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[Pete-zza]

haybot,

I personally shape and stretch the dough by hand off of the bench/board but usually don't toss the skin in the air. The extensibility (stretchiness) of the dough you have been experiencing is quite normal for a dough that is made at home by machine or hand kneading and where the hydration is around 62-63% and the dough has been subjected to 1-3 days or more of cold fermentation. A commercial pizza operator with a commercial mixer will be able to produce a more robust and better handling dough than what we can produce in a normal home setting. Also, such an operator will usually use a hydration of around 58% and sometimes even lower--even when using a high-gluten flour that has a much higher rated absorption value. For example, if you look at the commercial version of the Lehmann NY style dough formulation that was the father of all of the versions on this forum, at the PMQ Recipe Bank at http://www.pmq.com/tt2/recipe/view/id_151/title_New-York-Style-Pizza/, you will see 58% hydration at the low end of the hydration range. Many operators will use the lower value because it is easier to train workers to slap out dough at that value. In the U.S., many of the workers who assemble pizzas are low-wage (minimum-wage) people, often kids in high-school or college who rarely stay in place long enough to derive much benefit from the training. In my reading and research, I see very few instances where a hydration of 65% is used, even with machine-made doughs that have very good handling qualities. Invariably, the hydration values are below 60%. Our members like to push the envelope and use higher hydration values.

In your case, if you'd like to try an experiment, you might reduce the hydration of your dough to around 58% (I am assuming bread flour or high-gluten flour or its equivalent where you are in Germany), use only a one-day cold fermentation, and then shape and stretch the dough out to size off of the board/bench. I believe that you will find that the dough handles much better and should be more amenable to tossing than your current doughs. You might even be able to stretch the dough skin out to size without any tempering of the dough ball at room temperature, that is, use the dough right out of the refrigerator. However, in such a case you don't want to "force" the dough because that might lead to tears forming in the skin. The downside to a lower hydration is that the finished crumb may not be as open and airy as one with a considerably higher hydration. Also, if you work with the dough while it is cold, you may experience excessive bubbling in the finished crust during baking. I personally think that experiments like this are useful because you can learn a lot from them and apply what you learn to improve your future results.

Peter

[Ralphie]

I love this thread.  I found it a couple years ago, tried some things and then haven't made a NY style pizza in forever.  Just recently I pulled out my old typed up recipes and decided to give a go.   I'm not a pro at this (by any means) but I feel like my crust is getting better, primarily due to some basics I got from this thread.  I decided to take some pictures of my last pizza and post them here.

I'll post my recipe a little later and try and get some tips from you all to help me out.  I don't understand all the hydration levels stuff and heavy math, but I bet there are things I'm doing which will make you say: "Well there's your problem..."

Anyway, here are a couple pics:

[Ralphie]

Here's my recipe:

This is a double recipe which makes two crusts. 

1 1/3 cup warm water
½ tsp yeast
Pinch of sugar
3 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/5 tsp salt
2 tsp Olive Oil

Combine the warm water, yeast and a pinch of sugar in a bowl and let sit while I measure out the rest
Put 3 cups of flour, salt and the Olive oil into the bread machine
Add the water/yeast on top
Run the bread machine on its 'dough' setting
Coat lightly with olive oil and put the dough into a plastic bag (or two).  Leave the top open until it cools suitably and then put it in the refrigerator over night.

Preheat the oven (and pizza stone) to 500-degrees and prepare the pizza, including rubbing a thin layer of olive oil before adding sauce and ingredients.
Cook for 9-11min

Okay, so here are my problems:

- The dough is too elastic.  I have a really hard time pulling/pushing/rolling it out to a really thin pizza.    I did one batch where it got left in the bread machine for the entire 'dough' setting which runs about 90-minutes.  It kneads, it stops and lets it rise, then it kneads some more etc.      I thought that might be my problem so I did another batch where I left it in for much less time (maybe 15-min?) but the dough was still too difficult to stretch out without it shrinking back down.  Besides that, the dough feels right to me (not too sticky, not too dry and floury) but it's just tough to work with

- Related to the first problem: The crust is tough.   I think the crust looks great, and has a nice crunch, but it's a little too tough.  Not to be confused with chewy, which would be nice.   This is particularly problematic for me with the crust that's under the ingredients, not the outer-ring-crust.

