The Home Made Pizza Thread

[applescrap]

I have not made homemade pizza in a couple of years. The dough I make is 2 cups of bread flour, 1 cup of water, a tablespoon of oil, yeast, and salt. (can't remember if it's 1/2 tsp or full tsp of salt.) I want to make one tonight because it's cool enough to use the oven, and I don't have bread flour. I wonder what happens if I use all-purpose? Probably will need a little less water and a lot more kneading. With bread flour, I hardly knead it at all and let the yeast ripen it.

Pretty much same ratios as mine i think, less yeast for longer rise, more for quicker. Yes a full tsp is right, thats a good starting point, adjust up from there.

 

[Hanglow]

most of the best italian flour producers sell differing strengths of flour depending on the desire fermentation times, so you use weaker flour for say a quick same day dough, up to ones that hold up to well over a day at room temp fermentation, or many days in the fridge

eg
http://www.molinodenti.it/en/farine/pizza/
https://www.molinograssi.it/i-nostri-prodotti/uso-professionale/per-la-pizza.html/

I've recently been using the calbal calculator, which is quite cool as it tells you the best strength of flour to use with whatever fermentation you are doing. unfortunately only italian flours tend to tell you the actual strength of the flour, but you can find rough conversions for flours from other countries
http://www.calbal.altervista.org/

i only have one italian 00 flour that is bread flour strength, then i mix in british flours depending on how long i'm letting the dough ferment

 

[applescrap]

Wont be long now

 

[schematix]

Wife is going out of town this week.
My oldest was devastated when I told him we weren’t doing pizza every day while she was gone.

 

[applescrap]

Still struggling with temps. I am going to go back to 550 degrees and then try finishing crust under broiler. The first one was ok, rest hit and miss. Light on cheese and that didnt help. Some were thick, others were thin. I liked them both for different reasons.

 

[davidabcd]

I'm getting excited about making pizza soon. Sent my mixer in for repair and will get it back in about a week.
In the meantime, I'm refining my cheese blend, deciding which oven rack position is best for cooking the pizza and trying to make my sauce as simple as possible.
Someone asked earlier about adding spices to the dough. I have the exact question. Garlic powder? Onion powder? More salt?
Anyone know what adding those spices might do to the dough?
Great photos, everyone!

 

[Hanglow]

I was reading about adding garlic on pizza making.com and apparently both it and onions have the effect of making the dough softer and more extensible when added at a rate above 0.15% of the flour weight. It's probably more of an issue for commercial pizza makers though.

As for salt I like it at about 3% flour weight, which is more than most recipes but seems about right for most neapolitan recipes. Really depends on the type of pizza you make and personal preference

 

[z-bob]

Pretty much same ratios as mine i think, less yeast for longer rise, more for quicker. Yes a full tsp is right, thats a good starting point, adjust up from there.

I made pizza dough this morning before church; left it on the counter to rise. I used a full tsp of salt and a tsp of yeast. I used all bread flour, but I didn't knead it any more than what was necessary to mix it. It makes a good "medium" thickness crust that way. The dough is way too soft to do anything with right now, so I put it in the fridge to ripen some more and to stiffen it up from the cold. Will bake it tonight with hard salami, hot pepper slices fresh from the garden, and maybe some canned mushroom stems & pieces.

 

[brewbama]

Good looking pies Applescrap

 

[Schlenkerla]

Here is my latest "Redneck Engineering Project". My Flower Pot Pizza Oven!View attachment 585602 View attachment 585603 View attachment 585605 View attachment 585603

Hmm. Curious.... What did you put on the grill grates?

 

[davidabcd]

I appreciate the input.
My dough batch size is 40oz. I might approach the additions cautiously, say, 1/2t garlic powder and 1/2t onion powder and tweak the salt. Slightly softer for mine is not necessarily bad since I make squares. Not sure what that percentage is going to be; I'll work that out later.
I really like the inside texture and the bottom basically gets fried considering that I keep stepping up how much butter I grease my pans with.
Edit: I also do rounds, not Neapolitan, and that will be interesting to experiment.

 

[schematix]

Whipped up a quick batch of dough today using my sourdough culture. Will have to do this one again because for same-day pizza it was better than most 3-day slow fridge ferments i get.

Kid's pizza: Standard issue pepperoni and sausage with real san marzano tomato sauce.

My pizza: Pesto base with fresh mozz and sausage. Finished with balsamic glaze for some sweetness.

 

[schematix]

Best pizza I ever made

 

[brewbama]

Best pizza I ever made

View attachment 591289

Congratulations. What was the key to your success?

