next episode From George and I.
Thank you all.
Hello everyone, this is Steve from A Better Life.
This podcast is brought to youby our sponsors, premium
Botanical.
They are the makers of HerbalSpectrum, which is a
full-spectrum hemp-based CBD.
They make salves, liquids andthey have a great mixed berry
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You can check them out atwwwmypbcbdcom.
(00:25):
Now our podcast.
Hello everyone, and welcome toour podcast, a Better Life with
George and Steve.
This is a special episode.
It sure is, george.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How are you, I'm great.
Please introduce a specialepisode.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
It sure is, george.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm great, please introduce our special guest
Absolutely A good friend of mine, Jimmy Hank Pizza.
Welcome, Jim.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh, thank you, Pleasure to be on.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Now I got to tell you Jim George always told me he's
never really cared for pizza.
One day we're here and I orderpizza because we're in a rush
and he used to cook, cared forpizza One day.
One day we're here and I orderpizza because we're in a rush
and he used to cook or I cooked.
When I cooked he complained.
But because he's so picky, thekitchen's too messy, the pots
are in the wrong place.
(01:16):
So then we just ordered pizzabecause we didn't have a lot of
time.
And then he loved the pizza andhe made it.
He made me order it every.
We ordered it almost every weekand in between and talked about
it in every episode.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Was that the?
Was it Hartsdale House of Pizza?
Hartsdale House of Pizza?
Yeah, he was sending mepictures of it and I got to say
it looked fantastic.
I'm glad he's turned the corneron his opinion of pizza,
because that's all it takes is,once you have a really good one,
even if you weren't a fan ofpizza or an enthusiast, that's
all it takes, and that's where agood pizza is going to
(01:51):
differentiate itself from a badpizza.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's true.
That couldn't be any truer.
All pizza is not equal, let'sput it that way.
And this pizza that Stevebrought in.
I sent you the pictures andimmediately there's telltale
signs of a good Kraft pizza.
People who care?
The sheet that you noticedright underneath.
That's a talk about it, jim.
What?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
is that?
Oh, you mean the liner in thebox?
So, yeah, so there's, yeah.
So it's crazy that guys thatknow and when they see something
they're like, oh, just seeingthat you know it's a decent
pizza, or that they care abouttheir pizza.
Because there's a box linercompany called Perfect Crust and
they really started blowing upover the pandemic in marketing
(02:35):
their unique pizza liner.
Usually people just throw like awax paper or some sort of
there's like the corrugatedYou've probably seen the
corrugated cardboard so it justkeeps the pizza off of the
cardboard and gives it a littlebit of airflow.
That box is what you call acoffin, right, exactly, 100%.
Yeah, you throw a hot pizza ina box and you close it.
(02:55):
It's just going to steam todeath in there and all that
moisture you got to release thatmoisture from the bottom to
keep the crust crispy.
And that's where Perfect Crustthey re-imagined the liner and
their thin paper.
But they have a little bit of acorrugation.
I wouldn't really call itcorrugation, more like a relief.
There's some bumps in them andstuff, but they're also low
profile.
It's a craft thing.
(03:15):
They were really marketing topeople that were into the craft
and it caught on.
They're doing really awesome,so it's a unique shape.
So if you see that under apizza, they're doing really
awesome, so it's a unique shape.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
So if you see that under a pizza, you know it's
going to be a good pizza.
So, Jim, before we get into the8 million questions we probably
have about pizza, maybe wecould just give us a little bit
of your background.
How did this life of pizza cometo be?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Man, it was all born out of the pandemic.
I've been a fan of pizza all mylife.
I'm sure, like most people are,you grow up eating pizza as a
kid.
Unfortunately for me, I didn'tgrow up in the New York City
area where I had an amazingpizza spot on every corner.
So I'm in rural Pennsylvania.
We had Pizza Hut.
We had the chains Back in theday.
(04:01):
The treat was go to Pizza Hut,you get their signature pan
pizza and you play Ms Pac-Man onthe tabletop arcade and you had
your Coke and the Red Cup andyou were living life.
Man, I miss it.
I'm going to tell you I miss.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Pizza.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Hut.
Those are the first memories ofpizza, right, and then fast
forward to married, have kids,pandemic happens.
I wasn't really.
I dabbled in it here and there,baking and pizza, but nothing
serious.
And then pandemic happened.
Have all this time on our hands, we're stuck inside.
So it started with bread.