- Also, I have some problems getting a pleasant looking edge crust.  I use the olive oil on the dough, which helps and if I don't use it my crust comes out white.

Any recommendations for me on battling the elasticity?  Should I let it sit for more time after I pull it out of the fridge?  I did one version where I forgot about it and it sat out on the counter for about 4 hours.  That version was much easier to work with although, after it was cooked, it didn't 'work' right for me either.  The texture was wrong there as well.

One of the BIG things I got from reading things here years ago was to use all-purpose flour instead of high-gluten bread flour which I had been using.   This change improved my crust and crust workability a lot.  I feel like one suggestion might be to lose the bread machine all together and hand knead but with a young toddler running around and needing attention, the bread machine is a life saver for me.

Thanks for any advice you all might have for me

[Pete-zza]

Ralphie,

I am not sure where the problem lies but there are some strange things going on.

To begin, since you are using volume measurements, it is hard to get a mathematical fix on the recipe. But if you are using 1 1/3 cups of water with 3 cups all-purpose flour, by my calculation that represents a hydration (the weight of the water divided by the weight of the flour) of something between 71-84%, depending on whether you measure out the flour using a "heavy" hand or a "light" hand. Either way, that is far too high and would seem to be unworkable in a breadmaker (the dough is likely to be too wet for the breadmaker to prepare the dough). Next, I noticed that you rehydrated the yeast, which I assume is active dry yeast (ADY), in warm water before adding it to the rest of the ingredients in the bread pan. Maybe you can do that with your breadmaker, but the instructions for my breadmaker (a Zojirushi model) says not to let the yeast (either ADY or IDY) come in contact with the water. In your case, you used only 1/2 teaspoon yeast. If your use of the yeast was improper, it's possible that it was harmed in some way and contributed to the problems you described.

With respect to the stiffness/toughness of the dough, there are a few possibilities that come to mind. Assuming that the above issues turn out not to be issues after all, if your breadmaker kneaded the dough too long, that could result in a stiff dough and produce the types of results you described. Also, if you re-kneaded or re-balled the dough balls at the time you decided to use them to make pizzas, that could make the dough overly elastic and very difficult to open up to the desired size. If you did not let the dough balls warm up enough before using them to make pizzas, that could also make the dough difficult to open up. You did not provide enough detail for me to tell whether any of the above situations occurred.

I am also puzzled why you did not get much crust color. Usually that happens because there is a low level of residual sugar in the dough at the time of baking to contribute to crust coloration. With an overnight refrigeration of the dough, there should have been enough natural residual sugar extracted from the flour to give you a darker crust color. This makes me suspicious that the way you prepared the yeast for use in the breadmaker may have been a cause. If so, that might have affected the fermentation process in general such that there was insufficient biochemical gluten development to produce a softer dough and to achieve the expected degree of crust coloration. If I were you, I would check the instructions for your breadmaker to see what it says about how to use ADY.

Once you have had a chance to consider the above points and can respond to my observations, maybe we can zero in better on what produced the results you got.

Peter

[Ralphie]

Thanks so much for your reply.   

I'm going to try something this weekend which is to start from scratch, buy new ingredients and see if I can narrow down the variables.  I'm using old yeast, old un-marked flour from a plastic container etc etc etc    Unfortunately my cooking-hobby-life of yesteryear has fallen victim to my real-life and I end up being a bit sloppy as I just try to make the food happen.       I've been working from a 2-year old recipe that I came up with after reading this thread and experimenting, experimenting, experimenting back in 2007.   Who knows how exactly I came up with all the instructions originally but when I made it this time I was happy with the way the crust looked so I figured I must be doing something right

With respect to the stiffness/toughness of the dough, there are a few possibilities that come to mind. Assuming that the above issues turn out not to be issues after all, if your breadmaker kneaded the dough too long, that could result in a stiff dough and produce the types of results you described. Also, if you re-kneaded or re-balled the dough balls at the time you decided to use them to make pizzas, that could make the dough overly elastic and very difficult to open up to the desired size. If you did not let the dough balls warm up enough before using them to make pizzas, that could also make the dough difficult to open up.

