*general* dough weights for a traditional pizza ? -

[canadianbacon]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if anyone has some general weight guidelines for different sized pizzas ?
( dough I mean )

For example, a 16 " pizza = how many oz of dough ? ( for a regular pizza )

12" = ? oz of dough

...

I'm asking because I have never weighed out a dough, and thought I should start doing this.

I will always just make up a lot of dough and then just use my bench scraper to cut a piece off, and
just do it by eye, and then make it into my pizza shell shape....

Anyway if anyone has general guidelines for different sizes that would be great.

I am not talking about a wafer thin pizza crust, but not a thick one either, something like I usually see
in the Lehmann's pizzas you guys are making.... that looks like a good thickness.

Thanks for any general ballpark idea just to get me going in the right direction....

thanks,

Mark

[Pete-zza]

Mark,

For something like the Lehmann NY style dough, you can calculate the dough weight for any size pizza that interests you by using this simple expression:

                                                      3.14 x R x R x TF,

where R is the radius (diameter divided by 2) of the desired pizza size, and TF is the so-called thickness factor. For the Lehmann dough, a typical value for the thickness factor is around 0.10-0.105. So, assuming you want to make a 16" pizza and decide on a thickness factor of 0.105, the required dough weight for the 16" is 3.14 x 8 x 8 x 0.105 = 21.10 ounces. In a similar manner, the amount of dough you would need for a 12" pizza would be 3.14 x 6 x 6 x 0.105 = 11.87 ounces. The nice thing about this approach is that the different pizzas should have essentially the same crust thickness and characteristics. If you decide that you prefer a greater crust thickness, you can use TF = 0.11 for a medium thickness crust, or 0.12-0.13 for a thick crust.

Peter

[canadianbacon]

Peter,

thanks for the info.  I was a little scared to ask, as it may have been disussed before, but didn't
know how to quite use the search to get results I wanted, many times I'll search for one thing, go off on
a tagent, and next thing you know, it's time to go to bed, it's like a library here now, so you can just read all
night haha.  Many times I get to reading something, and I totally lose track of a tv show I'm watching 

Anyway great stuff, thanks for the simple explanation, that's exactly what I wanted.

Now what I'll do is print that out, and write down the amounts also, and tape it to the inside of one of my
cabinet doors so I can see it in 2 seconds.....

thanks again for the great info !

Mark