First try at Cast Iron Chicago Style

[spmiz12]

Please be easy on a newbie trying to learn from my mistakes, lol.

A couple nights ago I made a Chicago Style not sure what went wrong but based on the looks I thought it'd be amazing; did realize I needed a better brand cheese for more melt but the big problem was it had such a huge yeast taste that it ruined it.

My ingredients were:
    8 ¼ ounces room-temperature water
    1 packet (2 ¼ tsp) active dry yeast
    1 tsp sugar
    12 ½ ounces all-purpose flour
    2 ½ ounces medium grind cornmeal
    1 ½ tsp kosher salts
    ⅛ tsp cream of tartar
    ⅓ cup plus 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Added yeast, sugar to room temp water and let bloom for 10 mins. Put all remaining dry ingredients in stand mixer bowl, then added the yeast mixture and then oil; mixed on low with dough hook till everything combined, then turned up to medium for about 7 or 8 mins. After which, I removed from mixer and worked it for a min or so and formed a ball, place in oiled bowl, rolled ball in the oil, covered for about 90 mins. Then placed dough in oiled cast iron skillet, gently worked it, let it rest cover 20 mins and then was able to finish forming it. Put on ingredients and bake for about 40 mins. Looked really good, released from pan.

But that over yeast after taste ruined it for me; what did I do wrong?

[Pizza_Not_War]

Don't really bake that style but that is too much yeast and a short rise time for anything I would make. I'd look for a different recipe.

[Garvey]

You came to the right place!

What size pan is that?  My quick calculation is that you had about 800 grams of dough.  Sounds high, unless that was an 16” pizza.

Basically, the keys to great deep dish are (A) no cornmeal and (B) super short kneading, practically no kneading at all, and (C) balancing all the elements.

There are many tried and true recipes here to choose from.  IMO, the most detailed, failsafe one is from Ed (VCB): https://www.realdeepdish.com/RDDHolyGrail.pdf

HTH!

[vcb]

Welcome and nice attempt!

First thing I'd recommend is lose the cornmeal.
Second, I don't recommend using cast iron for deep dish. A heavy weight cake/deep dish pan is a better option.  That said, if you're going to use cast iron, consider baking lower temp and longer time than most deep dish pizza recipes call for.

The recipe you're using is close for a 12 inch diameter deep dish dough, but the flour, water, and oil amounts are a little higher than I typically use, and I only use a whole packet on my "Quick Dough" recipe, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. (check the recipes at RealDeepDish.com).

Also, you used a whole packet of yeast with a very short rise time, which pretty much guarantees a yeasty result. If that's not your thing, consider doing a longer rise, maybe making the dough ahead of time and letting it cold ferment in the fridge, or lowering your yeast amount. A packet of yeast is 2 and a 1/4 tsp of yeast. Consider lowering that to 1 tsp. There's a bunch of tips and advice on my website for home bakers new to deep dish.

I'd say that was a pretty good first attempt. 

Keep baking!