Frankly, I think all of these are true.  I think I kneaded the dough too long, I'm sure I manhandled/re-balled the dough before shaping the crusts and (for the pizza that is in those photos) I don't think I let the dough warm up long enough.   Lose lose lose!

Thanks again for responding.  I'll mess around this weekend and I'll report back with better info.

[haybot]

Hey everyone,
i made another Pizza today using the 12" hand kneading recipe and 2 days cold fermentation and 2 hours warming on the counter. The pizza turned out great and the crust was delicious.

Thanks for the info and the lower hydration dough. I'll try that soon.

The only thing that i would like to change about my pizza is the amount of oven spring. I like the crust to be more light and airy.
Untill now i allways thought that the "airyness" of the dough when it rises in the oven comes from the yeast.
But if i understand your post right its the amount of hydration that affects the oven spring?

And about the gluten value of the flour...here in germany they only mention gluten when its gluten free, so i would like to know for what to look in the nutrition facts, the protein content?

[Pete-zza]

haybot,

A well-made pizza dough is like an orchestral performance. In order to get the best performance, all of the instruments and all of the individual performances have to be in proper balance and synchronicity in order to get an enjoyable musical experience. In order to get a nice and open and airy pizza crust, with good oven spring, there are many factors that are involved, much like the orchestra analogy I referenced above.

First, it helps to have a high-protein, high-gluten flour. The increased gluten-formation characteristics of a higher-protein flour will yield a more developed gluten structure that will better capture and retain the gases of fermentation. Such a flour will also typically have a higher rated absorption value than weaker flours. This means that it will be able to absorb and retain more water. Unless you go overboard with the water (hydration), as by greatly exceeding the rated absorption value of the flour used, the dough will be soft with improved expansion characteristics and more likely to have a good oven spring when the pizza is baked. However, the method of mixing and kneading the ingredients to make the dough has to be proper to ensure that the gluten structure is properly developed and therefore better able to capture and retain the gases of fermentation. The interplay between gas production and gas retention is discussed at some length under the section "Fermentation Control" at http://www.theartisan.net/The_Artisan_Yeast_Treatise_Section_Two.htm. It will usually take experience and practice with a particular dough formulation, with proper adherence to sound dough preparation principles, whether hand kneading or using a machine, to achieve the desired balance between gas production and gas retention. The dough formulation itself will also have to be a sound one where all of the ingredients are in proper balance.

You are correct that the hydration of the dough is more important than the amount of yeast. I hate to refer people to threads that show how dumb I am, inasmuch as I also once thought that yeast was more important than hydration for oven spring purposes, but you will find a good discussion on the importance of hydration at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3557.msg29999.html#msg29999. Of course, yeast is also an important "instrument" in the pizza dough. Without it, you would not have fermentation or fermentation byproducts that contribute to the texture, flavor, taste, aroma and color of the finished crust. However, you don't need large amounts of it. I will say, however, if you use a lot of yeast and a high hydration, you should get good oven spring. However, the fermentation period will be shortened because of the high amount of yeast and yield a finished crust with less than optimum qualities that come from long fermentation times.

To get good oven spring, you also need to have the proper relationship and correlation of residual sugar levels to the pH of the dough. Residual sugar is the sugar in the dough that remains at the time of baking to contribute to crust coloration. For a normal dough and a normal fermentation, of which the Lehmann dough is a good example, the residual sugar levels and pH of the dough should not be a problem. It is more likely to be a problem if the fermentation time is overly extended--pretty much to the point of overfermenting or overproofing the dough and where the residual sugars have been reduced to very low levels. Low residual sugar levels in relation to pH can also become a problem when using natural starters or preferments, especially those that have not been properly fed and maintained.

An additional factor in achieving a good oven spring is the way the pizza is baked. Ideally, for best oven spring performance, you want to bake the pizza on a very hot stone surface where the dough effectively "explodes" when it hits the hot stone. Using a pizza screen or disk, even if the screen or disk with the pizza on it is baked directly on a hot stone surface, will not produce as good an oven spring as baking the pizza directly on the hot stone surface without the screen or disk. If using a screen or disk, it will help to let the dough skin, or base, proof for about a half hour to an hour before dressing and baking the pizza. Under normal conditions, and with adequate hydration, this should allow the dough to have increased gas production and contribute to improved oven spring.

