I've been trying to make a decent crust throughout the winter.  I can't seem to get the crust to match what I get at a pizzeria.  That is, no 1-2mm thick crunch with a nice 1/4" of sauce soaked dough holding the cheese and toppings.  

Here's what I've tried so far (always in a 575deg convection oven)...

1.  Heat the pizza stone in the oven until it reaches temp., then lay the dough on the stone, sauce, and cheeze....cook until cheese is golden.   Middle of the dough is hot/cooked...but spongy/slimey and the rest is bread-like.

2.  Same as 1. but the cheese goes on first.  Same spongy center and bread-like outer ring.

3.  Heat the pizza stone in the oven until it reaches temp.  then lay the dough on the stone and bake that by itself until it puffs up a bit.  Then bring it out, put the sauce and toppings on it and put it back in until top is done.  Middle is a little firmer than 1 & 2 but not much.  Dough is still bread-like...no crunch.

4.  Lay the dough on a cookie sheet and bake it until puffed up a bit and firm, put the sauce and toppings on and then lay the pizza right on the oven rack.  Not much different than using the stone in 3.  Dough is still bread-like.  

So how do I get a good crunchy crust?!?  Understand I don't want a cracker that breaks apart when I bite into it.  But I need some crunch and chew to it!  

Any ideas??

Thanks

-Emt1581

You can pre cook the crust for 5 minutes before putting the sauce on, but I think the sauce is the problem. I now put it in a sauce pan and cook off a bit of the water until it's fairly thick consistency. The last time I heated the stone and put the pizza on  a pan on top of the stone. Crust came out crunchy throughout. I also dehydrate the mushrooms by cooking them in the oven for up to 30 minutes.

Try turning the oven temp down to 450 after you get your stone up to 575.  Also, your dough needs to be room temp before you stretch it if it's not.

This is key. Get it hot then turn down the flame. you want the crust to cook faster from the bottom than the top.

Stone to temp takes a good 1 to 1.5 hrs. You put your sauce and cheese on the raw dough on a cornmeal peel. Quickly open door, slide the pizza off the peel and onto the stone, shut door quickly.

700 degrees or more would be ideal.  You are trying to do this at a low temp, gotta be quick and don't have time to pull the stone out and mess around.  

Red November sauce rocks - recipe can be found online.

1-1.5hrs...seriously?!?  I never thought to test the temp of the stone.  I have a candy thermometer...would that do it?  

As for the peel, I don't have one yet and I was going to get a thin steel one.  No?  I never tried the cornmeal/slide thing but I've seen it done.  My concern is that the pizza wouldn't be firm enough to slide off and would just roll on to itself.  But I can try it.

700 isn't going to happen.  575 is as high as the oven goes.

Thanks!

-Emt1581

My sauces aren't watery and are just above paste so I don't think that's the issue.  I can also try to turn down the temp once it's in.

Thanks

-Emt1581

Right.  My oven only goes to 550.  I am just trying to say that real pizza ovens are much hotter so you need to try to be as hot as possible.  I used an infrared thermometer and my stone took over an hour to get to temp.  Much longer than I thought it would.  Oven beeped to temp way earlier.  

My peel is aluminum.  Wood might be better but I dunno.  Took a bit of practice to slip it off.  Needs cornmeal and don't leave it on there too long.

Yeah aluminum, that's what I meant.  So does your crust get that pizzeria crunch to it doing the cornmeal and 1.5hr pre-heat thing?

Thanks

-Emt1581

Consider using a calibration thermometer to check that your oven temp is what the dial setting shows.  When I've done this, I've found ovens that are off by as much as 50 deg.

I've also tried the whole pizza peel thing and found that it's too fiddly for me.  Once the dough is stretched to the correct size, I put it on a SilPain, put on toppings and simply lift off the bench and onto the stone.

I've got a stone in my Vulcan commercial oven and I normally give it an hour to come fully up to temp before cooking.

IIRC adding some extra gluten to the flour will also result in a more crisp and crunchy crust.

You mean Silpat?  Looks like a silicone mat.  Makes sense it wouldn't stick.  But honestly, flouring/corn mealing a peel is going to be preferable for me.

You mentioned about adding gluten for crispness....can you buy just plain gluten?  What isle is it in?  

Again, all I'm looking for is that crunchy yet chewy crust throughout the pizza.  

Thanks

-Emt1581

Use bread flour and not all purpose. Has more gluten.

Nope - it's not a typo.  SilPain is a screen which allows water to evaporate, unlike SilPat which is an impermeable silicone sheet.  I use both and they're one of the best baking accessories I've found.  Nothing, but nothing, sticks

I've had these pizza test projects too.  

I make the crust in the food processor with the cooks.com recipe.  

