EUREKA

Aside from the day I “met” my wife (online) or the day we married–no, wait–aside from the day I accepted salvation, the day I received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, AND the days I “met” and married my wife (bases covered now), today is the most triumphant day of my life. I stuck it to the greenies by modifying my old-fashioned eco-hostile washing machine to make the inlet valve easier to clean, and I made the best thin pizza I have ever had.

I got myself a Maytag Commercial washer from Lowe’s last year. It would have been better to get a sister model from another vendor, because the Lowe’s job has a shorter warranty, but I needed a washer fast, and Lowe’s was ready. I got the washer because my old clothes-fermenting Samsung washer was making new noises.

The people who used to own this house weren’t cheap, so they got very expensive laundry machines. Unfortunately, they bought them after Uncle Sam (more like Aunt Sam or maybe Uncle Rupaul) ruined washers with stupid environmentalist rules. Newer washers use too little water, and they never dry out, so they make clothing stink with mildew. There is no remedy for this. If you’ve ever stood next to someone and assumed he smelled like mildew because he was a filthy person, you were almost certainly wrong. Everyone who uses a greenie machine smells like mildew on warm days.

My Samsung started making noise, and I leapt for joy, because I was awaiting the day when I would have an excuse to junk it. I didn’t even consider having it repaired. I had already done my research. Speed Queen used to make good washers, but they stopped. Maytag was the best option.

The Maytag will do a load of clothes in 27 minutes instead of the 90 minutes the Samsung needed, and it only has minimal electronics, so I don’t have to worry about trying to buy a discontinued computer in the future. It uses tons of water, and it dries out between uses. It’s the best.

Problem: the inlet screens were not removable.

Washers typically have hot and cold water inlets in the back, and these inlets are almost always fitted with internal plastic screens you can pull out and clean. This keeps rocks out of your clothing. I can’t believe tiny rocks will damage clothes, and I doubt they hurt washers, since washing machine instructions never say, “Don’t put muddy clothes in machine.” The screens are there, however, so you have to live with them.

My water has a lot of rocks in it, so every few months, the washer starts making scary sounds. Then it quits. The first time this happened, I thought it was broken. No. It was just whining.

I saw that the inlet screens were full of crud, so I tried to pull one out. It would not budge. I couldn’t get it out with pliers. Turning it didn’t help. It wasn’t screwed in. It was a permanent fixture.

Things like this remind me that every engineering class has a bottom 5%.

To clean the screens, I had to pull the washer out into the room, remove the hoses, and use things like an old toothbrush. Unacceptable.

I didn’t want to butcher the original valve. Some day I may need warranty service, and I don’t want the lonely Maytag guy to look at my modified valve, tell me I’ve been a bad boy, and refuse to work on the machine. I decided it was worth it to buy a whole new valve assembly. I forget what it cost. Probably around $60.

I also bought some removable screens made for other washers. You can find them on Amazon. I got 4 for about $7.

I took the new valve and ripped the screens out of it. I shoved new ones in. They fit perfectly. I was ready. I stored the valve assembly in the laundry room and waited for the day when the washer started whining again. Today is that day.

In order to get the old valve out, I had to take the control panel off the machine. That was impossible, because it was held on with special Torx screws that require bits with cavities in the ends. Tamper-proof screws, because, as everyone knows, repairing your own belongings is TAMPERING. I gave up and called Maytag.

Are you high? Do you really think I don’t have a huge supply of tamper-proof bits? Did you seriously fall for that? I got the bits out, took the washer apart, slapped the new valve in there so it looked OEM, stored the old valve, and washed my clothes.

The next time the rocks build up, I can remove a hose, pull a screen out, rinse it in the sink, reverse the procedure, and go back to making pizza or whatever. If the washer develops any other problems during the warranty period, I’ll put the old valve back in before the repair guy arrives.

Is it wrong to play warranty tricks on Maytag? Sometimes. If I had a CNC shop, and I decided to make my own souped-up washer transmission, and it ruined the machine, it would be wrong to put the old transmission back in and pretend it had always been in there. Inlet screens are different. The screens I put in do the same job the old ones did, only better. It will be impossible for them to harm the machine. It would be unfair for Maytag to use inlet screens as an excuse to cheat me out of warranty work.

Corporations play that game sometimes. Some won’t touch a product that has been opened by a consumer. That’s just plain evil, so I don’t feel bound to cooperate.

I only have a three-year warranty, and I probably won’t get to use it, so I don’t think my subterfuge will ever come into play in a repair situation. I still think the money I spent on the new valve was well worth it. A non-warranty repair on a major part could cost a great deal. Also, inlet valves go bad often, and now I have a replacement valve ready to go.

As for pizza, today I had the best thin pizza ever, from any source, anywhere. I am done searching. I’m sure I will continue tinkering, but the recipe I used is recorded and stored, and unless a miracle happens and I manage to improve it, I will use it until I die.

The best thing about it is that it didn’t take a day or more to prepare. People claim you have to let dough ferment for over a day, preferably in a refrigerator. I did that a few days back, and today’s pizza, which rose over about 4 hours, was better. The texture and flavor were magnificent. It puffed up nicely. It had big bubbles, which I like. It browned beautifully. I literally start to drift into a dream state when I close my eyes and remember how it tasted.

I used the last recipe I posted here. I made the dough with cold water to slow down the rise, and I proofed it at 75° on my kitchen counter, on a pan, under a glass bowl to reduce evaporation. It took around 4 hours, not 24. I suppose it could be 2% better if Gordon Ramsay moved in and worked on it for a month, but I have never eaten its equal.

For cheese, I used about 3 ounces of Boar’s Head low-moisture, whole milk mozzarella from the Publix deli, sliced, combined with Sargento thin-sliced provolone. I put the provolone on top because it doesn’t burn easily. Anyone can find these cheeses or their equivalents. No Internet orders or road trips needed.

Walmart sells LMWM mozzarella in blocks for $3.68 per pound. I plan to try it. Boar’s Head costs $10 per pound, which is impossible to justify based on the manufacturer’s cost. If other companies can sell it for less than half that price, Boar’s Head has to be overpriced.

I plan to get a piece of steel for pizza. People say steel is better than a pizza stone. A good pizza steel only costs $139 on the web, so why not?

You believed that? You really thought I would pay that? I’m going to my metal dealer. I’ll bet I can get a 15″ square of 3/8″ plate for under $25.

I don’t know what kind of tool-illiterate leggings-wearing morphodite would pay $140 for a piece of steel plate, but he isn’t me.

It must seem silly for a grown man to get so excited about pizza, but I have been trying to get to this point for decades. I summited the Sicilian pizza mountain 12 years ago, but I was never completely certain my thin pizza was perfect until today. It was good. No restaurant I knew could touch it. But it wasn’t my dream New-York-style pie.

This must be how Edison felt when he stumbled on tungsten.

The only thing left for me to perfect is fried chicken. I have no other food Everests to conquer. There are innumerable things I don’t know how to cook, but then I don’t want to cook them. I know how to make everything I want.

Except chicken.

Pizza is unbelievably difficult. An ideal pizza you picture in your mind is an extremely elusive target. When you make recipe changes you are sure will work, they will often move you further away from your goal. It’s maddening. The really annoying thing about it is that once you get your recipe dialed in, making it over and over is simple. The execution is a joke. The search for the recipe is what crushes your soul.

I ate an entire 12″ pizza earlier, and I want to make another one right now, even though I’m not hungry. I want to relive my victory. I’m not going to do it, but I want to.

I bought two pounds of cheese today. I may have to chain myself to something.