need a lil bit of help

[kross]

Letting gravity stretch it out isn't a bad thing.  Look at how Chris Bianco (one of the top pizza makers in the country) opens up his dough ball, around the 2:30 mark:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz1g1KSiqCU" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz1g1KSiqCU</a>

Do you have pictures of the finished pizza? 

[braddonbach]

i've been trying but its too large and i dont have the tools to resize it here at work.

[braddonbach]

here u go

[scott123]

Brad, which 'highgluten bromated flour' did you buy?  Does it have a brand name?

Your biggest obstacle, by far, is your 500 deg oven. A 500 peak temp (with a longer bake time) pretty much guarantees a dense bready crust.  A more conductive stone will help reduce your bake time a bit, but there's no stone on the market (at least not yet), that can, at 500 deg., bake a 4-5 minute NY style pie, which is where you want to be for great oven spring and a puffy chewy crust.

With a 500 deg. oven, you have no choice but to try an oven trick.

Here's how I'd approach it:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11783.msg109285.html#msg109285

Using a frozen towel, you should have no problem hitting 600-650. The actual temp you want to go with will depend on your stone. Tell us a little bit more about your stone. Size? Thickness? Brand? If you don't know the brand, describe it or take a photo.

Once you start covering your thermostat, you will lose it as a temperature gauge.  If you don't have an infrared thermometer, it's time to get one.  They have used thermometers on ebay for $20.

What thickness factor are you working with? From the photos, it looks like you're working with way too much dough for a pie of that diameter. Having a 500 deg. peak temp is bad enough, but too much dough is the kiss of death for oven spring. Post your current recipe (actual quantities in grams, not percents) and diameter.

Screens create air pockets between the pizza and the stone, which, in turn extends your bake time. Lose the screen, buy a peel and use it.

It's going to take some to master skin forming, especially with less dough.  Flour and yeast are pretty cheap.  Make a lot of extra dough balls and use them to practice stretching. Here's a good video (ignore the rolling pin stuff).

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjYqw1CLZsA" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjYqw1CLZsA</a>

The goal should be a very thin, somewhat even skin with only a slight taper towards the middle.  The middle always has a tendency to thin out, so you have to actively work against that as you form the skin. The larger rim doesn't come from forming but from oven spring.

[braddonbach]

sorry, i didn't read your reply til now. However i made these 2 lastnight. Pizza tastes great.
btw I am using ALL trumps flour from pennmacc

[braddonbach]

sauce on

[braddonbach]

finished pie slice

[braddonbach]

fresh pie

[c0mpl3x]

switch your pepperoni it seems to be a very greasy ny style.

also, don't work the center of your dough.  only touch it to pop bubbles.  the outside crust border and about 1/3 of the way in will stretch the other 2/3 of the pizza when you stretch them.  leave the dough slightly thicker (about 2-4x that of the thickness inside the crust rim) depending on your process/size of finished pizza.

[braddonbach]

well the family needed a little break from pizza's so I attempted to make some fresh sub rolls didn't work so good lol came out like bread sticks. So i made 2 calzone-like creations and one small 6inch pizza for me. It just looks so good sitting there outta the oven i had to take a pic and show you guys.

[sconosciuto]

The only reason I could see for wheat prices rising is the cost to haul them across country, which is ultimately atributed to rising petrol costs.....right

Oh man, where do I start.   I really enjoyed your original tirade on the comments by RoadPizza but I truly hope there is some level of sarcasm I'm not picking up here.  If you really believe this I hope you didn't lose Alan Greenspan's phone number, perhaps you should give him a call and maybe he can expand on your ultra simplistic viewpoint of the economics of raw food prices.  Wheat is a commodity good and like many things in life it's price is primarily determined by supply/demand, while cost to deliver to market is variable cost typically absorbed by the supplier.  Transportation cost doesn't directly and immediately drive price rather it drives a suppliers ability to supply and be profitable at a given demand.  An increase in transportation cost can mean a decrease in supply thus an increase in price.

Wheat (as with corn, rice, etc) is a food supply and thus it's demand is increasing with our out of control world population growth while usable farmland and resources to produce are somewhat limited. Other factors driving supply/demand: droughts, bumper crops, crop diseases, natural disasters, increasing/decreasing crop yields, modern day use of food supply as fuel, etc.....  Supply and demand is a very fine line and under certain circumstances can drive price drastically in either direction.  If you've ever lived in an area where supply of goods has been temporarily interrupted for some reason (such as a major storm or other disaster) you know how fine that line of supply/demand can be and the impact it can have on price.  Flour is actually a finished good so to make things more complex you need to factor in the economics of producing that finished good....

There are many factors that contribute to price increases of flour, petrol is not a major driving force.  If you believe that the cost of flour couldn't double, triple or quadruple (although not likely in the short-term) you need to come back to reality of life and it's uncertainties.  It wasn't long ago that we were all paying $1/gallon for gasoline...

[braddonbach]

Well i wanted to thank ALL of you, I got the pizza where i WANTED it to be took a half day to make some for the 30 people at work i made 6 pizzas, they LOVED it, I just finished the ingredient list for the dough with a couple new secret ones to give it some flavor.

Thanks

Brad