Author Topic: Generic Chicago Thin Crust (Read 46892 times)

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #60 on:** August 10, 2009, 11:01:27 PM »

i now read and saw you are using the scale! didnt see that! so yeah maybe yours is off! when i was doing volume measurements mine was too wet too! and i had to keep adding flour. now using the scale it is really pretty dry with some flour not incorporated as Loos says in his original post. very very scrappy!

zspec1 · « **Reply #61 on:** August 11, 2009, 10:51:37 PM »

Quote from: mrmojo1 on August 10, 2009, 11:01:27 PM

i now read and saw you are using the scale! didnt see that! so yeah maybe yours is off! when i was doing volume measurements mine was too wet too! and i had to keep adding flour. now using the scale it is really pretty dry with some flour not incorporated as Loos says in his original post. very very scrappy!

Yes, it turned out to be the scale. I kept putting the same empty pot on and the measurement kept changing by as much as 60g. I tossed it and bough another one and now the measurement is stable.

I have tried using a stone with a warm up time of 1 hour at 500(highest setting the oven will go) and the same thing happens. Plus I don't like the way a stone effects the Chicago thin crust and prefer the cutter pan I have. The opening of the oven door towards the end works but I dislike having to pay so much attention to it and that's why I decided on par baking for a few minutes while I setup the toppings.

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #62 on:** August 12, 2009, 01:45:12 AM »

thats great! Sounds like you got a recipe! i have almost always used a stone, what is it you like better about the pan crusts you make? if you dont mind, i may have to try that again! do you like the texture better? etc.! thanks for your insights!

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #63 on:** August 12, 2009, 01:49:56 AM »

oh yeah...checked out the stone i mentioned at williamssonoma and its now 42 bucks. its 14" x 16" i think. pretty good thickness 1/4 inch? anyone have a better deal? better stone? no research necessary! just off the top of your head!

Mad_Ernie · « **Reply #64 on:** August 12, 2009, 09:31:42 AM »

My stones are at least 1/2" in thickness. Williams Sonoma normally sells very good products, but in this case I think you could do better. A fibrament or soap-stone would be ideal, imo.

zspec1 · « **Reply #65 on:** August 12, 2009, 06:45:17 PM »

Quote from: mrmojo1 on August 12, 2009, 01:45:12 AM

thats great! Sounds like you got a recipe! i have almost always used a stone, what is it you like better about the pan crusts you make? if you dont mind, i may have to try that again! do you like the texture better? etc.! thanks for your insights!

Yes, the texture of the stone provides a dryer crust than the cutter pan. That's the best way I can put it, maybe someone else can explain it better.

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #66 on:** August 14, 2009, 02:37:05 AM »

Quote from: Mad_Ernie on August 12, 2009, 09:31:42 AM

My stones are at least 1/2" in thickness. Williams Sonoma normally sells very good products, but in this case I think you could do better. A fibrament or soap-stone would be ideal, imo.

i mis-represented williamsonoma when i said 1/4 inch. it is a 1/2 " stone, pulled out the tapemeasure. for 50 bucks thereson it has been great soo far. it is getting stained nicely!!! but you have some great recommendations. whats your favorite right now?? thanks!!

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #67 on:** August 14, 2009, 02:41:48 AM »

Quote from: zspec1 on August 12, 2009, 06:45:17 PM

Yes, the texture of the stone provides a dryer crust than the cutter pan. That's the best way I can put it, maybe someone else can explain it better.

thanks! great explanation! no worries!!! i am a dry thin crust guy right now, so the stone is working for me, but i love all pizza and am totally going to try the pan or disck? for this recipe! I may never have eaten a pizza with the texture you describe! i'm stoked! but for the record. the new york pizza people drive me nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ive had your best...i am not into it!!! heh heh! chicago is the best.....thick or thin......

zspec1 · « **Reply #68 on:** August 14, 2009, 07:39:35 AM »

Quote from: mrmojo1 on August 14, 2009, 02:41:48 AM

thanks! great explanation! no worries!!! i am a dry thin crust guy right now, so the stone is working for me, but i love all pizza and am totally going to try the pan or disck? for this recipe! I may never have eaten a pizza with the texture you describe! i'm stoked! but for the record. the new york pizza people drive me nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ive had your best...i am not into it!!! heh heh! chicago is the best.....thick or thin......

