Aimless New York

[scott123]

Also, a thickness of 0.77 oz of dough per square inch is just too thin. Or, rather, making a good ultra-thin NY style pizza is easier for me than making a good moderately thin NY style pizza. (If I keep doing what I already do well, there's not much for me to learn.)

I know Scott123 advocates a thickness of 0.7 to 0.75, but I'm not Scott. Also, I believe he lives in New Jersey, and New Jersey slice joints sell thinner pizza than New York slice joints. Maybe New York used to be different--I don't know--but present-day New York sells noticeably thicker slices than present-day New Jersey. That's something I noticed when I was walking across New Jersey two years ago (eating slices for almost every meal), without being influenced by the ideas of pizzamaking.com members (as I was neither a member nor a lurker then).

When it comes to NY style pizza, there's no "New Jersey."  As far as pizza goes, NE New Jersey is the sixth borough of New York.  The Italian American culture here pretty much mirrors that of Brooklyn. Of the 'six' boroughs, NE NJ and Brooklyn are the heavyweights.

When NY style pizza was great, it was great in Jersey and in Brooklyn, and, when it took a nose dive, it took the same nose dive everywhere.  The trend toward thicker pizza happened across the board as well.  My advocacy for .07 - .075 is based upon the innate superiority of the pre-chain influenced NY style pie of years past.

Pizzas are pretty thick everywhere these days.  I'm not sure where you went during your NJ tour, but I'm thinking it was possible that you visited a few bars.  NJ is flooded with bar pies, which are extremely thin. Bar style is a different style, though.

I don't talk about this very often, but thickness factor is very much contingent on oven spring.  If you don't achieve a puffy enough crumb, .07 - .075 can come off as having very little substance at all. The undercrust on this last pie looks gorgeous, and I believe this is your best NY pie yet, but I think you can get a little more puff to the crumb.  A faster bake time can help (you might want to skip the work in progress photos so you're opening the lid less) and it's possible some tweaks to your dough handling process might give you a bit more lift, but, once you achieve that lift, I'm pretty sure that .07-.075 may not appear to be quite so thin.

If, while you're dialing in the final details of the crumb, you want to increase the TF to .08 or even .085, I think that would be a good idea, but I sincerely hope you're not thinking about something as drastic as .1.  The loss of oven spring and general doughiness of .1 just doesn't do justice to NY style, imo. 

[AimlessRyan]

I'm not sure where you went during your NJ tour, but I'm thinking it was possible that you visited a few bars.  NJ is flooded with bar pies, which are extremely thin. Bar style is a different style, though.

I definitely didn't eat at any bars. I was walking all day and sleeping at night. (22 miles my first full day in NJ; 23.42 miles the second day; 21.22 miles the third day; 19.22 miles the fourth day, ending that day in midtown Manhattan.)

One pizzeria I ate at was on the east side of Washington, NJ (southwest of Hackettstown), in a little strip mall on NJ Route 57. Another one was in what I guess is considered Rockaway, on the north side US 46. (I just found it on Google Maps; it's called Paradiso Pizza.) I ate at another pizzeria, in Clifton, on the south side of 46. Looks like it was Leandro's Pizza.

Familiar with any of them? Can't remember if I ate any other pizza in NJ.

[AimlessRyan]

...and it's possible some tweaks to your dough handling process might give you a bit more lift... 

You're probably right about that. My handling/stretching skills are kinda lacking right now because I've been making almost entirely other styles of pizza for the last couple years.

[Essen1]

Ryan,

Here's what I got with a TF of 0.075.

Bake time of 5 mins on a kiln shelf. It can be done. Hang in there, bro

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8093.msg204826.html#msg204826

[scott123]

Familiar with any of them? Can't remember if I ate any other pizza in NJ.

