The Home Made Pizza Thread

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Broke out the Blackstone for Super Bowl...

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First of 3, still figuring out sourdough. Fridge ferment was 6 days. Different starter regime, not as successful as what I had been doing. Flavor is great though. Second cooked 7.5 min @ 550. Looked and tasted much better. I’ll figure it out, but sourdough is a bit of work when your not baking regularly.
 
Sourdough is a PIA! Lots of waste if your not a huge baker. I’ll stick with my poolish, benefits IMO, and no waste. Maybe toss a little sourdough in the poolish and get a little more tang?
 
Sourdough is a PIA! Lots of waste if your not a huge baker. I’ll stick with my poolish, benefits IMO, and no waste. Maybe toss a little sourdough in the poolish and get a little more tang?
I actually just reduced the size of my sourdough starter so I'll have less waste going forward. You can use the discard in recipes and I made the best pancakes I've ever made with this weeks discard, but in general I do toss it. But essentially you're just tossing some cheap all purpose flour. The amazing sourdough bread is worth the waste though.
 
Sour dough starter can go quite a while in the fridge with only a few feeding to get to back to a useable state. I only keep about 100grams (100% hydration) going at a time which enough for a 1 pound loaf. I discard down to about 5 or 10gm then add 50gm water and 50gm flour, which allows about 24hr between feeding if sitting on the counter.
 
I can make a pretty good pizza, I've posted a few pics of a couple of the ones I've made. But after looking at a lot of the pics on this thread, I have a question for you pizza bakers here. What's your secret for getting your dough/crusts so nice and bubbly? I'm kind of jealous that mine don't ever get good bubbles. More yeast maybe?
 
I can make a pretty good pizza, I've posted a few pics of a couple of the ones I've made. But after looking at a lot of the pics on this thread, I have a question for you pizza bakers here. What's your secret for getting your dough/crusts so nice and bubbly? I'm kind of jealous that mine don't ever get good bubbles. More yeast maybe?

I don't know who's you might be referring to in particular, but I think good handling and a cold ferment are important. I use Active Dry Yeast and Caputo Pizzeria flour, but I try to ferment the dough for at least 24 hours. Letting come to room temp and handling as little as possible while shaping. I also use a Blackstone oven and expect the cook time to be in the 90-120 second range.
 
I just made a poolish started batch. I missed the peak time. Still learning how to get that perfect time. I think the 24hr fridge time is perfect. Tonight I’m doing 48hr and it is a bit deflated. Handled too much and the chew isn’t perfect. It is still darn good compared to ordering out. 525 @ 7.5 minutes. Cast Elegance stone
 
I like sourdough, but I always get lazy after 2-3 months of it. I found pizza crust to be a big waste of sourdough, unless I just needed to discard some anyways. The sourdough just got lost in all the other pizza flavors.
 
Way to hang in there! If it's helpful, I use my bread machine for pizza dough ALL the time, and if you have a 2LB cycle, you should be good to (in this order):
  • Nuke 1.5 cups of water (liquid measuring cup) for 2 mins until just boiling - throw into bread machine
  • Add 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • Add 1 tsp salt
  • Add 1 Tbsp sugar
  • Add 4 level cups bread flour (all purpose will work but bread flour is better)
  • Make a small crater in the top of the flour and add 1 Tbsp bread yeast
  • Turn bread machine on 2Lb dough cycle
I never follow a book recipe, just this. Just that basic recipe will give you decent dough. As soon as it starts mixing, sometimes I throw all manner of stuff in there, crushed garlic, herbs de Provence, black truffle oil, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, basil, oregano, etc. If you want to get funky, replace the water entirely with room temperature sourdough starter at 1:1. Good luck!
Just catching up and this is excellent. I got my machine out a few months ago and made a ton of bread and this is pretty much exactly what I do down to the mix ins. In one loaf I added like 2 cups of shredded tillamook. Never tried that before, the smell was heavenly. Not sure worth the calories. I would add to this by saying out of habit read dumb luck I added the yeast to the water (I use 108 degrees) and it makes for nice results to. And my pizzas since last update. Son asked for thick crust, really filling and yummy. One pizza was rememberable because I cut up the left over smoked ny strip roast (it was soooooo good) and tossed on. I am learning toppings really do add a lot.
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Re: sourdough starter, once it's established you don't have to keep much or feed it super often. I keep mine in the fridge, feed it once a week, and keep around 50-100g between feedings if not baking. Still produces beautiful loaves.
That's where I'm at. I was pretty much baking with it every week, but now we have frozen sourdough bread, bagels, pretzels, focaccia, and english muffins. The last 2 weeks, I just fed it and back in the fridge. We need to eat some of what I've made before I make more.
 
Utter pizza fail tonight. Used my usual dough recipe and procedure, but it didn't stretch quite rght, and three out of three 'zas had blowouts in the oven. 2 were pretty salvagable - just holes in one quarter, but the third went off the back of my pizza steel as I was trying to retreive it. ended up being sort of calzone? Still tasty, but ugly as sin.
 
Utter pizza fail tonight. Used my usual dough recipe and procedure, but it didn't stretch quite rght, and three out of three 'zas had blowouts in the oven. 2 were pretty salvagable - just holes in one quarter, but the third went off the back of my pizza steel as I was trying to retreive it. ended up being sort of calzone? Still tasty, but ugly as sin.
That's so frustrating! I hate when it sticks to the peel too!
I made dough on Friday and my wife wanted to help so she preheated the oven...but the dough was still rising inside!
I think we ended up warming up some frozen food instead... 🤯😥
 
Utter pizza fail tonight. Used my usual dough recipe and procedure, but it didn't stretch quite rght, and three out of three 'zas had blowouts in the oven. 2 were pretty salvagable - just holes in one quarter, but the third went off the back of my pizza steel as I was trying to retreive it. ended up being sort of calzone? Still tasty, but ugly as sin.
It happens... at least ugly calzone still tastes good.
 
I used to have accidents whereby a surplus of cheesy toppings would liquidate on top and flow off the edge of the crust like lava spilling down the side of a volcano; ultimately ending up gluing my crust to the stone and smoking on oven burners below.

To remedy that, now when I have my dough on the paddle, I take my roller and hit the outer couple inches again, all the way around. That causes an inch or so of extra dough flopping off the edge of the whole paddle. I fold that extra over a couple of times until it nicely fits the paddle again, pressing it down hard with my fingers as I go to create a nice fat edge on the crust. That will not only give the consumer a nice handle on the slice, it also does a great job of creating a dam to keep toppings from going overboard. You can also sneak cheese in there before you roll it up to make stuffed crust.

It's hard to tell by looking, but the pepperoni and green pepper pizza I posted above has this done. The crust is stuffed with cheese, and there's so much cheese on the pie itself, that if I hadn't shored-up that outer edge, one of my poor kids would have had a helluva time oven cleaning! 🤣

Haven't had any overflows since I started doing that to my crust. Cheers!
 
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I made dough on Friday and my wife wanted to help so she preheated the oven...but the dough was still rising inside!
I think we ended up warming up some frozen food instead

We did this once, made a lava hot puddle of plastic on the floor of the oven. I think we ate cereal, which is probably my most loathed idea of dinner.
 
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