Does Size Matter - Putting a fine point on deep dish pan sizes?

[PizzaEater]

In DKM Chicago Style recipe he uses a 15" x 2" pan,  in this example are we talking ID or OD of the pan?  From what I see if you get a pan discribed as a 16" pan this means od with a ID of a little over 15", basicly what ever size the pan is sold as the ID is about 3/4" smaller. So in this case DKM's recipe would actually be for a pan with an ID of 14.25".

[foodblogger]

3/4 inches smaller to me suggests sloped sides but I could be wrong.  If you are looking at pans that say they are 'stackable' that means they have sloped sides.  If you are going to go to the trouble of hunting down a pan and paying for shipping, make sure you get one with straight sides.

[Pete-zza]

foodblogger,

If I am not mistaken, it is the “nesting” deep-dish pans that have sloping sides. See http://www.pizzatools.com/productdisplay.aspx?catid=53. It’s the “stacking” pans that have the straight sides. See http://www.pizzatools.com/productdisplay.aspx?catid=55. I have both straight and sloping side pans, including a spring-form pan, and they all work fine. I personally think the depth is more important than whether the sides are straight or angled, especially if you plan to make a stuffed pizza. I wouldn't go below 1 1/2 ". My spring-form pan is 3" deep. I use whatever part of that depth I will need and adjust the dough weight accordingly. I suspect that straight sides are more authentic for the classic Chicago style, although it is clear from the pizzatools offerings that someone is buying the sloping side pans.

Peter

[foodblogger]

Pete- yeah I meant nesting.  Thanks for pointing that out

[PizzaEater]

I'm cool with the idea of sloped vs. straight pans.  My question is when dealing with deep pan pizza, Chicago or Sicilian, when formulating the amount of dough do you need would you use the inner diameter or the inner diameter plus the depth of the pan.  For example for a pizza going into a 15 x 2 pan would to recipe be formulated for a 15" pie or for a 19" pie (15" + 2" + 2")?  In the end I doubt it will make a lot of difference, but just trying to get the concept down in my head.

[Pete-zza]

PizzaEater,

There would be a difference.

The way I do it, and I believe foodblogger as well, is to take the sum of the area of the bottom of the deep-dish pan that is to be covered by dough and the area of the side of the pan that will be covered by dough, multiply the sum by the thickness factor, and in so doing, adjust for the fact that the dough that covers the bottom of the pan will use up about 1/4" of the depth of the pan (at the bottom). That's for a straight sided pan. It gets a little bit trickier if the side of the pan is sloping because the area of the side of the pan is actually the area of a trapezoid, not a rectangle with two sets of parallel sides. If I remember my high school geometry correctly, I believe the area of a trapezoid with a height of 2" (the depth of the pan in your case) would be 3.14 x (ID + OD). That number also has to be adjusted a bit to compensate for the fact that the dough at the bottom of the pan uses up part of the side of the pan (e.g., 1/4").

If you'd like, when you get the pan and have the dimensions and a formulation with baker's percents, let me know and I should be able to help you with the ingredient amounts you will need for your pan.

Peter

[gottabedapan]

If I remember my high school geometry correctly, I believe the area of a trapezoid with a height of 2" (the depth of the pan in your case) would be 3.14 x (ID + OD).

For those who don't have 2" pans, the general formula for the area of a trapeziod is 1/2 * (b1+b2) * h, where b1 and b2 are the lengths of the parallel sides, and h is the length of a line perpendicular to b1 and b2 that bisects both lines (fig. 1).

Pete-zza, I'm not sure how the depth of a nesting pan in measured since I don't own one, and I'm not sure it's all that significant, but just to be completely precise (or anal, depending on how you look at it ), in the case of a pizza pan where the length of the sloped side (h) is 2" (fig. 2), the formula does indeed reduce to 3.14 * (b1+b2). For a pan that is 2" tall from base to the rim (assuming a light gauge metal), however, h would be slightly greater than 2" since h is the distance across the sloped side, which would necessarily be > 2" since h would be the hypotenuse of a right triangle one of whose sides is 2" and the other, (od-id)/2 (fig. 3). For a 2" deep pan, id=15", od=17", h would be ~ 2 15/64" (h= √(2² + 1²) = √5), whereas a pan with a 15" id and a side length (h) of 2" would have od=16.78", or a difference of about 12 sq. in. which, for most purposes, isn't enough to worry about.

[Pete-zza]

goddabedapan,

Thank you for the clarification.

I mispoke when I made reference to the depth of the pan when what I was really thinking of for purposes of the calculation was the dimension "h" in your Figure 1 (as though the side of the pan was laid out flat). When I went back and checked my pan using a simple tape measure, I couldn't detect a significant difference between the two dimensions in your Figures 2 and 3. I'm sure it is because the slope of the side of my pan is slight. But, you are correct, there is a slight difference. Fortunately, as you noted, it would be de minimus in relation to the amount of total dough that one might use for a 15-inch pie.

Peter