Hey guys.
So I have a few years of NY style pizza making under my belt now.
I'm using all restaurant grade ingredients. AT bromated, Stanislaus for the sauce (I like it thin like hammetjr), and a grocery cheese on par with grande.
The only issue I'm having now is in my bake.
The problem is that the sauce on my pizza doesn't get mellow enough to that soft velvety NYC style sauce. Its always a bit too pungent, so if I put a tad too much it can over power the pie.
I currently only add salt, and oregano, occasionally sugar to my sauce.
I bake in an electric deck oven at 625F to 650F for about 6 min.
My belief as to what is the problem is that my sauce needs to cook for longer. A simple fix maybe to lower the temp to 500F. To 550F and bake 10-12 minutes. My only issue is that my oven is very different than the typical NY slice shop gas deck oven, which is what I'm trying to achieve. My oven is electric, has a stone floor measuring 15.5 by 15.5 inches. About 6 inches from the stone to the top. So the first issue is that my oven has a top and bottom broiler unlike the gas decks which I believe only have a bottom heat source. So in regards to this my questions are:
1) Do I only turn on the bottom broiler to 500-550F (I can control the 2 separately ) and leave the top off, or do I keep both on equal, or maybe the top on a lower heat.
In other words, do you know how hot the gas deck ovens are in the area on top of the actual pie.
2) My oven has considerably less interior breathing space then a gas deck, should this be a factor? There also is no way for steam to escape in my oven unless I open the door?
3) A big thing with deck ovens is that they're known to make the pies more moist. My electric oven seems to hold this true as my doughs can turn out a bit dry, even with elevated water/evoo levels.
4) I have used evoo in my sauce in the past. Say I cooked both a pie with plain sauce for 10 min, and a pie with evoo included in the sauce for 10 min, which one would have cooked down/ mellowed out more? I'm wondering bec evoo has a higher boiling point, but at the same time takes longer to reach temp.
5) As a use a thinner sauce, if I'm baking as slow as say 12 min, will that result in a soggy crust? Opinions on thinning down a sauce?
Honourable mentoon: I knead AT in a Bosch stand mixer for 8-10 min. I get wonderful crisp and fermentation webbing in my crust but never enough chew, even when adding VWG or using a lower hydration. Is it my mixer that isn't getting the job done? Maybe this is also bec I'm using shorter baking times?
Heres the link to my mixer. I dont knead by hand at all after mixer mix.
https://www.boschmixers.com/product/black-universal-plus/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI54DwxNe2-wIVxCmzAB3VCALMEAQYASABEgLlgvD_BwE Thx for reading!
Appreciate any which feedback!