Tonight's Pie by Glutenboy

[Kneadsdough]

I tried to push out the dough into a disk and then when it is about 6 inches in diameter, I try the technique where you pick it up and toss it back and forth between your hands turning it 90 degrees with each pass. But inevitably I end up with an oblong dough and then pick up the long side and try to get gravity to help me create a circle. I know I’m not doing it correctly but that’s the best I’ve been able to manage so far. I’ve let the skin rest on the peel for a few minutes to give it a chance to relax but it just doesn’t seem to stretch as far as it should (but I’m sure it’s my “technique” that’s the problem). Thanks for your help Matt!

[hammettjr]

I tried to push out the dough into a disk and then when it is about 6 inches in diameter, I try the technique where you pick it up and toss it back and forth between your hands turning it 90 degrees with each pass. But inevitably I end up with an oblong dough and then pick up the long side and try to get gravity to help me create a circle. I know I’m not doing it correctly but that’s the best I’ve been able to manage so far. I’ve let the skin rest on the peel for a few minutes to give it a chance to relax but it just doesn’t seem to stretch as far as it should (but I’m sure it’s my “technique” that’s the problem). Thanks for your help Matt!

Pleasure to help. Watch this video, it's great

[Glutenboy]

I tried to push out the dough into a disk and then when it is about 6 inches in diameter, I try the technique where you pick it up and toss it back and forth between your hands turning it 90 degrees with each pass. But inevitably I end up with an oblong dough and then pick up the long side and try to get gravity to help me create a circle. I know I’m not doing it correctly but that’s the best I’ve been able to manage so far. I’ve let the skin rest on the peel for a few minutes to give it a chance to relax but it just doesn’t seem to stretch as far as it should (but I’m sure it’s my “technique” that’s the problem). Thanks for your help Matt!

Hmmmm...  I'm not the worlds most expert dough stretcher, but I usually don't have too much difficulty getting my dough thin.  Sometimes, especially if I bump up the hydration, I even have to be careful not to let it go too far.  Two things spring to mind.  The first is hydration.  does the dough rise well and feel supple enough?  Maybe bump it a point or two.  The second is handling.  Try not pressing it into a disk.  Just gently get the air out and hold it easily by the rim, letting it hang and stretch itself as you pass the edge through your hands.  Then shift to the knuckle stretch.  If you're using All Trumps, it should hold up nicely.  My 300-310-gram dough balls usually wind up at 14 inches.  I don't demand that they do, but that's about where they want to be.  The pizzas look great!

- GB

[Glutenboy]

Made six doughs on Sunday, and put one to use this evening.  I've been working my way through a 25-pound bag of First Street High-Gluten Flour.  My last attempt was at just under 65-percent hydration, which was great with the First Street Bread Flour but a bit sticky and slack with the HG.  This time, I lowered the H₂O to 62 percent and lowered the yeast just a smidge.  Much better consistency.  Easy to handle with a nice, even stretch and better color than last time.  Flavor was good too.  My only complaint is that both doughs I've made with this flour, while crisp right out of the oven, seem to go a bit limp and soggy when they cool.  Still tastes good, but definitely not a quality I'm after.  For this test, the usual GB toppings.  The tomatoes are 6-in-1's.  Very good again.  I'm a fan.  Here's some pics.

[Glutenboy]

Not bad for a Kenmore.

[Chicago Bob]

Not bad for a Kenmore.

   Yep... Miss my old gas Kenny.... With the broiler down below....😎

What a battle ship !!  🏎️🚢

[Glutenboy]

   Yep... Miss my old gas Kenny.... With the broiler down below....

What a battle ship !! 

I know, right?  I took out the heat sensor, so the flames never cut out.  Then I replaced the door seal with fiberglass rope coated in RTV silicone.  It’s my Frankenstein’s monster.