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think Paradiso is the place John Conklin recommended to me.  I think it's close to Wharton.  John's job has him on the road quite a bit and he's been just about everywhere. If that is the place, and John gives it a thumbs up, then it should be pretty solid pizza.  Hopefully he'll see this and chime in.

I've not been to Leandro's either, but Clifton is right smack dab in the middle of a pretty sizable Italian American community and should have some decent slices. I believe a good portion of the Sopranos was shot there. Btw, Clifton borders Elmwood Park (Pizza Town).  Just two more miles  I know, I know, pre-Pizzamaking.com.

Is it safe to assume that you were not impressed by these places?

Thickness factor is important to me, but it's pretty much meaningless compared to the importance of bake time.  I have a couple ultra thin places near me with long bake times where the pizza is hideous. 

Where did you go to in NY? Was the greater thickness factor you found there that superior?

[AimlessRyan]

Is it safe to assume that you were not impressed by these places?

No, it is not safe. I remember liking the pizza I had in NJ, and my memory tells me it's much better than the typical place in Manhattan. Considerably thinner, though, on average. I think I ate half an 18" pizza at the pizzeria in Washington, NJ. (Dude was doing a buck-a-slice special when I was there.) That's usually not doable when you're walking more than 20 miles a day, carrying a heavy backpack. Normally I wouldn't eat enough to fill myself up because it makes it harder to walk.

It felt kind of weird at the two NJ pizzerias that were closer to NYC, though, because they offered table service, which just doesn't seem right at a slice joint. Regardless, I ordered at the counter because I don't need or want table service. I'm still not sure if table service is the main style of service at these places or if they only do table service for people who want table service.

Where did you go to in NY? Was the greater thickness factor you found there that superior?

I've been to a lot of slice joints in Manhattan. Many of them I'd never remember what they're called, but here's the ones I do remember:

• Ray's at 6th & 11th
• Ray's on Prince Street
• RayBari
• Famous Original Ray's
• Bleecker Street Pizza
• Two Boots
• Famiglia
• New York Pizza Suprema
• Sal & Carmine's
• Koronet

Ray's on 6th Av was my favorite, and it was considerably thicker than what I've had in NJ. I liked Ray's on Prince Street, too, but not quite as much. Bleecker Street was really good, too; seems like it was the thinnest I had in NYC. RayBari took me a few times to appreciate, partly because it's pretty thick and sorta doughy, but I like it. Kornet was very good for a cheap giant slice.

I heard good things about Sal & Carmine's before trying it, but I was not impressed. It tasted like salt. The rest of them didn't do anything for me. (Or they just sucked, like Two Boots. My god that was crap.)

[AimlessRyan]

Btw, Clifton borders Elmwood Park (Pizza Town).  Just two more miles   I know, I know, pre-Pizzamaking.com.

Dude, I just looked up Pizza Town, and I walked right in front of it. I'm thinking there's a Friendly's right around there on the other side of the road, right?

[AimlessRyan]

This one took a lot of work because I made another pizza (of a totally different style) 50 feet away in the house at the same time. A lot of prep work, broken machinery, and coordination tired me out pretty well before I even started baking either pizza.

I followed Scott's suggestion not to take so many pictures during the bake, though I did take a pic a little over halfway through the bake, as well as a pic just before removing the pizza from the grill. (Since I had to open the grill mid-bake to rotate the pizza, I figured I might as well take a picture, too.)

I mixed this dough two days ago and took it out of the fridge a couple hours before stretching.

Pic 1: Ready to bake.
Pic 2: About 3 minutes into the bake.
Pic 3: After 5 minutes.
Pic 4: A little longer than a 5-minute bake, but less than 5:30.

[AimlessRyan]

I probably should have pulled this pizza after 4:00 or 4:30. But like I said, there was a lot of chaos leading up to the bake, and I probably wasn't thinking real clearly. And some other stuff. Still, it's nice that my bake times keep going down. Although I'm worried that tomorrow's dough will be a little overfermented by the time I use it, I'm curious to see how it turns out.

