Amie,
Thanks for posting how you made the pizza. That's a big help.
It's possible that the mistake in the amount of yeast could have been a factor in the results you achieved, but in my opinion the differences shouldn't have materially changed the results. Also, the long temper time you used, 4.5-5 hours, should have compensated. But, the only way to know for sure is to repeat the dough formulation using the ADY in proper amount. You didn't indicate, but did you rehydrate your ADY before using? If not, that would have been a more likely cause of the results you achieved. In case you did not rehydrate the ADY, the proper way to do it is to take a small amount of the formula water, warm it to around 105 degrees F, add the ADY, stir it in, and let the mix rest for about 10 minutes. The rehydrated ADY can then be added to the rest of the formula water, which should be at the temperature noted in the PJ clone post you referenced in your reply. Going forward, I think you would do yourself a great service to try to get some IDY. It is sometimes sold in supermarkets as bread machine yeast, but if you plan on making a lot of pizzas, I would try to get a one-pound bag of IDY. Places like Sam's, Costco's, etc., sell it at low prices. Or you can order it online from several places. I use the SAF Red IDY, although a comparable Fleishchmann's IDY should also work.
If you can locate a source of vital wheat gluten, I think I would do so. The Better for Bread flour might benefit from some VWG supplementation, not only to increase its protein content but also to add a bit more crust color and flavor. VWG will help improve the volume expansion of the dough, although I don't think that that was behind the reduced oven spring you achieved. I am actually hoping that you forgot to rehydrate the ADY, since that would better explain the results you got.
If you did everything correctly, including the rehydration of the ADY, and the crust color was too light, you might try removing the pizza from the pizza screen toward the end of the bake and place it at the top oven rack position of your oven where it will get more top heat. I have managed to bake PJ clone pizzas entirely on my pizza stone, but if I add a lot of toppings to the pizza, I have found that it is often necessary to raise the pizza in the oven to get additional top crust coloration. I usually only need to keep the pizza on the top oven rack position for about a minute or so. Sometimes it is only 30 seconds or it might be between one and two minutes.
The matter of making a week's supply of dough balls is a tougher issue. To make the dough balls to be pretty much identical while using the same dough preparation and management methods would entail making each dough ball with a different amount of yeast, and possibly other changes. That is generally hard to do, time consuming, and is prone to error because of all of the variables involved in making several dough balls one at a time. I think I would rather increase the yeast in the basic dough formulation you used, let the dough balls sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes to get some initial fermentation going, and then freeze whatever dough balls you plan to use later during the week. I would then monitor the behavior of each dough ball as you use it, particularly during the temper period, to be sure that the dough ball does not overferment. If you decide to go the frozen dough ball route, I can tell you how I would defrost the dough balls to get the best results.
In lieu of freezing dough balls, another alternative is to make a bunch of par-baked crusts. Once made, they can be stored in the refrigerator for several days or frozen and later defrosted and used. I haven't tried to make par-baked PJ clone crusts, but I should be able to give you some guidance on how to do it if this approach is of value to you. Of course, we won't know if your son will eat a pizza that has been made from a par-baked crust, but it may we worth trying to see if he accepts or rejects it. You may also discover whether you and the rest of your family can tolerate such a pizza. I don't want to suggest that such pizzas lack merit. I have made them before for the NY style and they aren't bad, even if not as good as a freshly bake pizza.
There are perhaps other possibilities that you can consider in addition to those mentioned above, such as making, baking and freezing entire pizzas, or dressing and freezing pizzas made from par-baked crusts, but I think I would rather wait to see if just using par-baked crusts as mentioned above is a viable solution to your need to make several pizzas over the course of a week. Of course, if you don't mind experimenting, you can try some of the other alternative methods. And maybe other members who have successfully experimented with frozen pizzas can offer up some advice and suggestions.
I'd also like to suggest that you take a look at an "emergency" PJ clone dough formulation, such as the one at Reply 52 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg66312.html#msg66312. A pizza made using that dough formulation can usually be completed within 2 1/2-3 hours, from start to finish. The pizza won't be as good as a real PJ pizza, and you may want to use a thinner version for your purposes, but it may be a dough formulation you may want to modify and add to your repertoire, especially if your son will eat such a pizza.
Peter