I just started baking bread,started exploring that messing
(04:38):
around with different types ofbreads, and then I got to
thinking.
I was like maybe I should starttrying pizza, because pizza is
a little bit more versatile thanbread.
It's bread.
You make a really good bread,you have a sandwich, whatever,
but pizza is really limitlesswhen it comes to creations and
styles and toppings and whatnot.
So, yeah, I just took a deepdive and it just has been going
(05:01):
since early 2019.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You can say, the American pizza renaissance is
happening right now, all theseregional styles of pizza from
obviously New York style, butthen we have the Chicago, but
then a subset of Chicago.
You have the Detroit style,which you're really versed in
and that's become your call sign.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, I started out I wasn't really even focused on
this style and I didn't reallyknow anything about it.
I started out doing what youwould call your typical New York
style, because that's aubiquitous pizza style of
America right Around like 16 or18 inch thin crust with a little
cornichon to grab on to, and soI started figuring that style
(05:43):
out and then I was like, okay,what, what's next?
And that's the cool thing aboutpizzas there's so many
variables like so many styles,so, um, and all the doughs are
different.
I I can't even think of whatthe next style was that I tried.
It might have been like asicilian or something like that,
like pan so, but a little more.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
What were you cooking it with?
How are you doing it?
Speaker 3 (06:00):
how did you get to the just home oven, like I
started out just doing in a homeoven.
You have a stone.
I had a stone.
Stones are a little bit weirdbecause everybody like thinks
they need a stone for their oven, but then I figured out early
(06:21):
on that a steel is the way to go.
You want a piece of steelbecause it'll heat up quicker
and it'll retain the heat better, and it will also recharge the
heat faster as well too.
So if you're making multiplepizzas, it won't lose its heat
as quickly.
So, yeah, so everybody thinkslike stone, like you get your
stone like at Target or Bed,bath Beyond or whatever, like
(06:42):
they're everywhere.
But a steel is really the wayto go if you're going to be
baking in a home oven.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I've seen that.
So what temperature did you use?
Just out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Just crank it like 500.
My oven only goes to 500.
Some will go to 550.
But the cool thing about thesteels too is you can crank on a
broiler.
Just crank that top heat andthe steel will actually get
hotter than your oven will go.
Like you can get your steel to650, even if your oven only goes
(07:10):
to 500.
You just blast it with thebroiler.
So yeah, that was the thing.
I messed with that for a while.
And then another thing that'sreally good for home baking is
you've seen the pizza screenswhich, like every pizza shop has
them.
You can buy them for five buckson Amazon.
Even if you don't have a steel,a screen is awesome because
(07:31):
it's almost like a cheat code,because you can stretch your
pizza out and you have aperfectly round template to put
your pizza onto, and then youdon't have to worry about the
stress of launching your pizzadough like on a peel.
A lot of people have trouble,especially starting out
launching that pizza, and it'sgoing to stick, and then it's
not going to be round, it'sgoing to turn into a calzone,
(07:52):
worst case.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
So what about flour?
So what about flour?
In the beginning did you,because I know my friend started
a pizza place and he had theregular ovens that every Italian
place.
I almost used the slang termevery.
Italian place uses and he wastrying to make more artisan
pizza and he started using 00flour and all that things and
(08:15):
then he learned that his ovensdidn't get hot enough to use
those kinds of flours, that heneeded to switch to a fine
crafted all-purpose flour and itchanged his pizza completely.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, flour is huge.
That's one thing like it'smisleading in a lot of ways.
Of course, on the Internetthere's all these Facebook
groups and it makes me laughbecause there's these pizza
groups where people are like, oh, you got to use double zero
flour if you want to make pizza.
I'm like you only want to usedouble zero flour if you're
trying to go for a trueNeapolitan 90 second bake at 950
degrees Fahrenheit, like that'sthe flour you want to use.
(08:48):
That is not.
You don't want to use doublezero.
If you're doing like a New Yorkstyle, like you want to use
almost like an all purpose oryou can even blend like an
all-purpose and a bread flour,you want something with a little
bit more protein content.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
That's going to give you this structure and you're
going to get a stronger,significantly higher in protein.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Yeah, you're going to get a much stronger dough, and
that's because of your equipment.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Right your home oven you can only get to that 500,
550 mark.
So you need flour with, andI've actually heard some guys
add a little bit of sugar so youcan get that leoparding and and
all that char well, yeah, andsome will add and a lot of
flours are already malted somepeople add diastatic malt to get
that coloring too, which helps.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I've messed with that too, and it definitely works
I've done that too flour iseverything and, and knowing the
work, the right flour for thestyle that you're using or the
style that you're making, makesa huge difference.
