My favorite pizza was from Vincent's Pizza on Ardmore Blvd in Pittsburgh as a kid. I saw a post from 2007 or 2008 of a pizza from there and it looked NOTHING like what Vincent used to make, as it had way too much pepperoni on it and was overdone and had a pool of grease.
This is Vincent making pizza in Plum Boro, not sure when, but it certainly is how he made it and what it looked like when it comes out. Mine are looking like this, but are missing those big bubbles in the crust, hopefully the change to bread/crust flour and higher moisture content will help
Ok, anyway, on to my pizzas. So for the past couple years, I've been making pizzas at home. I was using all purpose flour, which was inexpensive, but I couldn't seem to go higher than 58% hydration, and the dough was too soft to toss, and so I only tried that once. It did make good pizza, but I wasn't entirely happy with the crust. I had the right flavor, but only got the big bubbles once or twice. I'm trying to get a relatively thin crust pizza in the middle with a thick crust around the outside, with big crunchy bubbles that are soft and springy inside, and a crisp bottom crust. I have a regular gas oven and a 16" pizza stone. I can set it for "Broil" which appears to be about 625 or so based on the numbers stopping at 550, and I time it for at least 1 hr before putting the pizza in to get the stone good and hot. The pizza bakes in about 8 or 9 minutes depending on how done you want it.
Ok, so here is the recipe I'm using. I started with a recipe for NY style pizza dough from this site and have tweaked over time to where I like the flavor...
3 cups flour (GFS Primo Gusto Bread/Crust Flour 4 gm protein/30 gm serving)
3 cups warm water
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 tbsp amber malt powder (usually used for beer making)
1 tsp molasses
3/4 tsp granulated onion
2 tbsp olive oil
mix into a thick batter sponge and cover, let proof 30 min
mix 4 tsp table salt with 4 more cups flour, and mix into sponge
put dough hook on mixer and mix 5 min
rest 10 min, then mix another 5 min
turn out onto floured board and divide into 4 one pound doughballs, make into balls and put in oiled round tupperware containers and put in the fridge for at least 24 hrs
I pull the dough container out of the fridge about 4 or 5 hours ahead, and set on the counter.
To make pizza, I flour the board, then turn out the dough onto it, then flour the top of it and my hands, then make the rim and flatten the center as I spin it on the board.
I sprinkle my peel with a 50/50 mix of cornmeal and semolina flour. Vincent always used regular flour and the one complaint I had about his pizza was that I would feel/taste some of that flour on the bottom of the crust. If I reduce it, the pizza seems to stick, but cornmeal mixed with semolina sprinkled from a little spice jar seemed to solve it.
I'm trying to learn to toss it, and I made my last batch with 2/3 bread flour and it held up much better than the dough made with AP flour, but with 58% hydration, I only rarely would get my big bubbles. i was surprised how much different the dough texture was with 2/3 bread flour used. The pizza came out real good, only lacking the big bubbles.
So then I put it onto my peel, and use about 1/2 cup of spicy sauce, putting it mostly around the outside, then spreading enough to also cover the middle, then i put on cheese (approx 1/2 provolone and 1/2 mozzarella, followed by other toppings and maybe more cheese to hold it all together, then shake it to make sure its loose, and slide it onto the stone in the oven. 8 min later I check it and usually get it out.
I removed the pics of previous pizzas, and the ones there now are from the 100% bread/crust flour batch...
PS: from reading here, I think next batch I will try reducing olive oil from 2 tbsp down to 4 tsp (about 1.5%). Not having any problem with it but noticed my percentage seems high than others
PSS: Here is the output of the calculator. The flour and water volumes used were based on extrapolation of actual measurements of 1/2 cup each of the flour = 76.10 gm and 1/2 cup of water = 114.09 gm. My scale can't handle large quantities. I have a bigger scale, but it isn't accurate.
Total Formula:
Flour (100%): 1066.05 g | 37.6 oz | 2.35 lbs
Water (65%): 692.93 g | 24.44 oz | 1.53 lbs
Salt (2.1%): 22.39 g | 0.79 oz | 0.05 lbs | 4.01 tsp | 1.34 tbsp
IDY (1%): 10.66 g | 0.38 oz | 0.02 lbs | 3.54 tsp | 1.18 tbsp
Oil (1.5%): 15.99 g | 0.56 oz | 0.04 lbs | 3.55 tsp | 1.18 tbsp
Sugar (2.3%): 24.52 g | 0.86 oz | 0.05 lbs | 6.15 tsp | 2.05 tbsp
Total (171.9%): 1832.54 g | 64.64 oz | 4.04 lbs | TF = N/A
Single Ball: 458.14 g | 16.16 oz | 1.01 lbs
Made a "test" pizza for lunch, and it was all gone in 10 minutes. I stretched it like ryan's video I saw here from knuckle to knuckle, no toss (chicken hearted), and I could see the light coming through it from the window behind while I stretched it, so it was pretty thin. Put on 1/2 cup of sauce, then 7 oz cheese, then toppings of chopped mushrooms, salami, green pepper, red onion, oil curred greek olives and coarse ground red pepper flakes, then another 3 oz of cheese on the one side. It slid off easily and I baked it for 8 min, and I need to revise my oven temp guess to 575. The crust came out a little crispy on the bottom, but I had to hold the middle because it was too thin to hold up the toppings on my side. It had about 5 or 6 crunchy bubbles like what I wanted, when you'd bite into one, whatever was left of it would spring back up, and the outer rim was crunchy but soft inside. No flour taste on the bottom. I think it could have gone another 30 seconds or maybe a minute for more carmelization if I was to spin it 180 degrees midway through baking since it appears the back of my oven is hotter from looking at the results. That might also get little more crispness on the bottom. The stone in the pic is 16". My peel is only 14" so I use a cookie sheet to assemble and slide it in with. I was afraid it might stick, so I didn't dare stop to take a pic before putting it in the oven.