 

[schematix]

Congratulations. What was the key to your success?

#1 an amount of salt that should make most adults uncomfortable. I made this realization a while ago but it took a while to find the ceiling of where the pizza just starts to taste salty. The amount of salt in commercial pizza is close to an RDA for a decent sized slice.

But besides that...
-I dropped the expensive KA Bread flour in favor of generic bread flour. The KA is great but to me it tastes bready rather than crusty.
-I used my sourdough culture rather than dry yeast. Seems to bring a lot more flavor to the party without coming off as sourdough bready. Can also rise all day and be perfect for dinner.
-Cooked the crust crispy crunchy but yielding both top and bottom. This involved extending the bake time close to 10 minutes but i was able to keep the toppings from browning before the crust on bottom burned, giving the top crust time to brown. This involved a combination of pizza stone, pizza steel, pizza screen and the broiler.
-San Marzano tomatoes for the sauce. I didn't think it would make a difference but it really did.
-The toppings make a big difference too. In this case the sausage was a type i hadn't tried before. I knew my previous pizzas were lacking because i was using something like johnsonville hot italian sausage. It's good sausage, but it tastes like what should be in a bun or in spaghetti sauce. This had a unique seasoning that went really well with the pizza. Also was a little fattier, which helps with browning and flavor.
-Small portion of fresh mozz. The stuff is too wet in my experience to use 100% on a pizza unless you're cooking 800-900F, but 20% was big flavor addition.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

that looks like one of mine, congrats I like to add a handful of cheese just before I take it out on and top most of the time it's sharp cheddar and it adds a good flavor

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I've also found that the on sale peperoni can be very salty sometimes, took me a while to figure this out it can overwhelm the pizza

 

[mtnagel]

One of the better pizzas I've made from scratch. No knead. Overnight rise. Homemade pizza sauce. Some mozzarella, mostly goat cheese, red onions, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and a swirl of homemade pesto sauce made with home grown basil. Cooked in a Pizzacraft PizzaQue outdoor pizza oven. Yummy.

 

[schematix]

pretty colors. is there some sausage or pepperoni hiding under there somewhere?

 

[6Tap]

One of the better pizzas I've made from scratch. No knead. Overnight rise. Homemade pizza sauce. Some mozzarella, mostly goat cheese, red onions, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and a swirl of homemade pesto sauce made with home grown basil. Cooked in a Pizzacraft PizzaQue outdoor pizza oven. Yummy.

View attachment 591461

Looks awsome!

 

[mtnagel]

pretty colors. is there some sausage or pepperoni hiding under there somewhere?

Nope. Vegetarian.

Looks awsome!

Thanks!

 

[Schlenkerla]

Best pizza I ever made

View attachment 591289

Can you make one for me now?

 

[koopatrain]

First step for a pizza oven burn the polyurethane out of the barrel. Hopefully get this put together in the next couple of months but I’m not sure when the next day I can get out to the farm is. Planning to use firebricks and refractory cement for insulation with maybe a 304SS sheet metal floor.

 

[schematix]

View attachment 591542

First step for a pizza oven burn the polyurethane out of the barrel. Hopefully get this put together in the next couple of months but I’m not sure when the next day I can get out to the farm is. Planning to use firebricks and refractory cement for insulation with maybe a 304SS sheet metal floor.

Burning plastic. Fantastic.

 

[koopatrain]

Burning plastic. Fantastic.

About a 1mm coating on the bottom of the barrel. But yes, not the best stuff.

 

[applescrap]

My plan is to finally splash out on the blackstone someday

 

[koopatrain]

My plan is to finally splash out on the blackstone someday

I’d love to spend some money in the future. Not at this house, but maybe do a cob oven with tile floor. This should do in the meantime though, all free or used materials.

 

[schematix]

4th pizza in 7 days!!!

 

[matt_m]

We tried the 2-ingredient crust that’s made from Greek yogurt and self rising flour today. Turned out good but the recipe calls for way too much yogurt or cup of flour. I rolled them out pretty thin. Definitely would make it again as it’s healthier than a regular crust and a lot quicker to make.

Also made sauce with fire roasted tomatoes, red pepper, and red onion. Finished on the stove with some garlic and Italian seasoning.

Pizzas were variations of a chicken margarita pizza.

 

[davidabcd]

I made pizza from scratch yesterday and today. The usual reason for two days in a row is I over-prep cheese, sauce, meat and vegetables. I set the oven to 500 and preheated the stone for an hour.
In order, I have 16" round on a screen, a deep dish round 16" and a 10" X 14" deep dish.