There's no one flour for justpizza.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Did you use regular yeast?
You didn't use the instantyeast, right?
No, I just used active dry and.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I still do to this day.
I dabbled in sourdough a littlebit.
It wasn't for me.
I made my own starter.
I just couldn't get in thegroove of feeding it and
maintaining it.
I do still have my starter inmy fridge.
I can revive it anytime I want.
You have it frozen or do youkeep it just in the fridge?
It's just in the fridge.
Yeah, I'll just dump off thehooch every now and then.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, if you take it and put it in the freezer.
You can leave it in there for adecade still.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
My starter's really old.
I was lucky I got starter fromBoulez when I was there once
taking a class.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
He gave me some of his starter.
I went in his basement Ishouldn't say it's not really a
basement, it was a kitchen hehad a 55-gallon drum of starter
and the thing was like alive,you could see it coming out.
It was like a science fictionmovie.
And he took a Chinese containerand put it in and gave it to me
(10:54):
.
And then I added that to mystarter and it made a
significant difference.
It certainly is.
And then I have two I starterand it made a significant
difference.
It certainly is.
And then I have two.
I have one that's organic wholewheat and then the regular.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So I like that.
You said organic whole wheat,because so what I landed on,
rather than doing sourdough, isI do a poolish and I blend 50%
whole wheat organic whole wheatwith 50% of the flour that I'm
using for the pizza that I'mmaking.
So typically, when I'm making aDetroit style pizza, I am using
(11:30):
King Arthur, sir Lancelot,which is a high gluten bread
flour.
It's like 14.5%.
It's super high protein, yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
I've never used it, but I've seen it.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah, it's a very strong flour and it's really
good.
King Arthur flours are amazingbecause they're super consistent
and you can find them in anygrocery store in the United
States and the flour is going tobe the same For us.
It's local, it's produced inVermont.
I like keeping things local.
That's the other thing If youwant to really get into weeds on
(12:01):
flour.
The crazy thing about thoseItalian flours most of the wheat
is grown in the US, it'sshipped to Italy to be milled
and then they're shipping itback.
So it's like this flour istraveling like 10,000 miles,
like why we make amazing floursin the United States.
All the wheat is grown here.
So why not go?
You're getting the Americanwheat, it's getting milled in
(12:22):
America and especially if it's alocal, like if it's something
on the East Coast, you're goingto get that the flour is going
to be fresher.
So I'm a huge fan of KingArthur.
I've always used it.
I've tried other flours, but Ialways come back to it.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So there's a local by local Hudson Valley, by us mill
that you could go up and gettheir flour, and their flour is
exceptional.
It's like an old mill, an oldgrist mill, that's not even run
with machinery.
They do it old school.
Yeah that's cool.
So it's actually on the water.
(12:55):
So the water churns the thingand churns it whatever.
There was one of those when Iused to live in Vermont.
There was one of those theretoo, but I didn't realize what I
was missing when I did it.
That's important.
Okay, you bake bread, you'rebaking pizza.
I'm not quite sure how you getto the obsession part.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
I guess the obsession came when it was a combination
of things.
It was like pandemic cooped upinside, can't go and do anything
.
Social media got really big.
There was a huge surge insocial media activity at that
point.
So I started just searchingpizza on Instagram, facebook,
whatever.
I think this was even beforeTikTok.
(13:33):
When did TikTok come out?
I think it was before TikTok.
Instagram was like the bigthing then and still is to a
point.
But so, yeah, I just startedsearching pizza and the styles
and what style to do next.
And then I started seeingDetroit style, which Detroit
style took a crazy trajectoryupward.
Nobody knew what Detroit stylewas eight years ago.
(13:55):
And then Sean Randazzo, whobasically put it on the map, guy
Ressa solely passed away a fewyears ago.
He won the best pan pizza inVegas.
I think it was like 2017, maybeand that sort of put it on the
map and really people were likeDetroit style what's this?
This is pretty unique.
There's nothing like it.
So it started to spread outsideof Detroit and then other
(14:20):
people started putting their ownspin on it and it really
intrigued me.
I started seeing it's got likethe caramelized cheese and the
thicker crust.
So I started following guysthat were specializing in that,
and then I was like I becameobsessed with trying to get that
cheese crust exactly like justthat caramelization, like
(14:43):
nailing that.
