First Cross Section of my Pizza!

[hotsawce]

Alright, here's my long awaited first cross section. Forgive the photo quality, as I took it on my old cell phone and ate most of the pizza already  I have a couple of other pictures, but I can't get them off my phone (I think it cost me .50 cents just to send that one to my email.)

Analysis of what's going on in the crust is welcome...if anyone sees anything I should be looking for in there or that I should change.

Cooking Method: Preheated stone on lowest rack in electric oven @550 for about an hour. Spent about 5 minutes on the stone, a minute under the broiler on the second highest rack to get the top brown. This was a balancing act; did not want the cheese to burn. I got a couple of brown spots...not black...so I suppose all was well 

The dough was also done using a preferment recipe Old Critter gave me. It was 42% of the final dough weight! Oh, and it's all purpose flour!

[Jackie Tran]

Looks good!  Were u shooting for NY style?

[hotsawce]

I'm a neapolitan lover, but with a home oven I think the most one can hope for is NY style.  I guess it's kind of a hybrid. I don't like shredded cheese or dry mozzarella. What's on there is fresh. Neapolitan elements at a NY oven temp? (not even that much of a temperature, but as high as i could get it)

[pcampbell]

Looks good, reminds me of Grimaldi's .

[norma427]

Alright, here's my long awaited first cross section. Forgive the photo quality, as I took it on my old cell phone and ate most of the pizza already  I have a couple of other pictures, but I can't get them off my phone (I think it cost me .50 cents just to send that one to my email.)

Analysis of what's going on in the crust is welcome...if anyone sees anything I should be looking for in there or that I should change.

Cooking Method: Preheated stone on lowest rack in electric oven @550 for about an hour. Spent about 5 minutes on the stone, a minute under the broiler on the second highest rack to get the top brown. This was a balancing act; did not want the cheese to burn. I got a couple of brown spots...not black...so I suppose all was well 

The dough was also done using a preferment recipe Old Critter gave me. It was 42% of the final dough weight! Oh, and it's all purpose flour!

hotsawce,

Your preferment pie looks great!    How was the taste of the crust?  Did you also find when opening this dough it was easy to open.
I am anxious to hear your results,

Norma

[hotsawce]

it was noticeably more tasty and much easier to open (for me, anyway.)

Overall, I was pretty pleased. I'm a novice, but the whole structure looked good, and it wasn't dried out, I got browning on the top, a nice bottom, stretched the pie thinner than I probably ever had. It was overall just a great pie (and I made it today as a test pizza to practice stretching with and tweak my oven some more, but it came out great!) All this done using AP flour, and I got a great oven spring.

Thank you for the response to the thread

[norma427]

it was noticeably more tasty and much easier to open (for me, anyway.)

Overall, I was pretty pleased. I'm a novice, but the whole structure looked good, and it wasn't dried out, I got browning on the top, a nice bottom, stretched the pie thinner than I probably ever had. It was overall just a great pie (and I made it today as a test pizza to practice stretching with and tweak my oven some more, but it came out great!) All this done using AP flour, and I got a great oven spring.

Thank you for the response to the thread

hotsawce,

Thanks for going into detail about your pizza.    Since I use a preferment now, that is why I wondered if you thought there was a better taste in the crust.  I also noticed when using the dough with preferment it is so easy to open. 

Your oven spring looks great,

Norma