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Author Topic: Pizza  (Read 4464 times)

Offline Phil_M

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #15 on: April 24, 2015, 08:57:14 am »
I've only got a gas grill at the moment (condo, no way to deal with charcoal) but I've used a pizza stone on the grill several times.

My way around the whole burnt crust/uncooked toppings has been to let the stone come up to a lower temp, say grill on 50-60% power. Then put the pizza on the stone, and let the grill rip wide open. Seems like the lower temp stone/higher air temps cooks everything nicely.
Corn is a fine adjunct in beer.

And don't buy stale beer.

Offline morticaixavier

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #16 on: April 24, 2015, 09:49:01 am »
I used to grill pizza a lot buth with a stone and without. Gas for me but I never had a problem with uneven cooking. I didn't use raw veggies or anything but if I made the crust nice and thin and didn't keep opening the lid to check on it it was not a problem. I'd wait till the thermo on the lid read in the 'self clean' range to add the pizza and then close it up while I went and made the next one. By the time I came back with another pizza streched and topped the temp had recovered to the high 400's and the pizza was done.
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Offline Phil_M

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #17 on: April 24, 2015, 10:10:16 am »
To be fair, these pizzas had pretty thick crusts. My wife is still tweaking the dough recipe though, so eventually we'll get to a point where a thin crust is more workable.
Corn is a fine adjunct in beer.

And don't buy stale beer.

Offline pete b

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #18 on: April 24, 2015, 10:28:36 am »
To be fair, these pizzas had pretty thick crusts. My wife is still tweaking the dough recipe though, so eventually we'll get to a point where a thin crust is more workable.
Look up Peter Rheinharts recipe that uses ice water. It makes a super workable super thin crust with great flavor.
Here it is: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html
« Last Edit: April 24, 2015, 11:44:00 am by pete b »
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Offline Slowbrew

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #19 on: April 24, 2015, 03:19:37 pm »
To be fair, these pizzas had pretty thick crusts. My wife is still tweaking the dough recipe though, so eventually we'll get to a point where a thin crust is more workable.
Look up Peter Rheinharts recipe that uses ice water. It makes a super workable super thin crust with great flavor.
Here it is: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html

Ice water will make the crust more flaky.  That's why you make pie crust using ice water.  I read an article on why it works a couple of months age but don't have a link.  Basically it keeps the shortening from melting and makes pockets of fat surrounded by flour. So when you cook it the flower is pushed apart and kept from bonding with other flour.  I don't know why ice water would make pizza crust more workable but it might be related.

Paul
Where the heck are we going?  And what's with this hand basket?

Offline pete b

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Re: Pizza
« Reply #20 on: April 24, 2015, 03:56:14 pm »
To be fair, these pizzas had pretty thick crusts. My wife is still tweaking the dough recipe though, so eventually we'll get to a point where a thin crust is more workable.
Look up Peter Rheinharts recipe that uses ice water. It makes a super workable super thin crust with great flavor.
Here it is: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html

Ice water will make the crust more flaky.  That's why you make pie crust using ice water.  I read an article on why it works a couple of months age but don't have a link.  Basically it keeps the shortening from melting and makes pockets of fat surrounded by flour. So when you cook it the flower is pushed apart and kept from bonding with other flour.  I don't know why ice water would make pizza crust more workable but it might be related.

Paul
In this case I think the ice water is not for flakiness or workability. The crust isn't flaky but it gets very crisp. Rheinhart is very into manipulating time and temperature and that sometimes mean slowing down the fermentation of the bread yeast to make other flavors develop. I think in this case there is more time once the dough is wet for changes to occur in the carbohydrates and gluten without the effects of fermentation. Maybe this helps workability, I suspect it does but don't know why. It definitely makes for more maillard reaction and complex flavor as well as air pockets. His recipe for Pan L'ancienne is very similar and something I highly recommend if you like a crispy crust, moist silky crumb, and lots of holes.
Don't let the bastards cheer you up.