So that's how I just honed inon that style.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
And little by little, and now you're known as the
Frico King.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Right, yeah, so that was.
You know, it came justiteration after iteration,
trying different cheeses, tryingdifferent things, different
temperatures, different parbake,not parbake just so many
different factors.
And then I finally I can goback in my Instagram feed and I
can scroll back and I can pointyou to where I got it and I was
like that was where the lightbulb went off.
(15:11):
I was like, holy shit, there itis.
And then from that point on youcan see like all of my pizzas
that I posted were the same andI kept most bakers keep a
notebook, like if you're workingon a recipe or you're trying to
figure something out, you keepnotes.
I'm sure, steve right, Likeyou're into sourdough you keep
notes like the type of flour,the hydration, how long you went
in your fermentation, becausethe only way you're going to
(15:34):
know is to refer back and seewhat worked and what didn't work
.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And if you don't refer back, you find you stray.
You don't refer back you stray,you don't even realize you're
straying.
There's things you forget thatyou don't do, and I cook
barbecue.
So I have a huge smoker.
It's not huge but it's big.
I could do 10, 12, 15 racks ofribs in one shot, full racks.
(15:59):
And same thing, what theweather is, what the temperature
is, what the humidity is, whatdid I do?
How long did I dry?
All those things went down andthen you start as you refer to
them, you build that process,and that's the same thing with
bread and I'm sure it's exactlywith pizza.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, 100%, and you don't want to change more than
one or two variables at a timebecause then it's hard to
isolate what worked and whatdidn't work.
So, yeah, so that happened andluckily I stumbled upon it
pretty early in my wholeInstagram journey, because I
started the page what was it?
I think it was September of2020, where I was just posting
(16:39):
pizzas to my personal page andpeople were liking them and
stuff and I was like, oh, theremight be something here.
So I started the Jimmy Hankpizza page separate, where all I
did was pizza, and it startedgrowing not crazy.
But it was like, oh, there'ssomething here.
So I just started doing thatmore and posting my process.
(16:59):
And, yeah, so it just became ahobby that grew into more of a
side hustle to where I am now.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So, steve, I've known Jim for most of the pandemic
and probably a few years prior,and I've watched this
metamorphosis of his journeybecoming this pizza wunderkind.
The moment he started talkingabout hydration and then a
72-hour fermentation process, Iwas like uh-oh, this guy's going
(17:29):
way deep down that rabbit holeand, little by little, the
following's growing.
The other day, I think, one ofyour posts, jim, it hit 13
million clicks.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
It's been crazy because social media is such a
weird thing.
Love it or hate it, itdefinitely has a place and a
purpose and for marketing it'svery powerful.
And I was slogging along likedoing my posts and getting a
couple followers here and there,and then at one point I don't
even know when it was I was likeyou know what I'm going to post
(18:02):
every day for?
like 30 days and see whathappens At the same exact time
every day.
So 8 am every day, I wouldschedule posts.
I would the night before putsomething together, post it, and
this just came out of.
I have this huge library ofphotographs, which is a whole
other story, but I'm a photo nutas as well, which was another
(18:23):
hobby.
That sort of the light bulbwent off and I was like, why
don't I just start taking reallygood pictures of my pizza,
because I have all this gear.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
So I started what kind of camera you use.
Come on, let's get I have asony.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I have a sony a7 4 full frame.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're right, I have a.
I have an fx3 which I justupgraded.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
I was always a canon guy, always canon guy from like
the beginning, like I used to doskateboard photography when I
was a kid.
That's like where I got startedin that whole hobby.
But yeah, so I love the Sony,I'm loving it.
But yeah, so I morphed thephotography into the pizza game
and started building this wholelibrary of pizzas.
So I was like all right, so Ihad all this library of stuff.
(19:04):
That was like, okay, I can justpost a picture every day, and
that's the other thing.
Social media doesn't have to bestuff you did today.
You can go back and pick stufffrom your library and post it,
nobody knows, just post it.
So I started posting stuffevery day, just come up with a
little one-liner what it was.
And then things started growingmore so, getting more
(19:25):
engagement.
So I continued that, tryingdifferent things here and there,
and then fast forward to Iguess it was December of last
year or two years ago.
I had a reel that went crazy.
It didn't hit a million, it waslike 600 and some thousand.
And I was on vacation, we werein Aruba, and I saw this reel
started gaining all thismomentum and I was like holy
(19:47):
shit, what's going on and got aton of followers from that.