I would have to agree,Although NY pizza is good it still #3 for me. I prefer Chicago 1st, followed by New Haven 2nd, and NY 3rd. It's usually which ever one a person grew up with that they tend to prefer. I've actually listened to people tell me that Papa johns is their favorite pizza

I bought my cutter pstk cutter pan off of pizza tools.com. I think you might like the results on this thin crust recipe, plus it makes handling the pizza a whole lot easier.

Mad_Ernie · « **Reply #69 on:** August 14, 2009, 10:11:13 AM »

Quote from: mrmojo1 on August 14, 2009, 02:37:05 AM

i mis-represented williamsonoma when i said 1/4 inch. it is a 1/2 " stone, pulled out the tapemeasure. for 50 bucks thereson it has been great soo far. it is getting stained nicely!!! but you have some great recommendations. whats your favorite right now?? thanks!!

I think a 1/2" stone is okay. I have 4 stones but the ones I prefer are the 1" soap stone and the 1" fibrament. Either one works fine for me. The Fibrament stone requires more care in handling as it will crack if any moisture gets to it and you crank up the heat.

madjack · « **Reply #70 on:** September 01, 2009, 01:39:50 PM »

So I finally got to try the dough wiht the 1/3 milk substitution you guys were discussing.

It was much better with the milk. I eyeballed the 1/3 amount, and mixed the milk and water in the same amount (by weight) I would normally use water. I thought it browned a little bit better, the inside was a little more "airy", more crispy, and seemed to have more air pockets. Very good, I'll probably use milk every time now.

BTW, I am cooking these in a 14" cutter pan from pizzatools, I have not tried a stone yet, maybe when the weather, and kitchen is a little cooler.

I also tried a 12 hour rise in the fridge. The 12 hours in the fridge didn't do much for flavor, I had much better results with 20 hours in the fridge.

One question with adding the milk... is there any problem in doing a longer room temp. rise? The reason I ask is I was worried about the milk going bad, or does it not matter when it's mixed in dough. I want to try some longer room-temp rises in a sealed container. I made this thin crust last weekend (without the milk) and let it rise for 8 hours and got better flavor, I'd like to try it with milk and an even longer room temp rise.

bennychuck · « **Reply #71 on:** September 01, 2009, 02:11:36 PM »

So, I finally got a chance to try this out last night since the weather's been cooler and we finally got a stand mixer. I don't have a kitchen scale, so I had to convert the values from the dough tool to volume measurements using the uncle salmon tool. I also docked the skin before topping and baked on a preheated at 550* stone for about 8 minutes. I topped the pizza with sausage and mushrooms. The one thing that stands out is that my crust doesn't have that thicker, airy quality that everyone else's seems to have. Maybe I rolled it out too thin, or perhaps it's the docking or the volume vs. weight measurements. I'll try this again with a scale and without docking and see what kind of results I get. I suppose it could be a high altitude effect as well, but I'm really not sure. Any advice is also appreciated. I got only one crappy picture of the finished pie, but I'll attach it anyway.

B.C.

bennychuck · « **Reply #72 on:** September 01, 2009, 02:31:54 PM »

Upon further review of the recipe, I think I did roll it out a bit too much. Perhaps it was my obsession with trying to make sure I got it out to that 14" size. I look forward to trying this one again, though. I do have one question on this one w/r/t handling of the yeast. Is it better to stir in the yeast after dissolving the salt in the water, or just to let it sit in the water prior to adding some flour? Or, perhaps it does not matter.

mrmojo1 · « **Reply #73 on:** September 02, 2009, 12:00:38 AM »

Hey even if its not the best picture and wasnt exactly on your target. looks really good!!! makes me hungry! was your bottom crisp? i do 550 on a stone and i need about 10 min on the nose. i also do find a little thicker skin added a little more airyness. i follow loos recipe and i always dissolved the salt in the water and and then added the yeast. some people say it may kill the yeast but it always seems to bloom and it rises fine. i was a little worried on my milk substitution try, that the cold milk may deactivate the yeast? so i warmed it a bit in the microwave out of paranoia before adding. seemed fine. sometimes there's an attempted dough takeover in the fridge in the morning. i really like the slight beer flavor i get in the dough after its ages a few days in the fridge.

bennychuck · « **Reply #74 on:** September 02, 2009, 01:05:38 AM »

It definitely tasted about as good as it looks. The bottom turned out nice and crispy, and I think the difference in our times has more to do with how thin my skin was prior to going in the oven.