Here I went in a different direction.  I preheat the oven to 450.   Make my pizza on an old aluminum pizza pan which I drilled holes in.  (I told you I was experimenting).  I bake my pizza on the pan until the crust is set and the pizza is about half to 2/3 done.  I take it out of the oven, slide the pizza off the pan onto the peel and stick it right on the oven rack (up high in the oven).   This fully exposes the crust to the dry heat, no moisture is trapped.   I don't own a stone and since I've been doing this I won't bother to get one.   Just don't pull the pizza before the crust is set enough or you'll be cleaning cheese and sauce off the bottom of the oven.  

I also use corn meal under the crust on the pan.  

I am still trying to find the perfect sauce, that's been harder.  Too many recipes taste like spagetti sauce.

Sauce!!  I've been going crazy trying to get a good pizza sauce going!! I've tried every store-bought kind, I've tried making my own with crushed toms....NOTHING tastes as good as the local pizzerias!  It's maddening!  I can figure out how to do anything from build a home to boating to HAM radio to raising a child....but pizza sauce...oh no!  That's a whooooolle nother universe!!

-Emt1581

Well, have you tried Bonta?  Comes in #10 cans and is used by commercial pizzerias.

I make all my pizza on parchment paper now,... That cornmeal BS wasn't cutting it for me, I couldn't get pizza's to slide off the peel to save my life. Much neater with parchment paper.

I build the pizza on a piece of parchment paper, I then pick up the pizza (on the parchment paper) with my metal peel and slide it onto the pre-heated stone in the oven @ 550.  I then wait about 1.5 minutes and the parchment paper will easily slide out from under the pizza leaving the pizza on the stone for the rest of the approximately 7 minute cook.

Works for me.

I also use this flour -- Antimo


The cornmeal on the peel makes a mess in the oven that I don't care the deal with.

bluesticky

One can of tomatoes packed in puree.  Open can and pour into a bowl.  Break up tomatoes to your desired size.  Add Kosher sale to taste.  That is all you need for sauce.  In my opinion of course.

bluesticky

I make pizza for my wife every week, and it's very good and simple.
2 cups high gluten flour (bread flour)



1 teaspoon salt



4 tablespoons olive oil



1 1/2 tablespoons honey



3/4 cup water



1/2 pack yeast
This is for one pizza.
Kneed for 20 minutes after all ingredients are mixed. Put some additional olive oil in a bowl and cover your dough ball with the oil, then place saran wrap over the dough and let it sit several hours.  Over night in the refrigerator  is better.
Put your stone in the oven and set the temp as high as it will go.  Our oven goes to 550 on convection bake.  Once the oven is up to temperature, put some flour on your dough ball to soak up the olive oil.  Then form your crust and put it on a peel that has corn meal on it.  Top your pizza however you want.  Remember, quality toppings make a better pizza -  that's why we make our own sauce from our own tomatoes!
Slide the pizza in the oven and in a few minutes enjoy your pizza!
All our friends say I should open a pizza shop.  
My wife and I smile every time we eat our own pizza!  It's better than what you can get at a restaurant and you know what's going in it.  Plus there's the satisfaction of doing it yourself!


 

slow rise your dough (as in a refrigerator overnight).  It WILL help get a better texture.
Use bread flour or King Arthur AP flour (high protein content).

wood to go in, aluminum to take out


 

Yes!  You are right on. I should have mentioned that, bottom rack, 550 convection bake - or hotter if you can!



 

hmmm,  this is something I have not yet heard.  I think I will give this a try next pizza night.

Thanks,

bluesticky

I have a really nice thick pizza stone in my oven. When I put it on the bottom rack, it cooks the bottom of the pie way before the top is browned. I put mine in the middle rack which puts it about 10 inches from the top. All commercial pizza ovens that I have used have about 12 inches bottom to top. Each oven, especially residential oven will vary. You should try all methods to see what will work for your situation.

A few things....

Get your dough thinner.  You want it to cook fast.

Use less sauce and cheese- you don't need a lot for good pizza!

Make your dough with some olive oil.  It can help prevent the absorption of moisture.

Keep your stone in the oven longer.  It takes a long time to get it to temperature all the way through.  

By far the best book I've read on the subject:  American Pie

Just a few tips from somebody that has taken the long, hard road to making excellent pizza at home.

#1 Use good ingredients: my sauce it made from 100% homegrown ingredients. Homegrown tomatoes, garlic, peppers, onions, basil, and oregano. Every bit of it.... once you do this you will never look back.

Also use a high-gluten flour. You may have to go to a Sam's Club, Costco, or Restaraunt supply place to get it. Look on pizzamaking.com forums for specific recommendations on Italian style pizza flours. The flour ABSOLUTELY makes a big difference.