The use of oil in the dough will also help in a small way with oven spring, as Tom Lehmann himself noted in a PMQ Think Tank post at http://www.pmq.com/tt/viewtopic.php?p=32403#32403. You might also read the following information from Tom Lehmann for achieving an open and airy crust: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3292.msg27915.html#msg27915.

With respect to your question about flour protein levels, in the U.S., protein is usually listed in the nutrition information in relation to a typical serving size. For example, for the King Arthur bread flour, the nutrition data on the bag of the flour says that there are 4 grams of protein for a 1/4-cup (30 grams) serving size. That suggests a protein level of 13.3%. However, because of rounding factors, that number is actually higher than the 12.7% protein content of that flour. I don't know how protein levels are specified in Germany, but you will need information similar to what is available in the U.S. It might also be possible in your case to call or write to the miller of the flour you are using to get the specific protein information. I have done this on several occasions in the U.S. Some millers also have flour specifications that can be accessed online or will be emailed to interested parties.

Peter

[haybot]

Thank you so much for all the advice. If you didn't do your Master of science in Pizza making at some university i'm even more impressed how much knowledge you can get from devotion to pizza making.

And thank you for answering beginners questions detailed and not just refer them to the search function like its common practice on other internet boards.


The flour i use has a protein value of 10.2 gramms on 100 gramms or 10.2%. It actually states on the package that its good for yeast doughs/bread making. I'll see if i can find flour with a higher protein value.
Or at least pure Gluten to add to the flour.

[NY pizzastriver]

A well-made pizza dough is like an orchestral performance. In order to get the best performance, all of the instruments and all of the individual performances have to be in proper balance and synchronicity in order to get an enjoyable musical experience.

Wow, really well said! I'm diggin' the musical themes.  I just wanted to say these last two posts of yours are just great. Chock full of info, I pick up more and more all the time reading these replies.

As the only dough I've really made is this one, and I still hand knead as ya know, I wanted to agree with your ''over kneading'' thought to Ralphie. I'm no pro, lol, but I thought that too as I am really getting to know this dough. This is sort of why I like hand kneading as I'm getting a real feel for dough. Yes I'm gonna get a mixer, but when you make 3 or more pies a week with the same recipe you really start to get a sense for when the dough is ready. I also say his lack of scale is making things impossible to gauge.

To Haybot you hit every point, but if I could add a couple more crazy notions on spring back with the formula. Try adding a 20 minute rest or two in mixing, first a covered 20 minute one at thick batter stage, that helps air it up a lot. Also, I'm not sure he needs spring back so much as just less cooked. Overdone can make it seem a lot less springy. In looking at the sauce volume it looks kind of high, then look at crust, very brown. This might cause the cheese to not melt until the crust is overcooked. Lighten up on the sauce, maybe, and make sure stone is an hour in after preheated. ( My oven takes at least 20 mins to hit 550, I soon learned not to count that)

You may have thought I'm idle, but I'm silently cooking away, just no new recipes yet. Perfecting this, with consistency, is very rewarding. Made a batch this Sat and went to 3% sugar as I knew where I was going with 3rd pie. Ate 2 already, 1 day and 3 days in. Fantastic, they get better and better. 3rd ball I'm going nuts with! I degassed it yesterday on day 3, and man it popped like bubble wrap when I pressed and re-balled it, and I may go to day 6! (Or tomorrow on day 5) 

[Pete-zza]

J,

You raise some good points about using rest periods to help improve the quality of the dough. Much earlier in this thread, I did discuss the use of autolyse and similar rest periods in relation to the Lehmann NY style dough formulation, however I did not incorporate them as a standard feature in the formulation because that formulation was developed for commercial application where no rest periods are used. In fact, if you read this thread at the PMQ Think Tank, http://www.pmq.com/tt/viewtopic.php?p=24108#24108, you will see that Tom Lehmann himself was initially confused about the use of autolyse rest periods (see the posts starting at http://www.pmq.com/tt/viewtopic.php?p=24218#24218) and even after elaboration on that concept found its use to be a waste of time in a commercial application.

