Michael's Pizza Adventures

[Michael_in_TX]

Now for my second go at this. I had forgotten I made three dough balls. So I let this third one come up to room temp. Isn't it cute?

(Tajin for scale)



This time I really concentrated on uniformly pushing the gas out to the rim. I did that on this side, flipped, repeated it, then flipped again, and did it a third time.

I then did the stretch-and-flip-onto-opposite-forearm technique. This really works. Every time I have ever attempted to stretch dough it tears or gets oblong or some other catastrophe. I wish yall could see me as I did this....I was literally grinning from ear-to-ear.

So, next some rice flour onto the peel and the slide the dough on. Earlier I blended my tomatoes from yesterday with a few quick blitzes of an imersion blender. This resulted in a much more uniform sauce.



Then the cheese. In hindsight, I used a tad too much. I am using pre-sliced fresh mozzarella and yesterday I used just two slice per pizza. Today I used three. It was just a tad too much and the center of the pizza did not cook as well; too much moisture even at this high heat.



And the pepperoni because.....Pizza Hut.



Into a 40 minute pre-heated Ninja 8-n-1 gifted to me by the generosity of Ninja and Amazing Ribs! Again, this rice flour is dynamite. I am astonished how well I can easily get this thing off the peel and into the oven! (Really wish this thing had a window.)



Three minutes later.....



Basil on and rested a tad. (In my enthusiasm, I burned my mouth quite a bit yesterday. Kids, 700 F is hot!)



This is just so good. I need to try this about 15-20 seconds less. There is just a bit more char than I would like (also consistently seem to be more near the front of the oven than at the rear).

I am really happy with how uniform in shape the crust turned out. Again, I need to use one slice less cheese. (And perhaps a tad fewer pepperonis as they do leak a lot of fat!) Actually, all the of the toppings seem to "shrink" towards the center quite a bit. Need to think about how to approach this going further.

Side view! Again, crust is delicious. Best I have ever made! And I do believe that it does taste more yeasty (good) the longer the ferment. Still want to work for something more pillowy.



Bottom crust view.....for a 700 F max oven.....this is perfect.



Pizza is fun!

[Jerod Broussard]

Nice. I could do without the greenery, I grew up on a CaseIH farm.

[STEbbq]

Do you have a link of this stretch and opposite forearm technique?

[Michael_in_TX]

Absolutely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q_9h6VKm9c The stretching part starts at 11:30 and runs for about two minutes. It is the exact technique I used. The entire video is worth watching. The chef demonstrating how to make the pizza is excellent at explaining things.

[RonB]

That's a good lookin pie. To lessen the fat oozing out of the pepponi you can place the slices on a paper towel and microwave until a bit the fat has leaked out.

If covering a pie fully with 'roni I find this helps. If using just a little 'roni I don't bother.

[RonB]

Hey Michael - I just saw this on the tube:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YEw2BgsndKA

Of course, it's too wide for your oven.

[Michael_in_TX]

This week I am going to try to up my game a little bit. I'm going to do a dough that is 100% biga, in an effort to make the flavor of the dough more complex. I'm going to stick with the neapolitan "style" as I liked its simplicity and that it wasn't overly doughy.

I'm also going to keep it around 65% hydration. I didn't realize this, but the primary reason my dough was so easy to work with was that it was about 65% hydration, which it seems is perfect for a beginner. (Also, I don't want to change too much as I experiment.)

Looks like I'll aim to make the biga on Wednesday to give it 48 hours to cold ferment, then do pizza on Saturday.

[Michael_in_TX]

Well, I started on my biga dough before utterly screwing it up. How? Read on.....

Making the biga itself was straightforward. 200g of 00 flour plus 280g of bread flour (I used King Arthur for both) are put into a mixer bowl of a stand mixer.

Next you mix 2g of active dry yeast in 216g of water. With the mixer going at low speed, slowly pour in the water/yeast mixture. Let the biga become well-hydrated. It will look very rough -- it is only 45% hydration at this stage -- but it will come together.

Pack it into an oiled container and let it rest at room temperature for four hours.

Here's what mine looked like at this stage.



Then it goes in the fridge for 12-24 hours.

Day two....I took mine out after about 20 hours. It certainly rose a bit!



It is surprisingly dense. You can see here that it almost looks like baked bread.



What you do next is cut it up into cubes so your mixer will not struggle with it. So I cubed it all up and tossed it in the mixer bowl and got that going. You then add half of 96g of water, then 13g of salt.

And here is where I screwed it all up.

I am very much a clean-as-you-cook person, so while the mixer was, well, mixing, I started to put away the scale, the oiled container, and I then picked up the pyrex measuring cup in which I had measured the water and tipped it over on the counter to get out any remaining drops.

Remember how I had only put in half the water? Oops. Now that I had water all over my countertop.....sigh....I got that cleaned up. Now I had no idea how much water I actually had put in the mixer (I eyeballed it). Thankfully, I had looked at the cup after pouring I knew I had just a hair over 1/4 cup still in there.

So, I put in that amount. Sigh. I now have a dough of unknown hydration. Whoops.

Well, onward we go. I kicked the mixer up to a medium speed and just let it run. It will look like it will never incorporate the water, but it will. It will take 10+ minutes, but it will. Eventually, it will start acting like a traditional dough ball and start slapping the side of the bowl. Let it rest in the bowl for five minutes, then take it out with oiled hands and shape it into a ball on the counter and cover and let rest for thirty minute.

Finally, divide the bulk fermented ball into three 270g balls. (I ended up with two at 270g and one at 240g.) Put these in oiled container and let rest for 30 minutes.



