okie doke, im in commercial real estate and one of my clients is a pizza dough manufacturer, wholes sale etc, learned alot about dough from him, just to give you some pointers, (and i am obsessed with pizza)
1. one thing is make the dough let it do an initial rise, then punch it (yes literally punch it down) then put it in the fridge and let it rise over night (in a saran covered bowl) you cant get near the commercial results if you dont allow a cold rise (all the big chains get their pizza dough in each day made off site, and allowed to rise cold.... BIG KEY!!!! allow over night cold RISE!!!!
2. next thing a really hot oven is great, you can put a remote temp probe in the oven, clip the oven lock and use the clean cycle of most modern ovens, this will allow you to get your temp up real high and still be able to open the oven, (just dont allow any water or cold stuff to hit the glass when you open it... it will shatter your glass... you have to clip the lock because on clean cycle the oven locks itself on most ovens) aim for 700+ degrees, the hotter the oven the more wet your dough needs to be you can do it at 500 to 550 just make sure your dough is a little dryer and has more time
3. I do this for my artisan breads as well.....go get unfinished clay tiles at home depot break or cut them into the shape of your oven, then cover the top and bottom rack with the clay tiles (2 bucks a tile = way cheaper than 20 bucks for a craptastic pizza stone that will break at some point anyways ive broken like 2 expensive pizza stones) make sure they are raw red clay tiles you dont want any chemicals baking off or leaking into your pie..... place the one rack on the top rack and cover it with clay tiles, and place the bottom rack on the middle slot and cover it with clay tiles....... these tiles will hold in the heat when you open and close your oven..... if you have to use a pizza stone, make sure you have several on top and on bottom to hold heat, and preheat the oven with the stone in it
4. screw the peal unless you have a wood fired oven and go get or order a pizza screen..... the bigger the better..... make sure its a screen not just a circle pan with a bunch of breath holes in it, the screen helps you to stretch out your crust while your still learning to work with dough, and allows the dough full contact with the preheated tiles, giving that great crunch to the outside of the crust.....
5. learn to work with dough..... seriously brewing beer is harder than dough, you have yeast, salt, water, flour, and sometimes oil....... no specialty grains etc..... sometimes sugar, surely with some minimal experimentation you can figure out, l what kind of dough you like etc..... keys, high gluten flour, cold overnight rise, and proof your yeast (its like making a starter to wake your yeast up, sugar and warm water do the trick till it starts bubbling then add that to your dough) best to use a sourdough starter...... but thats more advanced...
all thats some basic stuff....
here is the advanced crap.....
bakers instant yeast gives kind of a bland tasteless flavor to doughs use a sourdough starter here is a link that you can order a sourdough starter, then just keep it alive forever
Sourdough Cultures
still do the cold rise with the sourdough starter but learn how your yeast culture acts so you know how long you need to let it cold rise 1 to 3 days max
slow long mixing, use the dough hook on your mixer
here is a good link to a way of doing it right, there are many other ways, just depends on where you want to take it
Jeff Varasano's NY Pizza Recipe
i dont know why i spent this much time on this who knows (i do love pizza)
cheers to all!! my ADD has kicked in and i dont have the attention span to finish this post, oh yah, pizzarias dont have some super flour you can make great restaurant style pizza with any flower, technique is what hits it
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