[Glutenboy]

I got ahold of some Gold Medal Superlative (bleached, unbromated) and gave it a try.  Good stuff.  This dough is six days old, no oil, 64-percent hydration.  I wanted to see whether I could get more color on the top of the pie, so I put a rack two levels up with foil, shiny side down, on the rack and a second deck of tiles on top of the foil.  It didn't really get me extra browning, but it did paradoxically cut a minute or two off my bake time.  I can't complain about that, and the bottom crust had a very nice eggshell crispness to it.  Whether that's the flour or the change in setup is to be determined.

Edit:  This was also my first go with Jersey Fresh crushed tomatoes.  They worked very well, but after hearing all the talk, I was expecting them to be very sweet.  When I tasted them out of the can, my first reaction was that they were extremely neutral in terms of sweetness and acid.  So at first I was a little disappointed.  I went ahead and prepped them as I usually do, and they definitely came to life on the pizza.  Don't know whether they're my favorite, but they gave it up when it counted.

[Chicago Bob]

Delicious looking pizza pie GB.... very nice work there dude! 

Love the sausage coins and your skirt shot is showing awesomeness. 

[Grease Wheel]

I got ahold of some Gold Medal Superlative (bleached, unbromated) and gave it a try.  Good stuff.  This dough is six days old, no oil, 64-percent hydration.  I wanted to see whether I could get more color on the top of the pie, so I put a rack two levels up with foil, shiny side down, on the rack and a second deck of tiles on top of the foil.  It didn't really get me extra browning, but it did paradoxically cut a minute or two off my bake time.  I can't complain about that..

Those pies are what I strive for. They are ideal! (Edited to say except for the foliage, lol.)

I use foil in my electric, home oven.

Oven Floor: Bake element.

Bottom rack: Tile deck and supports for top stones.

Next rack up: No rack, top stones.
 
Next rack up: Foiled, shiny side up.

My IRT reads 725° F on the deck and 630° F on the top stones.

Such gives me the heat environment I need for a great pie with a well treated top. Taking advantage is my charge. I'll keep trying.

[Glutenboy]

Those pies are what I strive for. They are ideal! (Edited to say except for the foliage, lol.)

I use foil in my electric, home oven.

Oven Floor: Bake element.

Bottom rack: Tile deck and supports for top stones.

Next rack up: No rack, top stones.
 
Next rack up: foiled, shiny side up.

My IRT reads 725° F on the deck and 630° F on the top stones.

Such gives me the heat environment I need for a great pie with a well treated top. Taking advantage is my charge. I'll keep trying.

So you're saying put the foil above the tiles so that the foil reflects heat to the tiles and the tiles heat the top of the pie.  I was thinking that the direct reflection of heat from the foil would be more powerful.  I'll switch it up next time and see what happens.  I don't know how old your electric is, but the really old ones are fantastic for superheating.  My buddy had an old one in his apartment, and I loved making pizzas there.  You could set the oven to BAKE with one knob and the temperature to BROIL with the other.  The bottom element would stay on all night.  The oven got so hot that we had to empty the cabinet above it to make sure the cabinet floor wasn't burning.  The pizzas were amazing.  It was like an electric coal oven.  When he moved, it broke my heart.

Your pizza looks great, and I love your diagram.  You even threw in a CGI pie!

[Glutenboy]

Delicious looking pizza pie GB.... very nice work there dude! 

Love the sausage coins and your skirt shot is showing awesomeness. 

Thanks, Bob.  I was pretty happy with it.  I always prep the sausage like that because it's how they did it when I was a kid in New Jersey.  I boil the sausage until it's just cooked, slice it thin, and brown it in a skillet.  You'd think it'd be dry, but there's enough fat in each slice to get a bear through the winter. 

[foreplease]

Good looking pizza, Grease Wheel. During the bake, then, the pizza stays put on the bottom tile? That is, you never place it on the top stone, correct? Approximately how long was your bake? Thank you.

[Glutenboy]

Good looking pizza, Grease Wheel. During the bake, then, the pizza stays put on the bottom tile? That is, you never place it on the top stone, correct? Approximately how long was your bake? Thank you.

