Looking for dough advice

[gpoli]

Hi everyone! I worked in a pizza shop who makes top notch pizza for a year. Since then I've started to make my own at home but my dough is lacking. I usually only let it rise for an hour at room temp. Though I let it rise for about 10 hours in the fridge covered and the result was similar. My dough is too sticky, too frail, not pliable, and doesn't cook like pizza dough should even on a pizza stone.

The current recipe I use is out of an italian cook book I have:
1 1/4 flour
1 packet of IDY
1/2 cup of warm water
1/4 teaspoon of salt

I would love advice on the rising process and ingredient involved and amounts.

Thanks!

[dmcavanagh]

I googled "how to make pizza dough" and there are 73 pages. You have to be a little more specific so we can zero in on the kind of pizza dough you would like to make.

[buceriasdon]

I recommend buying a inexpensive digital kitchen scale if you want to improve your dough. Presently depending on how you filled your measuring cups I came up with a hydration ratio of flour to water to be 72%, which leads to your sticky dough. 4oz. water divided by 5.5oz. flour(guessing) equals 72%. Depending also on the type of flour you use will affect the dough. I would drop my water down 10% and see how that works. Using a scale makes this quite easy to make the adjustment. A good explanation of Baker's Percent here. I use grams for ease of calculation.
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/03/22/bakers-percentage-1/
Measuring spoons are fine for small amounts for salt, sugar, yeast etc.

[gpoli]

I googled "how to make pizza dough" and there are 73 pages. You have to be a little more specific so we can zero in on the kind of pizza dough you would like to make.

Sorry Neapolitan

[buceriasdon]

http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza/pizza_dough.html

[The Dough Doctor]

For homemade crust the yeast level is quite high. I use 1-packet of IDY to 3.5-cups of flour. Excessive yeast can result in the dough burning out (over fermenting), the result is a dough that fails to rise properly, is overly tender (tears easily) and doesn't color up well during baking due to the excessive acids formed during fermentation and sugar consumed by the yeast in making those acids. Watch your dough temperature too, you will probably want it to be in the high 70's to low 80's for the way you are handling the dough.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor