First pizzas, from start to finish

[Mosca]

I made one white, with Alfredo sauce, mushrooms, Kalamata olives, and cheese; and one red, with mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, and cheese.





These were a solid B. The only thing bringing them down was the crust, and that was more a function of doing them on a sheet pan rather than a pizza stone. The crust was soft and bready:



But it tasted great. Next one gets a pizza stone. Then if that doesn’t work, I’ll just do them outside on the BGE.

[Huskee]

Yes, please!

[CaptainMike]

Looks good, Tom, but my suggestion is go straight to the BGE. Use a stone or steel, tweak your dough hydration to match your cooking temp and desired outcome, and tool up (peel, turner, pans, etc.). I did the pizza journey with the oven and the pizzas were okay. They were better on my WSCG, and they are great out of my Roccbox. See where I'm going with this....

[Mosca]

Yep. Hydration is beyond me right now, though. I just want to make sure it tastes good. I’ve only been working with dough for a couple months, and this was my first try at anything that wasn’t a loaf or a roll.

[captainlee]

Hydration is simple just divide the grams of water by the grams of flour. Depending on what you are making about 65% hydration is a start. Always weigh your ingredients. I am still playing with the amount of hydration. Some wetter hydration have made some great pizza but the dough is sticky and hard to work with. Definitely a steel plate or outside in the oven. It's a fun journey.

[fzxdoc]

I keep a thick 'n heavy Baking Steel sheet wrapped in aluminum foil on the lowest rack of one of my ovens all the time. When it's pizza making time, I heat the oven to 500° at least an hour before I want to slide a pizza in on that stone.

I make the pizza on my pizza peel onto which two sheets of nonstick aluminum foil gently rest. When the pizza is made, I slide it, foil and all, on top of that Baking Steel sheet. 10 minutes later, I've got a nicely crisp and browned crust on the underside when the center of the pizza temps in excess of 165°. I pick up the pizza with the peel, leaving the 2 sheets of nonstick aluminum foil behind for cleanup later.

I use two sheets of that nonstick foil, partially layered over each other just enough to cover the surface of the pizza peel because one sheet is not large enough to cover the peel. The edges just stick out, they are not wrapped around the peel at all, much like parchment paper would do. Of course parchment paper couldn't be used due to the high heat, so a foil sheet is the better option.

For me the beauty of this method is that the pizza is always on a clean surface, not picking up flavors etc from previous cooks or from drips in the oven from previous uses. The aluminum foil wrapping the Baking Steel is just to keep it clean from said drips as it lives in the oven 24/7. I change it out periodically.

We're not pizza aficionados, but we like pizzas made this way.

Kathryn

[Mosca]

I do have a baking stone in my oven, but it isn’t big enough for two pans at once, and I was concerned that the pizzas wouldn’t cook evenly with the pans both partially on the stone.

Right now I’m considering the cost of buying two good 14” stones vs the fact that we only eat pizza once a month or so. Is it an investment in food, or in knowledge? Or both, with the extra cost of one outweighing, or at least balancing, the value of the other?

[RonB]

I agree with using nonstick foil Kathryn. It just makes things easier.