And then this past January iswhen I hit a crazy streak this
reel and it's a stupid littlesix second clip of me sliding
the spatula into the pan torelease the cheese frico, that
cheese crust it's at 25 millionviews now.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
That is insane.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And from that one reel alone I think I got 20,000
followers.
You can see the analytics andit's still going.
And I have multiple reels.
Some of my friends I'm prettygood friends with some good
pizzas We'll call theminfluencers, even though I hate
the term.
They're like just they're likepost another one that's similar
in style but different, like allright.
So I post another one and, sureenough, it caught and it like
(20:35):
that one's at 5 million,whatever.
So I posted three or four thatwere like very similar but a
little bit different, and it'sjust something like that's how
the algorithm works.
It like catches the visualappearance that is similar and
it just pushes it out to people.
So, yeah, it's just.
It's really interesting howthat shit works.
And the following has beencrazy since January this year
(20:57):
and it's with followers.
They're basically currency inthe social media world.
So now people reach out forendorsements.
They want to like work with youon products and whatnot.
So it's that's like the otherpart of the side hustle to
making actually making pizzathat people can eat.
People are like consuming thepizza online visually.
(21:18):
So it's like those two differentlike streams of revenue are
working out out of this crazyside hustle that came out of a
pandemic.
It comes from passion.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It comes from persistence, consistency.
You're making pizza for yourfamily and then some of your
neighbors said they wereinterested and so you start
baking for some neighbors andthen all of a sudden it became
the neighborhood.
You would have guys come overand make orders and there's
plenty of apps out there whereyou can schedule.
So you had scheduled pickupsand whatnot.
And then you put yourself evenfurther out there and you went
(21:51):
to Vegas and competed last yearfor the first time and then this
year you just came back and wecaught up on our group chat and
I said why don't you come on ourpodcast and talk about your
journey?
So it's funny.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Let's talk about Vegas for a minute.
So did you do othercompetitions before you went
there?
Yeah, no, so paint the picturefor us.
So how many people arecompeting?
Where is it there?
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Is it invite or do you submit your application?
How did you?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
get involved there.
So I'll go back to thebeginning.
So the first pizza expo I wentto in Vegas was let's see what
we're 2024.
So it was, 2022 was the firstone, and I just went out.
I didn't compete, I just wantedto go because they took a pause
for COVID, obviously.
And then the first one afterthe COVID startup was like a
(22:40):
mini expo.
It wasn't like the full-blownthing because it was like still
like people weren't traveling,especially the Italians.
I remember like Italy was reallylocked down during the end of
COVID.
They did one and I rememberfollowing people, like my
friends on Instagram, followingpeople that were going to it,
and I'm like man that looksreally cool.
Everybody's together, hangingout, like all these people that
(23:09):
you really only met online andchatted with about pizza and
you're just like nerding outabout hydration and fermentation
online.
They're all hanging outtogether, and so I was like I
got to go next year.
So I made it a point to go, butI didn't compete Like I didn't
even know about the competitions.
Really.
I just wanted to go toexperience it.
So I went.
It was awesome, got to hang outwith everybody and it's
basically a trade show, typicaltrade show that's on a
(23:30):
convention center floor.
You got all your vendors, fromyour equipment to your ovens,
mixers, dough rollers to yourcheese vendors, your pepperoni
all the big guys are thereHormel Grande, Cheese, everybody
.
So you get to meet people thatyou've only met online.
In addition to makingconnections with vendors and the
(23:52):
other, the cool thing about itis now these vendors are really
like embracing the small guyslike me, because before COVID I
couldn't get a call with any ofthese guys.
They were like oh, you're onlygoing to buy like 60 pounds of
cheese a month.
We're not going to talk to you,we're talking pallets, we're
not talking to anybody that'snot buying a thousand pounds of
(24:13):
cheese a month.
So that was cool.
And then I saw the competitionsand some of my friends were
competing.
So then the following year Iwas like, oh, I was like maybe
I'll do it.
And one of my best Instagramsort of mentor guys who lives in
Pittsburgh Eddie Staluski,eddie's Pizza he was like just
do it, man.
He said what do you have tolose?
Just do it.
It's fun.
Like just go for the experience.
(24:35):
Like just go in without anyexpectation and just have fun
with it.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's the end of part one of our interview with
Jimmy Hank Pizza.
Thank you all for listening andwe'll see the finish in the
next episode From George and I.
Thank you all.
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.