Pic 1: Nice color; a little overdone. A little burned on the edges.
Pic 2: Almost an in-focus crumb shot for once.
Pic 3: Profile shot.
Pic 4: Undercrust from another perspective.

[slybarman]

Looks good.

You want to use your cameras 'macro' setting to take those close up photos of the crumb.

[AimlessRyan]

Thank you. I've been hoping someone would give me a tip for that because so many of my pictures suck. Do you know what the 'macro' setting symbol looks like on a Canon?

[slybarman]

a flower.

[pizzaneer]

If you post your camera's make & model info, we could prolly help more

[AimlessRyan]

I think the flower thing is all I need to know for now, but it looks like the model may be PC1309. It's a pretty cheap one, appropriate for someone living out of a backpack for months at a time. Thanks, both of ya.

[pizzaneer]

one thing that I just worked out is my cameras' auto-stabilization feature.  when used with the macro setting, it results in crisp, clear shots.

Now, I just have to make some crumb worth getting crisp clear shots of.

[Ev]

I just bought a new camera, after dropping the old one on the pavement. 
I've got some figuring out to do! 

[Mal]

Hey Ryan, that last pie looks great. Kudos.

[AimlessRyan]

Thanks.

I forgot to mention that it wasn't nearly as good as a couple others I've made recently. Part of the reason is that I went pretty light on the sauce, which contributed to a pizza that didn't have much taste of sauce. I also keep using a little too much cheese. (Don't know why I haven't been weighing the cheese for my NY style pizzas; especially yesterday, considering I did weigh the cheese for the pizza that was baking in the oven at the same time this one was baking on the grill.)

Note to self: Weigh the cheese before making today's pizza. Use 8 oz.

[AimlessRyan]

I had it all worked out for once, and I was ready for everything to go smooth and easy. I gave the grill adequate time to heat up, and I had the dough stretched, sitting on the peel in the kitchen. Before topping the skin, though, I decided to take a peek out back to make sure the grill temperature was where I wanted it. The grill thermometer had already made it up to 460 the last time I looked (which is probably more like 600), so I knew it would be showing nearly 500 by now.

400.

Great! The gas had run out.

OK, I know there are a couple other fuel tanks somewhere around here that have just been refilled, so where are they? Call Mom. They're behind the garage.

Some of you may already know that even though I've walked just about everywhere carrying a heavy backpack, my legs don't work very well anymore. So it may not seem like a big deal for most of you to lug a propane tank 50 feet, but it's not easy for me. Plus I have a dough skin in the kitchen, ready to be topped, and that grill is not getting any hotter.

Well, I got the tank to the grill relatively easily, then turned off the grill, swapped the tanks, and restarted the grill. I figured at least the stone is hot, which meant it shouldn't be too bad of a situation, even though all the top heat is gone. So I went to the kitchen and topped the skin.

I hadn't gone overboard stretching the skin, so at least this one would be easy to peel onto the stone quickly, meaning I wouldn't end up with a pizza that's bigger than the stone.

Or not.

When I pulled the peel out from under the pizza, the pizza was hanging at least an inch over the front of the stone.

As you have probably already figured out from seeing some of my pics, I don't mind if my pizzas are a little bigger than the stone. But an inch is not "a little." So I spent the next 30-60 seconds trying to get something under the pizza so I can move it fully onto the stone. By the time I got the pizza completely on the stone, all the top heat was gone; the grill temperature was down to 380 or 390.

What a freaking disaster.

Considering I'd lost all the top heat, I decided I wouldn't open the grill again until the pizza had been baking for almost five minutes, at which point I would remove the pizza and call it done. And that's what I did.

Stay tuned for pics and the rest of the story.

[Chicago Bob]

Well, at least the second tank, after lugging it, wasn't empty too...
I have learned it is best to leave relatively small launch problems alone for a minute or 2....."it couldn't get no worse"......