#2 Use a stone, or if you want even more bottom heat use a steel plate. I have a 1/2" steel plate cut to fit my oven. It's very heavy but it does a wonderful job at making amazing pizza crust. Nice, dark, crunchy bottom, with chewy inside and no "doughy, partially cooked spots" unless I over-do it on wet ingredients. I use my steel plate to bake tons of different things that would be traditional baked in a brick oven (home-made pitas and other flat-breads etc).

#3 number 2 led into this. Limit your wet ingredients. Fruits/veggies give up lots of water in the baking process. This runs down into the crust and retards the baking, making a doughy, non-cooked part in the middle which sucks when you bite into it... You can somewhat help this by removing some water in whatever way you see fit before you dress the pizza.

#4 Use a good dough recipe. I like to use pete-zza's Papa-Johns (PJ) 2-day clone recipe from pizzamaking.com Cooked in my oven, on my steel it doesn't come out exactly like PJ's pizza but it is still fantastic; IMHO even better than PJ's crust. Some recipes will call for dough enhancers. I use a pinch of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C tablet crushed to a powder) and that fortifies the dough and makes it tougher to rip. The little things often make a big difference...

#5 Almost any pizza dough recipe worth it's salt is a slow-rise recipe. You put just a tiny pinch of yeast in and then let it slow-rise in the fridge for several days. There is a lot of science that goes into this but in layman's terms this develops a more robust yeast colony (for better rising), develops better yeasty flavor, and relaxes the gluten in the dough to allow you to more easily stretch your pies thin without ripping them. This alone was the big break-through in my pizza-making. I always had trouble making good pies until I figured this out. Now it's like a piece of cake. As mentioned, take the dough out a few hours before baking to allow it to come to room-temp before you stretch your pies.

#6

This ^^^ is good advice. Wood peels hold more of your releasing dust/powder/flour, and are much less likely to stick. But they don't work well for retrieving pizzas. So use a wood peel to dress/load the pizza and a metal one to retrieve it.

#7 Rice flour is an amazing release agent for your wood peel. Why is it so good? Lets look at what makes a good release agent. It has to be A) slippery so it slides off easily, B) moisture resistant so it doesn't soak up moisture from the crust and become sticky, C) Reasonably affordable, D) Doesn't burn at the expected temperature the stone/steel will be. I use rice-flour because it fits all of the above qualifications. A) rice is very hard so the milling process turns it into very tiny little marble-like shapes rather than the jagged little starch grains that come from normal flour. B) rice takes a long time to cook and take on water; you know how that works if you've ever tried to cook plain white rice (not minute rice). C) It's reasonably affordable where I am, especially considering a 1lb bag will last the average home-pizza connoisseur over a year. D) Rice flour burns at a high temperature so I have no problems with it turning to black, nasty dust on my stone throughout the baking process. Rice flour is the only one of the "best choices" that is available to me locally. I suspect it may be the same for you. If you want to know more about what to dust your peel with pizzamaking.com is your friend.

If I can think of anymore tips I'll post them up but I'm fresh out of tips for right now...

cracker crust

Zu-

You're not supposed to "roll" it out, you are supposed to stretch it out circular-like with your finger tips, and when it gets big enough, you flip it on your knuckles/wrists in the air. You will need plenty of flour on your counter. If it doesn't want to stretch out, let it relax a few minutes and try again. You'll get it. Be patient. Use close to room temp dough.

(You can actually do this with just the fingertips on the counter, but it will take longer.)

Sounds like it needs more kneading/resting.  Gotta pass the window pane test.

Yes, I kneed the dough for at least 20 minutes until it "feels right."  



After that I let the dough rest at a minimum of 4 hours.  It's better overnight in the refrigerator, and getting it out a few hours before use so it will get to room temperature.  



 

Try this, take approximately a baseball sized piece of dough. With is at room temperature stretch it out so its about 1mm thick. Its normal for it to be extremely thin in spots.

Pre-heat oven as hot as it will go (550 most household ovens) lightly oil a cast iron skillet (I use 10-12 inch usually).

Add dough to skillet, forming crust how you want it.

Add sauce, cheese, and toppings.

Bake in oven 10-15 mins or until done.

How long are your ferment and room-temp resting procedures?

My advice above was sincere... I always had troubles stretching my pies without tearing etc... until I went to a 2-3 day refrigerated ferment with a 2-4 hrs room temp rest prior to stretching... try it, you will be amazed at the results. The reason is because the long ferment times allow the gluten strands to relax. They are still linked, and strong, but they relax, sort of like letting a bungee cord sit for years until it doesn't have as much "strength" as it did when new. It still holds, and is still stretchy, it just isn't so darn tight...