More color on the undercarriage

[SamGreeman13]

Hello all. first question im asking on the forum. I've attached pictures of a pizza i made today. It was delish, but I craved more color on the bottom. I used a 510 gas oven with a stone and broiler. The stone preheated with the oven, so probably 10 mins. stone was dusted with semolina and  a tiny bit of flour right before pizza was deployed. My noob question is how can i get the bottom/undercarriage to look more like the top crust?

[scott r]

your stone was... stone cold .   I recommend preheating for an hour.   10 min is nothing.. its not saturated at all.  It takes a long time for the stone to absorb all that heat.

This is why some people prefer to use a pizza screen and no waiting for the stone to get saturated with heat, but the pizza turns out really different with a screen.

[Pizza_Not_War]

Get a laser thermometer so you can check stone temperature.

[foreplease]

Welcome to the forum, Sam. Good advice above and easy things to fix. If I understood you well, you put a light dusting of semolina and flour on the stone? The pizza isn;t going tostick to your stone, provided it is hot. People use a dusting like that on a peel to ensure they can slide it off onto the stone. If you are successfully moving the unbaked pizza ontothe stone, presumably from a peel, cutting board, or the back of an aluminum pan without dusting it then you do not need it in the oven either. Soon, you will have the bottom color figured out forever and having no, or less peel dust will only make your pizzas better.


Get a thermometer PNW mentioned. This one is $25 on Amazon.[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DMI632G/?tag=pmak-20 Look for a small scale too, something capable of measuring to the 1/100th of a gram. It will help you so much as  your pizza skills develop. Somewhere around $15 for that. Good luck to you!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012LOQUQ/?tag=pmak-20

[Timpanogos Slim]

Welcome to the forum, Sam. Good advice above and easy things to fix. If I understood you well, you put a light dusting of semolina and flour on the stone? The pizza isn;t going tostick to your stone, provided it is hot. People use a dusting like that on a peel to ensure they can slide it off onto the stone. If you are successfully moving the unbaked pizza ontothe stone, presumably from a peel, cutting board, or the back of an aluminum pan without dusting it then you do not need it in the oven either. Soon, you will have the bottom color figured out forever and having no, or less peel dust will only make your pizzas better.


Get a thermometer PNW mentioned. This one is $25 on Amazon.[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DMI632G/?tag=pmak-20 Look for a small scale too, something capable of measuring to the 1/100th of a gram. It will help you so much as  your pizza skills develop. Somewhere around $15 for that. Good luck to you!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012LOQUQ/?tag=pmak-20

That's the exact IR gun I use.

I agree that every serious baker should have a digital scale because volumetric measurement of flour is a sad joke. I do often resort to rough approximations of weight to volume for oil, salt, yeast, etc.