I personally am not a big user of autolyse or similar rest periods with the Lehmann NY dough formulation. However, I do find it useful to sift the flour and to use other techniques for improving dough hydration and quality as discussed at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.0.html and, more recently, I was intrigued by the multiple stretch and fold steps used by koloa101 as discussed by him at Reply 32 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7896.msg71674.html#msg71674. However, even when it is possible to get improved dough quality using methods like these, it has been my experience that the correlation between dough quality (e.g., robustness, good gluten window formation and good balance between elasticity and extensibility) and end results is not as strong as one might think. By that, I mean that a robust, high-quality dough will not necessarily translate into the best finished crust. Some of the best doughs I have made from a quality standpoint did not produce the best crusts--in fact, they were quite mediocre in many cases--and, conversely, some of the worst doughs I have made translated into some of the best finished crusts. And, invariably, I do not have a good explanation for why this happens. So, I don't automatically assume that if I make the best dough I will end up with the best crust/pizza.

Peter

[Tony Pizzeria]

Whats the longest you can leave Lehmanns Dough in the fridge??
Thanks
PS Havent been on here  a while as my wife passed on Feb 23, just starting to get to normal I hope.
Later all

[Essen1]

Tony,

Please accept my sincere condolences.

I hope, after such a tragic loss, that you're doing okay.

[Pete-zza]

Tony,

I am sorry to hear about your wife. It takes time to get over sorrowful events like that, but pizza making is always good therapy.

A poster at the PMQ Think Tank once asked Tom Lehmann about the oldest dough that he had ever seen or heard of, and his reply, at http://www.pmq.com/tt/viewtopic.php?p=26964#26964, was as follows:

Without added sugar 2-days is the norm, and three is pushing it a bit. With 2% added sugar, you can easily go to three days, and with a little luck push it to four. The longest I've seen is 7-days, but the performance of the dough left an awful lot to be desired (finished pizzas over the course of the seven days had everything from a very bubbly edge, to a normal edge, to a knife edge (essentially no rise). The eating texture ranged from tough, chewy to limp and almost soggy....Not exactly what I would want to have representing name or business, but then it wasn't my name or business.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Based on the above quote, I would say that from Tom's perspective a "maximum" useful dough life of four days would be considered normal for the Lehmann dough. However, I and others have gotten much longer dough lives with Lehmann doughs. The maximum Lehmann dough life that I was able to achieve was about 23 days, with several others that were from about six days to around 15 days. However, to achieve such dough lives, I had to use some unusual and unique techniques, all of which are described in various posts in the following thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.0.html. As the most basic level, however, some of the keys to achieving long dough lives include using very small amounts of yeast, below average water temperatures and, in general, keeping the dough as cold as possible during its period of preparation and fermentation. In my case, and contrary to Tom's usual recommendation to add sugar to the dough to extend its useful life, I did not use any sugar at all. Yet, the crusts in many cases were quite sweet and flavorful. I never did quite figure out the chemistry involved but, whatever it was, it worked.

Peter

[Tony Pizzeria]

Thank you Peter I appreciate it, and thanks for the kind words.

[Pete-zza]

I am always on the lookout for new methods and techniques to use with the basic Lehmann dough formulation. In that vein, an opportunity arose recently to modify the preparation of the basic Lehmann NY style dough when I read the results of member koloa101 who used a classic autolyse and stretch and fold techniques to make his own version of the Lehmann dough. The details of his methods can be seen in Replies 29-32, starting at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7896.msg71669.html#msg71669. Working from those posts, and especially Reply 29, I used the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html to come up with the following dough formulation:

King Arthur Bread Flour/VWG Blend* (100%): Water (65%): IDY (0.40%): Salt (1.75%): Olive Oil (2%): Total (169.15%):

235.69 g  |  8.31 oz | 0.52 lbs 153.2 g  |  5.4 oz | 0.34 lbs 0.94 g | 0.03 oz | 0 lbs | 0.31 tsp | 0.1 tbsp 4.12 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.74 tsp | 0.25 tbsp 4.71 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.05 tsp | 0.35 tbsp 398.66 g | 14.06 oz | 0.88 lbs | TF = 0.09135

* The blend comprises 230 g./8.12 oz. King Arthur bread flour and 5.69 g./0.20 oz. (1.9 t.) Hodgson Mill VWG
Note: For one 14” pizza; nominal thickness factor = 0.09; bowl residue compensation = 1.5%

As will be noted from the above formulation, I made a few changes to koloa101’s dough formulation. First, since I do not have any high-gluten flour on hand, I used a combination of King Arthur bread flour and Hodgson Mill vital wheat gluten to achieve a combined protein content of around 14%, which is a typical value for a high-gluten flour. Second, in the absence of thickness factor or equivalent information in koloa101’s posts in the above referenced thread, I used a thickness factor of 0.09. Third, I used a bowl residue compensation of 1.5%. Finally, I used salt at 1.75%, which is my standard value.

