better crunch for Detroit Style?

[ahamric]

Hello folks,

I have been practicing with the recipe found in the Jet's thread (under general pizza making), a square deep-dish pizza. I am baking it at 475 in my home oven, bottom rack, in a steel 8x10 pan with 1 T + 1 t corn oil for 17 minutes. I am getting nice browning on the bottom, but the depth of the crunch is not quite hard enough for my taste... it is crisp on the bottom surface, but the crispness does not penetrate as far into the dough as I would like.

I would simply bake the pizza longer (which I have been doing incrementally the last few times), but my top cheese is starting to brown and any additional time would brown it too much for my taste.

I think that there are many potential options to get the crust crunchier - preheat a pizza stone and bake on that, bake longer at a lower temperature, bake shorter at a higher temperature, use more oil, use different oil, etc. I could use some assistance in taking a stab at how to improve the pizza. In the Jet's thread, the indication is that the chain cooks their pizzas at 475 in a conveyor oven for only around 9 minutes

I would be grateful for any wisdom you could impart. Thanks!

Andy

[Tscarborough]

Raise the heat.

[ahamric]

Thanks Tscarborough!

Today I made another pizza and the crunch was better. I baked at 500 on the bottom rack for 16 minutes. This browned the top about as much as the 17:30 bake at 475.

I did have one issue that I am still trying to resolve. The top of my crust (underneath the sauce) was a bit doughy. I did let the dough rise in the pan more than usual (3.5 hours at room temperature in the pan after a 4 hour rise in a sealed ziploc tub). I am thinking that I should either A) reduce the rise in the pan or B) decrease the thickness factor. I think that either of those would reduce the height of the dough in the pan so that the dough will cook all the way to the top in the 16 minute window. Any thoughts/preferences? I am pretty happy with the thickness of the crust I am getting now, but figure I might have to reduce the thickness in order to avoid a parbake.

I also wonder if sauce next to the crust would inhibit baking more than cheese (i.e. I wonder if saucing the top after the cheese a la Buddy's/Shield's would help).

Thanks again folks!

Andy

[Tscarborough]

I have only made a few, but I did the sauce on top of the cheese (and added it mid bake).

[ahamric]

Thanks for the input. It just occurred to me that I might be able to turn on my convection settings in the oven (I don't think I have ever used that feature). Has anyone tried using a convection oven? What were the results?