Those pies are what I strive for. They are ideal! (Edited to say except for the foliage, lol.)

I use foil in my electric, home oven.

Oven Floor: Bake element.

Bottom rack: Tile deck and supports for top stones.

Next rack up: No rack, top stones.
 
Next rack up: Foiled, shiny side up.

My IRT reads 725° F on the deck and 630° F on the top stones.

Such gives me the heat environment I need for a great pie with a well treated top. Taking advantage is my charge. I'll keep trying.

Yeah, I just realized I have the same question as foreplease.  Do you move the pie from the bottom stone to the top one directly under the foil at some point?

[Grease Wheel]

Glutenboy & foreplease,

TY for the nice words.

My oven is 20 years old. Last month I had to replace the bake element. Its thermostat is recalibrated to plus 35°.

The foil is my notion that I can protect the thermostat allowing the oven to pump out more heat. One time I flipped the foil to shiny side down and that seemed to deliver too much top heat, so the foil is def in the mix. I never didn't use top stones so don't know how foil direct reflect would effect a bake.

The 250 gram dough ball ~12" pies bake for 5.5 minutes. They stay in a pan and on the deck for the entire ride. On pizza day the oven door opens and closes just once.

[Glutenboy]

Been a while.  I've been hand kneading lately because my KA Pro was on the fritz.  It was a good experience to get a new feel for the dough, but I finally took apart the mixer, replaced a couple of parts, cleaned out the transmission and the connections, replaced the grease, and hoped for the best.  Thanks, YouTube!  Runs better than when I bought it 12 years ago.  I made a nice batch of dough, adding the flour gradually, letting the the dough hook work it as much as possible.  It came out very silky and rose well on the counter.  I decided to ball it and refrigerate it with no oil and then degas and re-ball it the next day.  Why?  Because it's what I used to do when I was starting out, and I wanted to get back to basics.  Everything worked out okay, but all in all not the best idea I ever had.  When I re-balled the dough, I pinched the bottoms of the reformed dough balls to seal them, and this created an unevenness that I have had to deal with as I stretch the skins.  The dough was nice and strong, so I was able to work around the issue, but it's a pain keeping the thin spots thick and getting the thick spots thin.  On the bright side, I got a very nice rim at 3 and 4 days which may have something to do with reforming the dough, but if I'm going to pursue re-balling, I'll have to develop a better technique.  I don't remember this problem coming up when I was doing it back in the day, but I have a feeling my yeast content is a lot lower than it was then.  Maybe that has something to do with it.  The pizza in the pic is from the same batch of dough.  At 6 days old, it didn't give me the same bubbly cornice as a couple of days earlier, but the flavor was great.  My other change was slicing my mushrooms wafer thin and sauteing them until they actually got some color.  They were very good.  I'm trying to cut my toppings thinner so they don't overpower the basic ingredients.  Tomatoes were Jersey Fresh.  Nice to drop by and catch up on everyone's amazing creations!

- GB 

[Rolls]

I took out the heat sensor, so the flames never cut out.  Then I replaced the door seal with fiberglass rope coated in RTV silicone.  It’s my Frankenstein’s monster.

I've been hand kneading lately because my KA Pro was on the fritz.  It was a good experience to get a new feel for the dough, but I finally took apart the mixer, replaced a couple of parts, cleaned out the transmission and the connections, replaced the grease, and hoped for the best.

^^Only on pizzamaking.com.^^

I salute you sir.



Rolls

[Glutenboy]

^^Only on pizzamaking.com.^^

I salute you sir.



Rolls

We are nothing if not resourceful. 

[Kneadsdough]

I love this recipe but am not very experienced so I’m not sure if this is common but here is a shot of the dough right out of the fridge on day 9. Is this what it is supposed to look like?

[Kneadsdough]

Here it is in the Blackstone. Still not sure what temp is best but i tried it at 600 and I love the flavor in the crust! Thank you GB for making such a great recipe!