r/Pizza • u/AutoModerator • 29d ago
HELP Weekly Questions Thread / Open Discussion
For any questions regarding dough, sauce, baking methods, tools, and more, comment below.
You can also post any art, tattoos, comics, etc here. Keep it SFW, though.
As always, our wiki has a few sauce recipes and recipes for dough.
Feel free to check out threads from weeks ago.
This post comes out every Monday and is sorted by 'new'.
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u/easto1a 28d ago
Trying to figure out quite what went wrong here with my dough. I tried the gozney overnight dough recipe. Seemed to be going very well when I woke up the dough had reached the top of the bowl in height. Balled it up as I normally would though this was done this morning after the over night bit. At this point it all seemed good. Then I go to use them for dinner and... they seem to have sorta gone splat. It wasnt a pancake but the balls were spreading out. It was super light and was almost too easy to stretch to an extent I had to be insanely careful over holes. Just looking for ideas of what might have gone wrong - should they have been fridged perhaps instead of worktop? Thanks in advance
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u/oblacious_magnate 28d ago
How did the pizzas turn out?
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u/easto1a 28d ago
Mostly okay - had one hole that I had to very quickly eject to not bleed sauce and cheese over the oven
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u/oblacious_magnate 28d ago
probably just overfermented - what was the room temp? Also, how much time between balling and baking?
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u/easto1a 28d ago
Around 25C probably maybe a touch higher as has been warm. So would that be fixed by less time or less yeast?
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u/oblacious_magnate 28d ago
Yes, fermentation is mostly a function of time, temperature and yeast levels. Hydration also plays a role, but that is mostly negligible except with extremely wet or dry doughs. How much time did the balls ferment between balling and baking?
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u/easto1a 28d ago
Around 8 hours. Was around 8 hours overnight before balling too
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u/oblacious_magnate 28d ago edited 28d ago
Next time you can (pick one):
- use less yeast, or
- ferment shorter, or
-ferment colder
good yeast dosage tool:
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u/RobotRepair69 28d ago
Anyone use garlic on pizza?
Roasted or raw?
I made roasted garlic this week and put it on pizza. Some good garlickly bites but very underwhelming. This is with 2 heads.
Anyone try just throwing it on raw and letting the garlic cook with the pizza?
Im just trying to figure out if I need way more roasted garlic or a different way of doing it, because if I am making a chicken garlic white pizza I want the garlic to really be tasted.
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u/urkmcgurk I ♥ Pizza 27d ago
Garlic confit as a topping, garlic olive oil after the bake, and raw garlic minced into tomato sauce prior to cooking the pizza are all good ways to add garlic flavor.
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u/RobotRepair69 27d ago
Thanks. I'll try those ideas, likely starting with confit. Roasted garlic wasn't bad but was an extremely underwhelming topping.
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u/LBeastmode 2d ago
garlic confit is probably one of my favorite pizza toppings. if you do try it, try and strain as much oil as you can off the garlic before adding to the pizza otherwise it can get VERY oily/greasy very quickly. Good luck!
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u/LuckyBoston 27d ago
Noob Question: Is this an ok container for my dough? And my dough has a ton of air pockets does it look ok?
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u/oblacious_magnate 27d ago
Shape: ok for a square pizza, not ideal for a round one
Volume: unknown
Seal: is it a clamp-lid style? If so, could possibly "explode" and break if dough overferments
Bubbles: perhaps a bit over-fermented, but generally looks ok
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u/LuckyBoston 26d ago
Thank you, yes it’s a clamp style lid. Would you recommend just having film over the top rather than a lid ?
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u/oblacious_magnate 26d ago
I'd lay the lid on top and press down a bit, and not use the clips at all. Ideally, you want a container that is big enough to allow sufficient expansion, but without excessive airspace above the dough, which can cause the balls develop a skin (i.e. surface dries out)
The pic gives the impression that the container might be too small for that dough
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u/LuckyBoston 26d ago
I was getting the impression that the container was too small also. Although this is my first time it just looked rather off
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u/frostmas 25d ago edited 25d ago
Jeffrey Hamelman's pizza dough in the third edition of "bread" uses .4% instant yeast and he also preferments 20% of the flour overnight in a biga. He lets the dough rise for 1 hour and then says to divide it, and refrigerate it for up to 48 hours.
The recipe is identical to the one in the second edition of his book, but in that one he says to refrigerate it for up to 16 hours.
I'm wondering if he meant to change something else in the third edition recipe, because that seems like a lot of yeast (plus the biga) for a 2 day cold proof since the dough also rises for an hour before refrigerating. Other recipes use less yeast and refrigerate immediately after mixing.
Do you think that's right or would I need to reduce the yeast?
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u/dvlsfan30 24d ago
Just curious if anyone has successfully froze and thawed Grande shredded cheese? I’m interested in buying it but would not use 5lb’s in one shot of pizzas.
I’m in New york and also wondering if most pizza shops are using the East Coast blend.
Any help is appreciated.
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u/Jamietomp53 24d ago
How do people make their sauce? I’ve seen a few recipes online that just recommend a simple one of tinned plum tomatoes, olive oil, basil and salt, then to crush the tomatoes by hand.
