How much cheese is "standard"?

[Adam T]

For something like a 14" pizza how much cheese would be a "standard" amount for an American style pizza?

The other night we used almost 8oz of mozzarella and a couple slices of provolone on a 9" x 13" pan pizza.... my family really likes extra cheese. I'm going to be making some pizzas for some guests and want to know a good baseline amount of cheese to put on my pizza.

I found a thread here that pointed to a .PDF file that answered this question but the link to the .PDF file is no longer valid.

[pcampbell]

If you go over on pmq.com/tt you can do a search for "how much cheese" or "cheese quantity" or something.  The amount of cheese folks put on pizza blows my mind.  I put like 6 oz on a 16" pizza.  I think most guys over there are putting at least 10oz on a 16"!

[Pete-zza]

Adam T,

What pcampbell says is correct. The amount of cheese used on pizzas varies all over the place. Some cheeses also have different coverage potential. For example, many pizza operators say that they need less of the Grande mozzarella cheeses to get good coverage than other brands.

I believe the dead link was one to a Burke document. However, the same information is available in this document: http://www.concordfoodsinc.com/newsletters/NewsletterSeptember2006.pdf. If you need the cheese quantities for pizza sizes above 14", you will have to extrapolate to the larger sizes. The way that I would do it is to determine the amount of cheese used per square inch of surface area of the 14" (pi times radius squared) and multiply that number by the square inch surface area of the larger pizza.

Peter

[Adam T]

Thanks both for the input.

[November]

Those portion guides can be confounding at times.  There doesn't seem to be any rigid logic in place for determining how much of a topping should go on one size based on another.  I think the numbers Concord gives for cheese falls more along the lines of frozen pizzas, not American style chain restaurant pizzas.  For cost reasons I can't imagine many pizzerias using what would be considered "Heavy" amounts of cheese, yet I know for a fact most chain restaurants use quantities closer to the "H" column of Concord's guide.

I tend to start with either 6 oz or 7 oz for a 12" pizza and do the math to determine how much to put on other sizes.  Keep in mind the surface area used in the calculation should be the surface area over which the ingredient covers.  For a 12" pizza, that means approximately 25 square inches, or for a 14" pizza, that means approximately 36 square inches.  Based on those numbers, I would use between 8.64 oz and 10.08 oz of cheese, because that's what you would typically find coming from an American chain pizzeria.

- red.november

EDIT: NOTE: I gave the shorthand surface area values for the two sizes, not the actual surface areas.  I never multiply by pi for size conversions since it can be cancelled out as a common multiplier.

[Pete-zza]

The Burke portioning guide has been around for several years, long before cheese prices went up so much that pizza operators started cutting back on the amounts of cheese to use on their pizzas. I first found the guide when Big Dave Ostrander recommended it to pizza operators in a post at the original (now defunct) PMQ Think Tank.

I agree with November that there are perhaps better ways to determine how much cheese to use. I would personally determine how much cheese I like on any given size of pizza and then scale up or down from there for different pizza sizes. Tom Lehmann recently used such an approach in a post at the PMQ Think Tank at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=28686#28686.

Peter

[November]

Tom Lehmann recently used such an approach

Except Tom wasn't taking into account the amount of surface area the cheese was covering, only the surface area of the crust.

EDIT: For example, if you started with a known quantity for a 14" pizza for example; and you wanted to scale it to an 8" pizza, the one approach yields 1.3 times too much cheese.  In the other direction you end up with 1.3 times too little cheese.

[Pete-zza]

November,

Yes, you are correct. There are some types of pizzas where the cheese and toppings go edge to edge, such as thin and cracker style pizzas and some pan type pizzas, but the post to which Tom Lehmann replied was with respect to a NY style, which does not use cheese edge to edge. If he had recommended your more precise method, he would save pizza operators some money.

Peter

[yaddayaddayadda]

Personally, I use about 1lb of mozz for 2 12" pizzas.

[jiminvegas]

One thing youll find with chain restaurants is "skimping on cheese" the franchise groups are given specific guidelines for topping but to keep food costs down skimping has become far to common  I know managers from Papa Johns Pizza Hut and Dominos that will tell you this..off the record

[Pizza Molhado]

That is the main reason why I dont buy pizza from Pizza Hut anymore, when 25% - 35% of the pizza doesnt contain any cheese, you know you're being ripped off.

[BurntEdges]

I use 8 oz. of cheese for a 14" pie, but it's a combination of Grande Mozz (6 oz) and Stella provolone (2 oz).  I use 2 slices of the Stella, broken up and put on the sauce layer.  I finish the pizza with the shredded Grande and it seems to be plenty of cheese.

For example, many pizza operators say that they need less of the Grande mozzarella cheeses to get good coverage than other brands.

I must admit that the Grande does yield great coverage.  I used to put mozz on until I could not see any sauce.  However, with the Grande the coverage appears to be lean until it comes out of the oven, evenly distributed - nice and bubbly - and a good layer of cheese. 

Start with 8 ozs., or another quantity you may prefer, and adjust it up or down an ounce at at time, until you hit your mark.

[David]

You should put on enough cheese to blanket all and any flavor from the tomatos and induce a heavy bloated feeling and obesity. Sadly the consumers will feel positively mugged by anything less artery clogging.The "Big Gulp" mentality prevails.Flavor and balance are not the issue here.If it were, the major franchises would be dinosaurs by now.