Ongoing Experiment: Pizza

Gas-filled balls of dough own me.

It feels a lot like mechatronics in college — I’d show up to lecture, scribble notes, memorize the formulas, and then still somehow get the wrong answers on the assignments. I had all the inputs. I followed the steps. But the outputs? Off. Every time.

Pizza can’t be as hard as mechatronics, right?

The problem is, pizza is alive — or at least, it should be. I’m not sure if I’m a yeast abuser, using cursed water, or just incapable of making a decent pie. But I’ve set out to fix that. In true Tripp fashion, I own every tool you could possibly need to make great pizza at home.

There are a thousand different dough recipes out there, but I’m chasing one goal: a great hybrid pizza. Something between New York-style and Neapolitan — crisp on the bottom, a light and airy crust, with the proper amount of chew. Pepperoni will be my benchmark. It’s easy to replicate, always on the pizzeria menu, and it’s my wife’s favorite. Occasionally, because I can’t help myself, I’ll veer off course and post a variation here.

Below is a running log of the journey. The most recent pies will be at the top.

Format:

• Date: Outcome
• What I Tried: recipe, timetable, knead method, or any important detail
• Photos

May 6 - Success, but room to improve. Not over yet.

What I Tried:

• About 45x better than the May 1st pizza. Oh the difference air in a crust makes. I definitely blame bad yeast and slight underworking of the dough for the May 1st epic fail. Today's pizza had amazing texture, flavor, and cooked faster. Because it cooked faster, the sauce and cheese weren't destroyed in the oven.
• Room to improve in a few spots
  • Better shaping. I loved this pizza but I want it to be a more traditional shape. Slightly thinner.
  • Cheese pull - cheese had great flavor but I need to find the right mix to get a great pull. I used all low moisutre mozz this time and fresh parmesan.
  • Thinner pepperonis (according to Amber). Her wish is my command.
• Recipe: same as May 1st (DavesPizzaOven) but kneaded with a stand mixer and a dough hook. Providing more details on times and temps.
• Knead Method (stand mixer w/ dough hook):
  1. 2 min knead on low with flour (280g Bread, 120g AP), water (260g at 42F), sugar (8g), yeast (1.4g).
  2. 2 min knead with salt (10g) added
  3. 3 min (2min med, 1 min low) knead/mix with olive oil (8g) slowly added in first 2 min.
  4. Remove from mixer. Final dough temp was 70.8F at this point.
  5. I then did the fold, rest 30 minutes, and window pane test until it passed the window pane test. It took me 3x until it passed. At this time I folded once more and placed into fridge.
• Bulk Ferment & Proof Time: Fermented 48 hr in fridge. Removed from fridge 3.5 hours before the cook, split the doughs, balled, and left covered until stretch time.
• Cook Method: baking steel. 500F. Turned after 4 minutes. Total cook time was 8 minutes for both pizzas.

May 1 - FAIL

What I tried:

• Recipe: DavesPizzaOven
• Knead Method (hand): Mixed by hand, rested 15 min, kneaded 8 min by hand using slap & fold, rested and folded every 30minutes (took 3 iterations until it passed winowpane test)
• Bulk Ferment & Proof Time: Fermented 42 hr in fridge, then shaped into 2 balls and proofed for 4.5 hours in containers on counter.
• Cook Method: baking steel. 500F. Turned every 3-4 minutes until cooked