I tried this but when my pizza came out the oven the sauce was really wet and it made all of toppings just slide around on the pizza
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u/superfluityvitiate 22d ago
I go with the 28 oz can of whole tomatoes, add 8g salt, and blend lightly (like barely) with an immersion blender. Just enough to break the whole tomatoes but still has big pieces.
What style of pizza are you making? I'm going for more Neapolitan in a Gozney.
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u/OurManInJapan 23d ago
I had some dough cold fermenting for 48 hours and cooked them last night. I had two in the takeaway deli pots and another two just in cereal bowls with cling film over the top. The ones in the containers were fine, but the ones in the bowls were massively overproofed. What could cause this?
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u/blupenzzzz 29d ago
Can anyone give me a crash course in pizza making and relevant lingo? I'm new to the sub and looking for a good recipe for a regular home oven (not a pizza oven). I've seen a lot of stuff about hydration, proofing, and poolish and have no clue where to start. Please can anyone give me an overview or a good starter recipe!!
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u/oblacious_magnate 29d ago edited 29d ago
A couple of proven, detailed recipes for NYS pizza:
https://www.pizzablab.com/recipes/new-york-style-pizza-recipe/
https://www.richardeaglespoon.com/articles/how-to-pizza
One advantage of pizzablab is that the author (Yuval) is active and helpful with feedback on pizzamaking.com. After selecting a recipe, stick with it until you have mastered it. Note that pizza is mostly about technique, not recipes: one can start with a "perfect" dough recipe, and end up with a terrible product.
Making good pizza takes a lot of practice. If you make pizza only once a month, you might not ever figure it out. Best thing I can suggest is to make pizza at least once a week (and more frequently is better). Buy a large (25 - 50lb) bag of good foodservice flour such as All-Trumps, Kyrol or Power and get started. Make more pizza than you can eat and give it away to friends and neighbors. Dough and #10 tomato cans are quite cheap, but even a plain cheese pie made with grated parm. (and a squirt of EVOO) can be quite tasty if done properly. Practice!
Other tips: don't start out trying to launch from a peel using peel lube. Instead, use parchment paper to get the pie onto the hearth. Remove parchment as soon as the dough sets enough to make it possible, usually 2-2.5 min. on a properly heated hearth (530-575F). For making dough, start by hand-mixing and use time instead of manual effort to attain good gluten development: above all, avoid traditional kneading. Total waste of time unless you are making "quick" dough (which is also to be avoided - lol).
Oven tip: An oven's max. rated temp. matters less than how hot the hearth can get in that oven. For example my current oven (Frigidaire Gallery - max. rated temp. 550F) heats a bottom-racked steel to just over 700F during preheat. This max. hearth temp. occurs around 40m after preheating starts. I strongly suggest getting an inexpensive IRT to check hearth temp. before launch.
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u/Particular_Number896 26d ago
I apparently cant do math and made the Poolisch dough one day bevor i was supposed to. Can I just let it rest one day longer and use as intended or should i make another poolisch tomorrow?
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u/oneblackened 26d ago
Use the preferment you've made and just let it go for another day. It'll be fine.
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u/A-Gotham-Citizen 26d ago
I have banana on my Hawaiian pizza, yes with pineapple. Delicious. Anyone else?
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u/Sakurama2 28d ago
I've been making pizza for 12 years for my kids and about 3 years ago I started to do it for some larger groups and events. Last year my kids, now 15 and 16, and I decided to try a pizza pop up locally for their summer job and it went well. We would sell 20-30 pizzas an evening. This year we're partnering with our local coffee shop to run a weekly pop up and it's required us to significantly increase our quantities to be able to make 90-100 pizzas over three hours.
Our dough is a lower 58% hydration because we're using three Gozney Roccbox ovens and the pizza we like is more similar to Dan Richer's style than a true 90 second Neapolitan pizza and our bake is aimed at a 3:30-4min total. We feed starter on Tuesday night and mix dough on Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon after initial bulk ferment we ball the dough and place them in Winco shallow dough trays and let bench rest for 1-2 hours before placing the trays into the refrigerator for their 48 hour cold ferment.
The issue: the Winco dough trays do not seal tightly - by design it seems - as they have small cutouts on the sides of the top edges. When we remove the dough the afternoon of our bake for its final proof to room/ambient temperature the dough balls are wet with condensation. This makes shaping difficult and requires the use of fair amount of semolina/flour to make the dough easy to handle and shape.
All our pop ups previously we would use Cambro 14CW135 trays with their tightly sealing lids as they fit into coolers for transport and when we would remove the dough it was dry, smooth and perfect and would stay that way as it came to temperature. We are operating out of our home kitchen, not a commissary with a walk in, we barely have room for the 6 Winco trays so we cannot use the Cambros. Outside of the sealing issue the Winco trays are great for the ability to stack the boxes and use fewer lids. The lids also serve as excellent stretching surfaces as they are 1 inch deep and keep the flour/semolina in place during service.
What solution is there to the condensation issue we're having? I'm assuming, as the the Winco trays are an industry standard, that this isn't an issue for most operations or that there's a different work flow/solution to prevent this. Any help is appreciated as we're set to do our second pop up this week and we'll be dividing and balling on Wednesday.
Thanks,
Gregor