Fundamentals of a Crispy Bottom?

[Bende]

Hey guys,

What would you say are the basics of accomplishing a firm, crispy underside to Siclian or similar pan bake method?  Something I'm always striving for and never quite satisfied with.

Believe I'm well equipped with the right Detroit Style seasoned pans, but more interested in dough approach / hydration, oil vs. butter (crisco?), cooking methods, or other aspects I'm not thinking about.

Much appreciated, thanks guys,

Ben

[charbo]

For a crisp bottom, use plenty of oil in the pan.

[bowlyou]

I do a thin coating of crisco, then oil and then once the pizza is almost done I take it out of the pan and bake it directly on my steel for a few minutes

[Jose L. Piedra]

Best Practice: Bake it twice

Alt: use as low an oven temp as practical so as to keep it in the oven as long as possible.

Also the dough should be well-kneaded in any case.

[foreplease]

Yours is one of the beat topic names I have seen, Bende. There can be no confusion about what kind of help you’re looking for - and it’s a topic many people wonder about.


Since you already have suitable pans the only thing I can add to the advice others have given is play with the percentage of water your dough has. I can’t blanketly say “use more water,” of course, because I have no idea what you are doing. There is probably a point where higher hydration and lower oven temps will not work well together but I don’t know where those points intersect. I agree with trying to keep it in the oven longer and would probably try that before changing my dough. Good luck.

[IEatPizzaByThePie]

Oven position cannot be overstated. I could not get a nicely browned, crisp crust in my blue steel until I moved it to the bottom.

Although not optimal, if you have a large cast iron skillet, you can finish off in that. Have it pre-heated, then add a little bit of oil and give your pieces just a couple minutes to lightly "fry" the crust.

[Killmeyer000]

FWIW, I par bake by dough for about 4 minutes at 450 degrees.  Then, wait for it to cool.  Then, top the pizza.  Then, cook the pizza at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes in the pan.  Then, remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack, and cook for another 4 minutes.  Then, remove from oven...and let rest on cooling rack for a few minutes.  All of these things help to result in a crispier crust in a home oven.  This stuff works...but, I am thinking about doing some more experimenting...maybe with 00 flour instead of Bread Flour...it's supposed to be crispier.  Here is a pic of a broccoli that I did a couple of weeks ago.

[Jose L. Piedra]

^^IMO w/00 flour and that baking regimen,  it would not get a whole lot of pan spring, would not brown well, and above all would turn into a rock, but YMMV.

[Jackie Tran]

There is no way 00 flour will create a cripsier bottom pizza.  Lol. You'll want to use a BF or HG.  Middle of the road hydration.  There is a magic number for each type of flour.  Too low and you get crunchy, too high and the wetness doesn't bake off.  You need a strong dough,  that means lots of mixing and/or S&Fs.  Slightly lower temp and longer bake is good advice.  Your cheese may dry out so considering foiling the top for part of the bake.  Twice bake is also a good technique such as already mentioned about finishing the bake on a hot stone.  Also retoasting is amazing.  Hope that helps.

Chau

[Stichus III]

I also struggled with getting a crisp bottom when trying to make New York style Sicilian pizzas at home.

This is what eventually did the trick for me: (1) hydration in the 70+ range, (2) parbaking the crust with no toppings at 450F until the top starts to show some (very) slight browning and (3) finish baking the entire pie (with all toppings on it) at 450F until the bottom is golden brown. The result is a crust with a crisp bottom half and a soft and pillowy top half.

Initially baking at 450F was counter intuitive to me as I always tried to get my home oven as hot as possible when baking regular NY style pizzas.

[Yael]

Would you get more crisp by adding ingredients in the dough, like semolina for example?

[Stichus III]

Would you get more crisp by adding ingredients in the dough, like semolina for example?

Sounds interesting. Has anyone tried this?

Yael, your comment also made think of the following: has anyone tried adding Panko bread crumbs directly in the pan (below the dough)?   

[jsaras]

Would you get more crisp by adding ingredients in the dough, like semolina for example?

I’ve had good results with replacing 2-5% of the flour with semolina on bar style pan pizzas. 

[Old Red]

I normally bake my Sicilian on a rack at 460 in a Lloyd's pan with a very light coating of canola and get a done but soft bottom. After reading Bowlyou's comment (#3) about Crisco I gave it a try minus using a stone. Got a much crispier bottom to which my wife said, "Use the canola".

[Yael]

Sounds interesting. Has anyone tried this?

I made a test for pizza pala last weekend, and I also made a pizza in teglia, the result was good for the pala but I think I didn't succeed the teglia (dough was too soft without lot of strength and flattened a lot when handling to the pan). Pala was very good: crispy in the outside and soft in the inside (I took some (good) pics for once). I added 10% semolina in addition to the flour (100% + 10%), 87% HR, with Pivetti flour (12.5 protein).

Yael, your comment also made think of the following: has anyone tried adding Panko bread crumbs directly in the pan (below the dough)?

That would be cheating, wouldn't it?  (but that's something you can try!!)