The Pizza Failures

[Pizzacko]

Hey, I know that we all love Pizza and we all love making them at home. But...sometimes the Pizza does not turn out as well as we planned. Post your Pizza disasters and the cure for those disasters in here so I wont feel so bad that I never made a succesful Pizza in my lousy attempts so far.

[LMU Pizza Man]

Oh I've had plenty of them. Once, when I was demonstrating my pizza tossing skills to my family, I tossed the whole ball of dough on the ground. I had to start all over.

Another time, I made a batch of dough and it turned out rock hard, It didn't rise very much, but I was craving pizza so much I rolled it out anyway and cooked away. It tasted like cardboard. I guess it was time to get some fresh yeast.

[Pizzacko]

Whoa....old yeast can make the dough hard?! All my Pizzas so far have turned out like that! Its either hard as wood when it comes out or it is undercooked. I never made a Pizza with a soft crust in my life!!!! Is it really the yeast?

[Wayne]

The only real failures I've had when making pizza were when I left them in too long and they got way too charred for me.  But there was this one time my crust didn't cook right.  It was weird.  I don't really know how to describe it.  The crust wouldn't hold and you coudl just pull it apart like nothing.  It was pretty bad.

[LMU Pizza Man]

I think it was the yeast, the only other thing I could think of was that I didn't add enough water.

[mama mia]

ha!! great thread...

well when I first starting making homade pizzas, the first 8-10 were terrible!! LOL!!
hard, cardboard tasting crust. Mind you I didn't know what proofed yeast was susposed to look like, I now know that I was killing my yeast with scalding hot water....

then  from the dough not cooking long enough, to the brand of cheese tasting like crappppola.    

but my worst one was about 2 years ago, when my old baking stone broke, and my pizza was all over the oven, just picture burnt and gooey cheese dripping from all corners.    mind you I had people waiting to eat.  

[Pierre]

I was doing the same thing at first, using water that was way too hot!

I was using my finger to feel the temperature, and I didn't account for the fact that I was used to holding my hands in hot water. My parents had a restaurant and I used to help out often with the dishes, always had my hands in hot water.

I now use a digital thermometer to not kill the yeast. The water still feels a bit cool for me though, but the thermometer tells me it's just right.

My first baked crusts also had that PAPER taste.

Pierre

[Pizzaholic]

I gave up trying to recreat the pizzaria flavor of the crust at home about 6 years ago because I always wound up with crust that taste like bread. Extremely frustrating. Then I found this site and I have had pizza just about every week since at least once. Havent ordered out for pizza since either!
pizzaholic

[DKM]

On the orginal topic I have had a few good ones.  I can remember a few curst I left the salt out of and let to some pretty bland tasting pizza.  I remember the sauce that I misread the line and put in a 1/4 cup of sugar instead of the 1 tablespoon. There was the time I slid the pizza into the oven when talking with my wife and i had forgot to put the stone in.

I am sure there are others.

DKM