Pizza dough


 
Dwain Pannell

Dwain Pannell

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So... I am trying to perfect my pizza dough in an effort to find a crust like we loved in Italy years ago. I am admittedly not there yet. I've cooked many pizzas on the Weber but I've always used store-bought dough. I mixed up two formulations last night but one was not worth continuing on with a cook. I need to try Rita's recipe and a couple others as well.

Our sauce is there...basically roasted tomatoes crushed...but the dough from a recipe by Alton Brown is not bad but not great. My quest continues.

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too puffy:

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a little better:

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the best of the bunch:

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They look good Dwain. Definitely give Rita's dough a try. I really like it. I haven't got it perfect yet. But I think that's just because I don't have high enough temps. I'm hoping to get a Kettle Pizza for Christmas that'll help me get to 600+ degrees.
 
JimK said:
They look good Dwain. Definitely give Rita's dough a try. I really like it. I haven't got it perfect yet. But I think that's just because I don't have high enough temps. I'm hoping to get a Kettle Pizza for Christmas that'll help me get to 600+ degrees.
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Will do Jim. I plan to get a pizza oven also.
 
Rita's dough recipe is great. I add fresh rosemary, oregano and garlic to it and cut back on the salt by 1/2 tsp. Your pies look good.
 
Ah, the quest for the perfect pizza dough, I know it well! Someday maybe I'll find it too. But in the meantime Ill take any of your pies until I do find that perfect dough, they look great!
 
Dave from Denver said:
Dwain, the pizzas look great! What kind of dough qualities are you looking for? Maybe we can figure out how to get you there.
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When I was stationed in Northern Italy, we loved the pizza from the stone ovens. We have a pretty good Italian place here and I recently went to Philly and ate a pie at Dock St Brewery (along with a Cask Conditioned Ale pulled with a Beer Engine) that reminds me of the great crust found in Italy. I am looking for that.
 
Sounds like I need to take a trip to Philly.

I was just in northern Italy this summer, pizzas I ate there were very, very thin crusted. So I say the more gluten development the better. Try extending both the initial "soak to hydrate" stage (autolyze) and retarding your ferment in the fridge - like Rita says up to 36 hours is fine, I would even go 48 hours or more.

The other way to do this is to use your stand mixer to knead the gluten development. But longer autolyze and longer ferment mean more flavor.
 
Only you know if you're "not there yet" but I have to tell you those pies look fantastic!!

If you are into Italian might I recommend the site linked below. I found it while looking for the authentic Italian Ragu alla Bolognese recipe as approved by the Accademia Italiana della Cucina, and I found it!! I now cook the best Ragu ever!

Culinaria Italia

And here's the Ragu alla Bolognses recipe:

Ragu alla Blognese

All the best,

Jose
 
Your their bud. I'm blamming the cooker itself. 600 degrees in my Primo is waaaaaay different then 600 degrees in my weber. If you really enjoy doing pies,breads and pastas. Look into a ceramic. They are a game changer
 
After I roll out my dough, I put it in the over by it's self for maybe 5 minutes, just to firm it up a bit before putting on the goods and then cooking it in my Kettle Pizza on my WSM
 
Dwain Pannell said:
When I was stationed in Northern Italy, we loved the pizza from the stone ovens. We have a pretty good Italian place here and I recently went to Philly and ate a pie at Dock St Brewery (along with a Cask Conditioned Ale pulled with a Beer Engine) that reminds me of the great crust found in Italy. I am looking for that.
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Dwain, my view on this is that great ingredients help create great pizza dough. I shared a similar experience traveling around Italy, though not in the service. Just around every street corner is some of the best pizza in the world.

I can't speak highly enough about the importance of using Italian 00 flour rather than any kind of All-Purpose flour - or even bread flour - we find at our grocer stores. I'm not saying using AP flour makes for bad pizza. Far from it. I use it all the time when I don't have any 00 on hand. But I have to admit that using Italian 00 flour makes a huge difference. It has a much higher protein content, which leads to better gluten development and the better oven spring and air pockets that come with it. And I think it must be milled differently as it just feels softer, if that makes sense, than even our bread flour.

In Italy, pizza dough is really just four ingredients - flour, salt, water and yeast. And when you're only using 4 ingredients they all need to be really good. That's why I think the 00 flour is worth the expense.

All that said, I haven't achieved the ideal I'm looking for yet and I'm no real expert on these things. But it was my experience that 00 flour moved the ball forward for me.
 
Joe Milczewski said:
Dwain, my view on this is that great ingredients help create great pizza dough. I shared a similar experience traveling around Italy, though not in the service. Just around every street corner is some of the best pizza in the world...

...All that said, I haven't achieved the ideal I'm looking for yet and I'm no real expert on these things. But it was my experience that 00 flour moved the ball forward for me.
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I am in total agreement.
 
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