Hi all, after 7 days of curing fires and 2 failures with pizza dough/cooking mechanics, we’ve achieved success. Had my Italian in-laws over for a trial and they raved about the crust and the pizza overall (small criticisms of the sauce but my wife made it so that’s not on me).
I’ve been baking bread in a steam oven for a long time so I should have known better than what I was doing with the pizza crust, but anyway I watched a YouTube video and followed to the T, and it came out spectacular. Link here, notes below: How to Make NEAPOLITAN PIZZA DOUGH like a World Best Pizza Chef - YouTube
Dough: 600ml water, 1000g flour (I did 50/50 bread flour/00), 2-3g saf instant yeast, 25g salt. Slightly different than he prescribes but I’m telling you it was absolutely perfect. Charred bubbles, crispy outside, soft fluffy inside with just the right chewiness. I put the flour, salt, and yeast in the mixer bowl and whisked thoroughly. The yeast in the water and 10% flour to buffer is a mess in my opinion, mixing the dry ingredients well together is much easier and no loss of anything. Then add the water and start the KitchenAid on lowest setting until the dry flour is all gone. I use a fiberglass chopstick to get the dough off the sides and into the heart of the mixer. You can use a spatula or back of a wooden spoon too. After 5-7 minutes of mixing, you should have a dough ball that holds together well and is slightly, just slightly sticky. If it’s too sticky, add flour teaspoon by teaspoon. You don’t want to throw the hydration ratio off too much.
Then take the dough out onto the counter and start kneading it. I almost always skip the hand kneading when making sourdough bread or regular bread and it’s fine, but DONT skip the hand kneading here. 5 minutes to finish it off is enough, somehow it makes a huge difference, maybe it’s your hands taking some of the moisture out or maybe it’s love, I don’t know. All I know is you must do it.
Then let the dough rest 2-4 hours in a dead oven where there’s no draft, covered with a damp cloth. Take it out, cut off baseball sized chunks and weigh them to 250g each. You should get 6 balls. Oil up a huge Tupperware or other plastic container and pop them in. They will double/triple in size in the fridge.
Then into the fridge for 1-3 days. It is much better after 2 days than 24 hours, but even 24 hours is enough for it to mature to greatness. After 3 days the yeast will be exhausted and it will be a saggy sad glop. Take it out of the fridge, give it at least 2 hours to come to room temp and start livening up again but no more than 4 hours. Then you’re ready to stretch over your knuckles into a 14" pie. If you use bread flour, the dough will not tear unless you’re a savage with it. It will take some effort and patience to get a 14" pie but there are plenty of videos that shoe you how to stretch the dough. Take your time. Takes me at least 2-3 minutes of stretching to get to 16/18 inches then it springs back to 14 and it’s perfect. Wrap a damp cloth on your peel and give the oven floor a quick wipe to clear the ash and have at it.
P. S. If your pizza doesn’t cook in 2 minutes, the oven is not not enough. I was temp gunning the floor at 700 and that wasn’t enough. 800/850 is where you want to be. Add more wood and spread it around and keep adding wood until it’s hard to look inside without fearing your eyebrows will burn off, then you’re close. Hope this helps!