I prepared the dough in accordance with koloa101’s instructions. The only difficulty I encountered was incorporating the oil into the dough after the autolyse. This was not a problem or fault with the method but rather the inability of my KitchenAid stand mixer with the C-hook to do an effective job in incorporating oil into the dough after the flour and water had already been combined. I ended up stopping the mixer and kneading the oil into the dough by hand before resuming the final mixer knead using the C-hook. Next time, I plan to add the oil to the water to insure a more uniform and simpler incorporation of the oil into the dough. That might alter the autolyse somewhat, but that is the tradeoff when using a C-hook. It is also possible that with a larger dough batch, the mixer would have done a better job incorporating the oil into the dough.

The dough was cold fermented for about one day and, upon removal from the refrigerator, was allowed to warm up at room temperature for about an hour and a half. In opening up the dough to form a skin, I found the dough to be quite elastic. However, it was very robust and lent itself to some fairly rugged handling, including tossing in the air repeatedly without any fear of tearing or holes forming. That is not especially common with a dough hydration of 65%. Next time, I would be inclined to either let the dough to warm up a lot longer or allow the dough to ferment for another day. The latter should improve the crust flavors even more.

The dressed pizza (simple pepperoni) was baked on a pizza stone that I had positioned on a few pieces of brick (to get the stone closer to the bottom heating element) and preheated for about an hour at around 565 degrees F. It took about six minutes to bake the pizza. The photos below show the finished pizza. Overall, the pizza turned out very well. The crust had good color, oven spring, texture, and flavor, with an artisanal quality to the crust that impressed me. The stretch and fold technique (a series of three stretch and folds spaced apart by 20 minutes) seems to have value in producing a robust Lehmann NY-style dough. However, it is fair to note that using the autolyse and multiple stretch and folds does consume time. In this case, it was around 80 minutes total before putting the dough into the refrigerator. I usually strive to make the dough and get it into the refrigerator in about 10 minutes from the time I line up all of the ingredients and start to make the dough. (The actual time may be a bit longer in my case because I take a lot of measurements and make a lot of notes.) For those who have the time or inclination to make a quality dough, the techniques described and used by koloa101 have merit. Over time, I plan to conduct more experiments on this facet of the preparation of a Lehmann-style dough.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

And a couple other photos...

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

Quick question. What's the amount of cheese you have used for the above pizza?

Looks great, btw! 

[Pete-zza]

Quick question. What's the amount of cheese you have used for the above pizza?

Mike,

Thanks. I usually weigh the amount of cheese but I didn't this time since the issue was the dough itself. However, I would guess that it was around 9 ounces (shredded). This time, I used a combination of low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese (a store brand), NY sharp white cheddar cheese (Safeway Lucerne), and grated imported Pecorino Romano cheese. This has become a favorite combination.

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

Thanks for the info.

That's an interesting combo with the white cheddar. I normally use a combo of low-moisture, part-skim and whole milk mozzarella with a dusting of Pecorino Romano. I gotta see if my local Safeway carries the cheddar cheese.

[kmancpbh]

Good lord, this thread is just unbelievable! 

I have not been making pizzas at home for very long and am just starting to put the time in reading several threads on this forum from their inception until now.....wow, what a collaborative effort and treasure trove of information.

I'm halfway through this thread now. Also reading about Neapolitan techniques (my favorite style), but it is interesting to see how many of the techniques and improvements you all have hit on translate to multiple styles of pizza.

Haven't had time to make a pizza in a couple of weeks now and my 2 Italian cultures from Sourdoughs International should be here any day now. Can't wait to incorporate these starters into some of the techniques I am avidly reading about, and taking notes on, within these threads.

Thanks so much to everyone and looking forward to reporting back.