NY Style Street Pizza Screen Questions. I just tried a screen on a stone....!

[Crusty]

Tonight I made a pie on my new 17" screen from Advent.  I used the Pete-zza/Lehman modified recipe
(9/27/04) with 1/4t of IDY.  The dough was 57 degrees and stretched nicely after having been taken out of the refrigerator after 24 hours.  It went a full 17inches and was over the edge.  I  placed it on the stone which had been preheated for 1.5 hours to 550 degrees. 

The pizza started looking  great with the rim expanding the the cheese melting.  My goal was to pull the pie off the screen and  put it direclty on the stone for final crust development.  I did not acheive my goal......the pie was stuck to the screen and was too thin in the middle.   Finally I was able to get the pie off screen but left some scabs on the screen.

Should I have seasoned or sprayed the screen?

Is the Pete-zza recipe the appropriate size for a true 17" pie?

I felt the pie was too thin in the middle but the crust size ok.  But the crust was not like cooking on a stone as the dough looked bready vs having those large irregular size holes.

Based on this experience I will not use the screen again.

Thanks,

Crusty

[Pete-zza]

Crusty,

Please don't give up so soon.

First, as to the basic recipe you used, it was formulated to have a hydration percent of around 60 percent and to produce a dough ball weight sufficient for a 16-inch pizza. Subsequently, I came up with a similar formulation but with a hydration pecent of around 63 percent. That formulation is presented at reply #86 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.80.html and seems to be popular with some of the members of this forum. But, either way, the dough is for a 16-inch pizza, not a 17-inch pizza. Stretching out the dough that extra inch may have caused the thinness at the center. Even under the best of circumstances, I have found that I have to be careful shaping and stretching the dough to minimize the possibility of the dough thinning out a bit at the center. If you'd like, I'd be happy to caculate the weights of ingredients for a 17-inch size. Just let me know (including the hydration percent you want to use), and I will post the list of ingredients at the Lehmann site (just to keep all the Lehmann formulations at one convenient place).

Second, as to the pizza screen (I assume you meant Adcraft), professional pizza operators usually season their screens by running them through their conveyors a few times or bake them in their deck ovens to season them. My recollection is that I sprayed mine with a light oil-based spray. I have had no problems with sticking to date, and have never used the spray beyond that first time. With use, my screen had darkened and become seasoned.

Third, when I use the screen, I place it on an upper rack position where it bakes for around 7 minutes or so, following which I shift it onto the preheated pizza stone at the lowest rack position for a final two minutes or so to get added bottom crust browning. If I had a 17-inch stone or a fully tiled area (and a peel) sufficient to accommodate the 17-inch size, I might be inclined to do all the baking on the stone or tiles, simply because it is one step less to go through. Unfortunately, the only way for me to get a large size (16 or 17 inches) is to use a pizza screen.

I'd give it another try, using a slightly larger dough ball for the 17-inch size.

Peter