Beer in Pizza Dough?

[Clint Yeastwood]

Anyone here every try beer instead of water in pizza dough? I saw Jeremy Clarkson eating bread made with his own lager, and it sounded like it might be a good idea.

I'm making a batch right now with lager.

 

[Henbrew]

I've considered trying this but haven't had a style on tap that I'd like to use. I've used DME in my pizza dough and enjoy the results, adds a bit more complexity.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I have used diastatic malt from Amazon in dough. It sure makes a difference.

I went over to pizzamaking.com and asked around. A guy called Tom N started a long thread about this. Turns out beer is a great dough ingredient. I can't wait to see how today's pie turns out.

Now...what about beer in sauce?

 

[mac_1103]

Now...what about beer in sauce?

What are you looking for? When are you thinking about adding it?

 

[Red over White]

I use diastatic malt powder and built water or beer with a hard water profile. All the best pizzas I have had when traveling are from cities with hard water. I have soft water from the tap and it's not as good tasting to me.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I'm using beer in the dough and I'm using beer in the sauce, too. I use commercial sauce which always has to have fluid added.

 

[mac_1103]

I use commercial sauce

Well that's your problem right there.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

How is commercial sauce a problem?

 

[mac_1103]

How is commercial dough a problem? I just found it mildly amusing that you make your own dough but not your own sauce. In for a penny in for a pound, right?

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Let me suggest you check out pizzamaking.com and learn about commercial sauce. The best pizzerias in America use it. The two dominant companies are Escalon and Stanislaus. Virtually everything you find in a supermarket is garbage in comparison.

Commercial sauce is actually just paste. You can't be expected to know that unless you know pizza ingredients. The good companies make it in the fields so they can use ripe tomatoes and they don't have to cook it down to a residue to save shipping costs. You have to rehydrate it, and then you add whatever you want.

https://stanislaus.com/scratch-products/saporito-super-heavy-pizza-sauce-2/

 

[mac_1103]

I know pizza. You apparently don't know humor.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Maybe all the publishers who paid me to write humor got scammed. Now I feel like Rachel Dolezal.

 

[Yesfan]

....meanwhile, somewhere out of left field

Holy ****!

Jeremy Clarkson has his own beer?! :giddy face:

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Hawkstone Lager. He bought a share in a company called Cotswold.

The brewer says it has Mandarina Bavaria in it.

 

[Yesfan]

Hawkstone Lager. He bought a share in a company called Cotswold.

The brewer says it has Mandarina Bavaria in it.

Yes, reading about it now. The beer's only been around a couple of years, so I don't expect to find a cloned recipe anytime soon. Thought it was cool Clarkson had his own brew though.

I'm sure I'm not the only Top Gear/Grand Prix fan that also homebrews, so I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone finds out the ingredients to make their own and share with the homebrew community.

Apologies all for the off topic post.

 

[PCABrewing]

I'm sure I'm not the only Top Gear/Grand Prix fan that also homebrews,

The original Top Gear yes, not so-much the spin-offs or the American version.

As for the "best" pizzerias, you will NEVER be able to identify them.
That's like saying one beer is the best.

Take "Chicago Style" pizza. There are many that identify as Chicago style, too many.
At least as a Chicago native I know never to say one is truly the style of the geography, rather most are the style chosen by the ad-copy writer.

 

[PCABrewing]

As for beer in dough, (or chili or stew or anything else that strikes my fancy, I just need to add it when my wife's not looking. That's the only way she'll agree the dish is good! No, she is not a beer drinker.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The original Top Gear yes, not so-much the spin-offs or the American version.

As for the "best" pizzerias, you will NEVER be able to identify them.
That's like saying one beer is the best.

I'm not saying there are two or three "best" pizzerias. I am saying that the general rule among excellent pizzerias in the US is that they use commercial sauce. I thought my meaning was obvious.

Before we get into more Internet nit-picking about the difference between sauce and tomatoes, the companies that make sauce also make canned tomatoes. I really don't want to hear about how the best pizzerias use tomatoes instead of sauce.

 

[jschein]

I really don't want to hear about how the best pizzerias use tomatoes instead of sauce.

Well, some of the best in NY/NJ just use uncooked tomatoes from the cans imported from Italy. Some make their own “sauce”, gravy for their pies.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

You can't put a tomato in a can without cooking it, and what you're talking about are products packaged for commercial users anyway.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The pie, a 13" NYC-style with Full Red and Grande East Coast Blend, along with Publix Italian sausage, was great, but not really better than normal. Seems the beer makes the crust darken faster, and it was harder than usual, so maybe it requires more oil when you use beer.

 

[bwible]

I’m happy somebody posted a pizza thread because I’ve been wanting to ask - those who have Ooni type ovens, what kind of table are you using them on? We just got one and I’m looking for a table to set it up on outside. I would imagine you want something metal and obviously sturdy enough. Thanks

 

[acrowe]

That's a nice looking pie! Thanks for the tip on the "commercial sauce" I have been really working on my pizza game the last few years, and now think I do pretty much as good a crust as any, though this is subjective as different people like different things. My sauce in general is now not as good. I have often alternated between making my own out of grocery store tomato paste and using off the shelf grocery store sauce. this falls short of the best pizza sauce for sure. I had heard stuff about using canned tomatoes - this is really tasty when I use the canned tomatoes my Saskatchewan farmer mother inlaw makes, but any commercial canned tomatoes are pretty bland. I will look into the commercial sauce.