I guess my main thing with the yeast is that the dough rose fine, but not quite as much as I initially expected it to. I think next time instead of physically stirring it in with the salty water, I will just drop it in and let it sit for a few minutes before adding some flour. I feel like perhaps some of the yeast was damaged by stirring it in this case. An overnight cold ferment sounds like it might be worth a try as well. Regardless, I have high hopes for the next time around.

Pete-zza · « **Reply #75 on:** September 02, 2009, 10:21:22 AM »

Quote from: mrmojo1 on September 02, 2009, 12:00:38 AM

i follow loos recipe and i always dissolved the salt in the water and and then added the yeast. some people say it may kill the yeast but it always seems to bloom and it rises fine.

bennychuck,

So long as you completely dissolve the salt in the water first and then stir in the yeast (ADY), you should be OK. In fact, that is a common method used by Neapolitan pizza makers. In most cases, you will starting adding and mixing in the rest of the ingredients anyway so the yeast and salt don't sit there for extended periods of time in direct contact with each other. Also, most modern yeasts have been designed to better tolerate salt. I personally prefer to rehydrate the ADY in a small amount of the formula water (about 5 times the weight of the ADY and at around 105 degrees F) so that the rest of the formula water can remain on the cool side and not speed up the fermentation process. What you don't want to do is just throw the salt, sugar, yeast and water into a bowl at the same time. You might get lucky and get away with having problems but it is not the technically correct way to do things. Tom Lehmann admonishes against doing this sort of thing in the middle of his PMQ Think Tank post at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=44454#44454.

Peter

bennychuck · « **Reply #76 on:** September 02, 2009, 05:06:40 PM »

Thanks, Peter, very helpful info as always.

BTB · « **Reply #77 on:** September 03, 2009, 03:19:55 PM »

If there is one thing I've learned from my pizzamaking experience, it's NEVER to mixed salt and yeast in warm water. Nine out of ten times it will adversely affect the yeast, but if you feel lucky, do otherwise. I would follow Tom Lehmann's expert advice on this: " . . don't mix the yeast with the salt . . . This is bad for the yeast as it will have an inhibiting affect on the yeast in the concentrated solution."

Pete-zza · « **Reply #78 on:** September 03, 2009, 03:43:37 PM »

BTB,

It wasn't clear from your comments whether you were also ruling out adding yeast to water in which the salt has already been dissolved, which is the Neapolitan way as I discussed above. As an example of that approach, see the instructions for the Neapolitan dough formulation at http://www.woodstone-corp.com/cooking_naples_style_dough.htm. Marco (pizzanapoletana) and I also had a series of exchanges on this topic some time ago starting at Reply 4 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1085.msg9695.html#msg9695 and continuing on to the end of the thread.

I still think that Tom Lehmann's advice has merit. It pretty much reduces the risk of serious yeast problems to zero and spares him having to address problems of users who are sloppy with their practices.

Peter

BTB · « **Reply #79 on:** September 03, 2009, 05:37:02 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on September 03, 2009, 03:43:37 PM

It wasn't clear from your comments whether you were also ruling out adding yeast to water in which the salt has already been dissolved, which is the Neapolitan way . . .

If I wasn't clear, which I know I'm often times not, my experience has shown that adding yeast to water in which the salt has already been dissolved is . . . to say the least . . . not good. And it is so dissappointing after working up the recipe and mixing all the ingredients together, just to get an unsatisfatory result. So I would rule it out . . . for me at least. I may be one of the few who are not big on the "Neapolitan way." The American variations and interpretations of pizza are in my estimation better than Neapolitan or the alleged original Italian style pizzas, altho I like all styles on any given day. My experience with adding yeast to water in which the salt had already been dissolved had been unsatisfactory. Like Tom Lehmann said, it has " . . an inhibiting affect." But it's good that others try it out and determine its affect for themselves. If it works for others, that's great.