I think my dough sucks. What can I change?

[dunnojack]

I more or less followed ww. pizzamaking.com/nystepbystep.php
Is this recipe supposed to give me fluffy springy crust?
I want springy crust.

Made my first 2 pizzas. Flavor was good. But the crust was mediocre. It was somewhat bready and 0.5" thick. I didn't see any big bubbles in the crust. And the bottom of the pizza had a stale 1mm thick dry bread layer. I failed at making the bottom brown or slightly charred.

I used gold medal all purpose unbleached flour, since that was all i had in my kitchen.
Am I using crappy flour? Can I make a good crust with gold medal?


Here's what I did:

After taking the dough out of the fridge and letting it sit in room temp for 1 hour, I used a roller to flatten the dough into a round disk.
Should I have just used my hands & fingers instead?

After flattening the dough, I put the sauce and toppings on immediately after.
Should I have let the flattened dough sit a while before adding toppings?

I put the 0.5" thick Saltillo quarry tiles into the oven, and preheated the oven to 500F, but I only left it at 500F for 10 minutes before putting the pizza directly on the tile.
I overlooked this part, and didn't let it run for 60 minutes.
Is this why I got the 1mm thick stale layer on the bottom of my pizza?
Was the tile just not hot enough?

After putting the pizza on the tile, i baked it for 20 minutes at 425 F.
Should I have left it baking at 500F instead?

What are some tips to better make a chewy springy crust? Should I give more sugar to the yeast?

[RoadPizza]

Here's what I did:

After taking the dough out of the fridge and letting it sit in room temp for 1 hour, I used a roller to flatten the dough into a round disk.
1. Should I have just used my hands & fingers instead?

After flattening the dough, I put the sauce and toppings on immediately after.
2. Should I have let the flattened dough sit a while before adding toppings?

I put the 0.5" thick Saltillo quarry tiles into the oven, and preheated the oven to 500F, but I only left it at 500F for 10 minutes before putting the pizza directly on the tile.
I overlooked this part, and didn't let it run for 60 minutes.
3. Is this why I got the 1mm thick stale layer on the bottom of my pizza?
Was the tile just not hot enough?

After putting the pizza on the tile, i baked it for 20 minutes at 425 F.
4. Should I have left it baking at 500F instead?

5. What are some tips to better make a chewy springy crust? Should I give more sugar to the yeast?

1.  Yup, you should have used your hands and fingers instead - they would have added the heat of your body to the dough.  Your dough was probably still too cold to use at that point.  Another hour at room temperature would have brought the temperature of your dough up to around 68F which would have been better to use.

2. Nope.  It's better to top it right away.  Letting it sit on top of a pizza peel or screen would just make the dough stick.

3. Yup.  The oven temperature was still too cold.  Preheating it for only 10 minutes ruined your pizza. 

4. Yup.  The hotter the better and it would have been done in 10 minutes or less. 

5. Read some of the posts made by others in the forums.

[Pete-zza]

dunnojack,

RoadPizza has correctly diagnosed your problems in using the dough recipe posted at http://www.pizzamaking.com/nystepbystep.php. You might want to try the recipe again using the steps as outlined at the above location. There are many versions of the NY style pizza, so if the one you used turns out not to be the one you are after, let us know and we may be able to suggest other NY style dough recipes for you to try. In the meantime, you may want to take a look at this thread, which is primarily devoted to newbies trying to make a NY style (the Lehmann NY style), at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2223.msg19503.html#msg19503. The bulk of the tips start at Reply 8.

As for the choice of all-purpose flour, it is possible to make a NY style pizza using that flour, as was done for many years before bread flour and high-gluten flour became more readily available, but I have found that I get the best results using bread flour or high-gluten flour. Bread flour is readily available in supermarkets, so I would suggest starting with that flour. If you can find the King Arthur brand of bread flour, that would be my first choice. Otherwise, use what you can find where you shop.

Peter

[Randy]

What Peter said.