How are you cooking your pizzas? I see its on a pizza pan.
I have evolved into doing them direct on a pizza stone in a gas grill. It gets up to an honest 700F and doesn't lose much even quickly opening lid - nothing like the slow heating of an electric kitchen oven in my experience. part of it was finding the right thickness of stone so the crust wasn't burnt before the top browned.
Its not perfect, but it is quite good, and I think much less fiddly then many table top pizza ovens (though I have seen people make nice pies with them for sure). Ideally I'd have a gas grill dedicated to pizza and modify it with baffles to control the flow of heat more. For now it has to convert back and forth to regular gas grill just pulling the stone out. Actually with unlimited project time I'd make a dedicated outdoor pizza oven, but...
Another advantage of the gas grill over indoor oven - if you are going to do pies directly on the stone - the semolina or cornmeal isnt on the bottom of the oven afterwards.
I can do a pretty good production run of 7-8 good size pies in about 1/2 hour cook time and feed a crowd, (3-4 min approx 14" pie) so that is also nice.

 

[BPenny]

I’m happy somebody posted a pizza thread because I’ve been wanting to ask - those who have Ooni type ovens, what kind of table are you using them on? We just got one and I’m looking for a table to set it up on outside. I would imagine you want something metal and obviously sturdy enough. Thanks

I’ve used an Ooni on a cheap plastic folding table before and it was fine because the underside of the Ooni doesn’t get as warm as you’d expect, but generally I prefer to use a little square metal bistro table so that I can set the door down on the same table during use without worrying about it instantly melting the table or catching on fire.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

My method may not be helpful to you, because I don't make Neapolitan pizza. It's not for me. I make plain old NYC pizza at 500 degrees or maybe 550. As you may know, traditional New York pizzas are not cooked at high temperatures. Some people don't know that, and there is a lot of mythology on the web, but if you go to an old-style pizzeria in Manhattan and look at the ovens, you can actually see the temperatures, and I've seen things like 475.

I don't use 00 flour, either. It's wrong for this kind of pizza. I've tried everything. Caputo. All Trumps. Bouncer. Golden Tiger. Every grocery brand. Pizza flour and bread flour from King Arthur. I can't even remember them all. White Lily. I use Gordon Food Service Primo Gusto. I hand toss. I don't want to mash the dough with a pin, although it probably doesn't matter. The best pin I've found is a length of 2" PVC pipe.

I use a steel. I used to use a stone, but I bought a square of 1/4" plate, and it's much better. It browns the bottom of a pie fast. I don't assemble pies on peels or screens. Pizzas sometimes crumple when you try to slide them off peels, and you have to use a lot of messy semolina or corn meal. I assemble my pies on sheets of nonstick foil. Then they slide right off the peel every time. After two minutes, I pull the foil out from under the pizza, and it's right on the steel. I keep the steel low in the oven.

These days I use the convection setting, and I generally go about 10 minutes for a thin pizza.

Sicilian is completely different.

My thin pizza is excellent, but the Sicilian is the best pizza I've had anywhere, and I lived in New York for years.

 

[Henbrew]

I assemble my pies on sheets of nonstick foil. Then they slide right off the peel every time. After two minutes, I pull the foil out from under the pizza, and it's right on the steel. I keep the steel low in the oven.

Ha, I do the same with parchment paper. For the longest time I'd become really frustrated with getting my pizza off the peel which kept me from even making pizza. The parchment will brown a little around the edges above 450F but pulls really easy after 2-3min. No issues with browning, I actually moved my oven rack up a slot because the bottom of the pizza was getting black on the pizza stone after ~8min cooking time.

 

[acrowe]

I like a lot of different pizzas - including making deep dish in a cast iron pan. I like the foil idea, I will try it, as I am generally pretty good at getting the pizza off the peel but its always a bit of a concern (I use a flat aluminum cookie sheet as my assembly peel). I find if it is not on the assembly peel more than a minute or two it usually comes off better.

I like 00 flour - I resisted thinking it wouldn't make that much difference but it certainly does for thinner crusts and I even like the chewy/crispy crust you can get on a little thicker pie as well. That is however not a judgment. (I use all purpose flour for cast iron pan pizza)
I have to admit I probably haven't had exposure to the best new york style has to offer (definitely never been to new york)

 

[redrocker652002]

Youtube Italian Grandmother. She is a little old lady from Jersey who might very well be fresh off the boat. She is old school D'ego, and reminds me of my Noni. Ok, rant off. Enjoy. RR

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I don't think you've read everything that was written here. It's like you're talking about a different thread.

We were talking about pizzerias and commercial pizza sauce, which is tomato paste. In the industry, it's called "sauce." See above. The brand I use contains nothing but tomatoes, basil, and citric acid. I don't feel like explaining the citric acid, but there is a reason for it. The other major brand doesn't use it. You can't buy a can of commercial pizza sauce and eat it as it is. It's a base. Again, it's tomato paste. Thick tomato paste.

I don't think anyone even mentioned jars or pasta sauce.

As for grandmothers, mine grew her own heirloom tomatoes and canned them, and in spaghetti sauce, they were as good as, or better than, anything I can buy today. Unfortunately, tomato growing is not a good option for every part of the US, and if restaurants had to grow tomatoes, they'd go broke.

I didn't know there were Italians who didn't call sauce "gravy."

 

[PCABrewing]

I didn't know there were Italians who didn't call sauce "gravy."

Sure there are, like my Wife's entire family (both sides 100%).
They're likely being courteous so as not to confuse you.