Just wanted to update everyone on my current venture. I'm about to sign a lease for my own pizza shoppe and will be using a dough based Devon's low-hydration dough (in addition to a traditional chicago style pan-pizza).
For your purposes here, I use the DKM recipe to create 2 14" skins (2 pizzas per 1lb of flour). Because I have a single-roller sheeter with no scrapers, I have to be very careful to prevent dough stuck to the roller. I have learned to cheat on the amount of flour in the dough which allows me to introduce some flour on the sheeter. I pass the dough through the sheeter 5-6 times to acheive a rough skin. If I use high-gluten flour I have to use a rolling pin to get the final skin size (it shrinks back a bit) but the final product is otherwise identical using all-purpose, bread, or high-gluten.
This skin gets folded in quarters and placed in a zip-loc bag for storage (unless i'm using it right away). The skins have gone as long as 36 hours with good results.
I dock the dough, prepare it (sauce is still in-the-works) and top it with diced grande part-skim. The paddle gets dusted with Semolina and placed directly on a hot stone (550) on the bottom rack. The pizza takes 7 minutes in my home oven (I crack the door frequently to cycle the oven and prevent the top from over-cooking).
Although more tedious, this method in my home oven produces a near identical result to that achieved on my Blodgett Deck oven. For a much different and equally delicious crust, try stacking two skins and docking them together. You end up with a flaky crust that has lots of snap on the bottom.
I can't tell you how many of these I've cooked and everyone thinks the crust is spectacular. It holds up well to toppings, even on my Butcher of Longview Pizza (6 different meats - all cooked raw except bacon).
A couple tips I forgot as I typed - 1. Dress the pizza all the way to the edge. Otherwise, it's a mess. 2. Cut it in squares - it tastes better that way!
3. Place it on a cooling rack of some sort for a minute or so once its out of the oven (I use a spare oven rack). This causes the pizza to stay crisp far longer after it is cut.
I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's results, particularly regarding doubling up the skins. I hope to use this as a buffet pizza during lunch as I'm near a community college of 8000 students and want a pizza that fills them up on bread a bit more than the cracker-style and I don't dare try to keep too much chicago style on the buffet at 5.99...
Thanks to everyone again for all the great ideas on this forum. It has been invaluable in taking my pizzas to the next level.