Into the fridge they go for 48 hours. Then pizza.

I probably could have let my mixer run a bit longer. The dough balls, while mostly smooth, are lumpy....I still have small chunks of biga in there.

The dough is also very wet. It gave me a little trouble, but hey, this is good practice.

Still can't believe I poured out the second part of the water all over my counter lol.

[MBMorgan]

“So, I put in that amount. Sigh. I now have a dough of unknown hydration. Whoops.”

It’ll be fine. You know exactly how much flour (200+280=480g), salt (13g), and yeast (2g) you used. You also know the total weight of the dough (270+270+240=780g). The difference (780-(480+13+2)=285g) is the water. Your dough’s hydration is 285/480=0.594… or 59.4%.

[Michael_in_TX]

You're absolutely right! But of course! Wow, I love bakers percentages!

[HawkerXP]

Looks delicious and a lot of fun!

[Michael_in_TX]

Heh, this morning the rising dough balls managed to push the lid off of one of the pyrex containers lol.

[Sid P]

Lookin’ good, Michael. Does your dough recipe recommend a temperature for the water? Both Forkish and Gemignani say that’s another variable that’s worth controlling.

[Michael_in_TX]

Room temperature. But to your point, many recipes are very particular about the temp of the water. I'm skeptical (but am often wrong). I think the particular warm-but-not-hot specific temps are more to ensure the water isn't frigid (and perhaps also in an effort to be absolutely consistent from dough-to-dough). Where I live, most of the time the tap cold water temp will be just fine to wake up the yeast. (And, like today, perhaps a bit hot!)

[Michael_in_TX]

Okay, so I did the 100% biga pizza Friday night. Absolutely delicious. I can't ever see myself ordering delivery again. This is the most flavorful crust I have ever made.

I used the same pizza sauce technique I did previously -- Muir Glen Crushed Tomatoes slightly blended with an immersion blender -- but with some oregano and Pecorino-Romano cheese grated on top. (I did not add salt to the sauce as the cheese will take care of that; Pecorino-Romano is very salty.)

On top of that I added two torn up slices of fresh mozzarella cheese. In lieu of pepperonis, I tried something utterly different: hot sorpressata.

Instead of straight rice flour, I used a dusting flour of AP flour, semolina, rice flour, and corn meal.



Here we are after 700 F and three minutes.



Bottom side. Nailed it.



I have pizza scissors. Do you have pizza scissors? In all seriousness, I got these as they are supposed to not crush the cornicione like a pizza cutter will. They seem to work well.



Was I was hoping for is a very light crust filled with large air bubbles. I didn't quite get that.



Except one one side of the pizza....



I will say this, I am very into this Neapolitan-style crust. It is so good. Crispy outside; pillowy inside. And, as I said, this crust is the best I have made yet. But why?

Was it the biga? Was it the addition of bread flour? Was it simply the three-day long ferment? I don't know yet. I am still trying to wrap my head around what the biga gets me. It seems like it is just an extra day of fermenting, albeit at a very low hydration and with no salt.

I want to try a three-day ferment, but with a traditional Neapolitan dough (i.e. just 00 flour) and see how that compares.

Also, the hot sorpressata.....yum! That is the move, especially if you don't want something as greasy as pepperoni.

And I am totally sticking with the dusting flour (1 part rice flour, 1.5 parts cornmeal, 1 part semolina, 2 parts AP flour). The semolina/corn meal makes your pizza have a slight "butter popcorn" smell that is wonderful and I love the texture it gives to the bottom of the crust.

[MBMorgan]

Nicely done, Amigo!

[RonB]

That looks great to me. One of the best pizza toppings I have had was sopressata sliced thin enough to get a little crisp during the bake. I don't know if you can get it crisp during a short bake, but it might be worth a try.

[Michael_in_TX]

This week's pizza.

500 g 00 (King Arthur's) flour
330 g water
12.5 g salt
0.5 (!!) g instant yeast

66% hydration dough

Three pizzas.

Let's go!!



Water....then salt (mix to dissolve), the yeast (mix it around a bit), then flour..... It will be shaggy. Then cover and let rest for two hours.



Astonishing the change by just letting the dough rest.



275g each.



See yall in 48 hours. (It is mislabeled by a day....I suck at calendars lol.)




I was nervous at this as the dough rose, but just a minimal amount compared to what I was used to. I let the dough come to room temp for 2.5 hours. It was easy to work with and very quickly I was here.



My sauce: Muir Glen fire-roasted crushed tomatoes (slightly blended), mixed with a bit of salt, oregano, and EVOO. A thin layer of pecorino-romano grated cheese, then fresh mozzarella (about 2 oz or so), then Hormel Crisp & Cup pepperonis.



"Please wait." (Much waiting....oven was preheated for one hour.)



Looks good....



Really looks good!



Nailed it.



Best pizza I have made to date!

The crust was great....yeasty (shocking to me given how little yeast was used) and very flavorful. The two-day fermentation in the fridge is key.

The sauce was excellent....granted, not as "pure" as a Neapolitan sauce, but very tasty.

Pepperonis...perfect. Hats off to Hormel lol.

Going forward?

I kinda want to try low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella. The fresh milk stuff is great, but I kinda want the "string-y-ness" of the stuff I grew up with. My concern is that that type of cheese will burn at 700-770 F in my oven, even in three minutes.

I also need to experiment a bit more with the yeast. This dough did not overproof like all of my others did. (I can't believe that when I started I was using an entire packet of instant yeast??!!) I would have liked, though, more "poofyness" in the cornicione like I had in my previous pies.

I did get a little bit of it, but not much.



Ever forward!