Homemade Pizza - Soggy Dough

[asechrest]

I want to make homemade pizza margherita. I'd like to emulate the simple, thin crust, well done, coal-fired, done in 2-minutes pizza. Unfortunately, I don't have a coal oven, or anything that approaches that heat.

I make a simple sauce of hand-crushed and strained San Marzano tomatoes with salt, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella. I've used a few different types of dough, from fresh store-bought to homemade no-knead dough. I preheat my oven to the highest temperature possible (500-something?) with my cast-iron pizza stone in there. I then flip it to broil, build the pizza on the piping hot stone, then throw it back in the oven.

Often, the pizza comes out looking great. Nice leoparding on the bottom of the crust. Slightly browned cheese. Smells great. But inevitably, the dough is soggy in the center of the pizza directly under the sauce (the "top" of the crust). So you cut your slices, and your first couple bites are doughy, soggy crust.

My guess is that my sauce, even though I've strained it, is preventing the dough directly under it from getting done. But what it interesting is that it's only the center portion that fails to get done; some diameter less than the whole pizza. But since people all over the world seem able to get this done, I imagine I'm just doing it wrong. Does anyone know where I'm going wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matthew]

Possibly making the crust too thick. It just doesn't seem to be cooking all the way through.

Or - the sauce is soaking into the crust. Try brushing some olive oil on the crust to seal it, then add sauce.

Or - you could bake the crust first for a few minutes, then add topping.

 

[Mrs. SixPapaCharlie]

Have you tried cooking it without the stone? Just straight on the rack? Mine come out crispier that way. I honestly never had great results with a pizza stone, though mine was a cheap one, so that could have been part of it.

 

[RJM62]

Have you tried cooking it without the stone? Just straight on the rack? Mine come out crispier that way. I honestly never had great results with a pizza stone, though mine was a cheap one, so that could have been part of it.

I've never had luck with the stones, either. Not sure quite why. I've had my best results using perforated pizza pans.

-Rich

 

[Matthew]

The phone works great.

 

[marcoseddi]

Amy's margarita pizza it's frozen organic one of the best pizzas


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mjburian]

I always parbake my homemade crust to keep it from getting soggy. 8 minutes at 400 sets it up nicely. Then finish it off once the sauce and toppings have been added for perfectly crisp crust. YMMV.

 

[Sac Arrow]

I think your temperature is too hot. Back it off to 400 - 425, even less if the crust is really thick, and you should get the center to cook. The surface and edges are cooking too quickly.

 

[Brad Z]

Dough on parchment, slide parchment onto stone. Comes out the way I like it.

 

[stsflyer]

I think your temperature is too hot. Back it off to 400 - 425, even less if the crust is really thick, and you should get the center to cook. The surface and edges are cooking too quickly.

I think Sac is correct. When I cook pizza on the grill, I cook around 400-450. I start it on the stone then move it to the rack.

 

[rgrentz]

I cook it in the grill at high temp. leave the stone in the grill while it's heating up and put the pizza on the hot pizza stone, but watch it will cook and be ready in about 10/12 minutes and is nice and crunchy..

 

[timwinters]

I make a lot of homemade pizza but do so in the oven, not on the grille. I use one of these.

Bottom always gets nice and brown, no sogginess.

 

[asechrest]

Thanks so far. Will be trying some of these strats.

I had been aiming too cook it as hot as possible. The serious coal and wood fire pizza ovens will often cook a pizza in 2 - 4 minutes at 700-900 degrees. I obviously don't have the facilities for that, so perhaps that's my problem; attempting to to emulate that without having the proper tool.

Also, just to be clear, my pizza crust is always done on the bottom, it's on the top, in the center, under the sauce, that's my issue. It's wet and doughy. Which is confusing to me, because I am not using particularly thick crust since I'm going for thin-crust style.

 

[Sac Arrow]

Thanks so far. Will be trying some of these strats.

I had been aiming too cook it as hot as possible. The serious coal and wood fire pizza ovens will often cook a pizza in 2 - 4 minutes at 700-900 degrees. I obviously don't have the facilities for that, so perhaps that's my problem; attempting to to emulate that without having the proper tool.

Also, just to be clear, my pizza crust is always done on the bottom, it's on the top, in the center, under the sauce, that's my issue. It's wet and doughy. Which is confusing to me, because I am not using particularly thick crust since I'm going for thin-crust style.

Yeah but the thermodynamics of those things are quite different from regular convection ovens. The heat distribution is dead even, and the heat is largely transmissive.

 

[Matthew]

You said you build the pizza on the piping hot stone, then put in the oven. I'm sure that cooks the crust from the bottom up while you build it. The broiler then finishes off the top quickly and the center doesn't get cooked long enough. Try it in a hot oven without the broiler?

 

[comanchepilot]

1. . . the stone needs to be pre-heated - otherwise it just keeps the dough from cooking. NO BROILERS. Its not a chicken. Heat 450F and take a really close look at it while it is cooking.

2. . . . if you want to make a bigger pizza and have access to a granite counter top [ its stone, right?] you flour the counter top, and use a roller to get the dough thin.

You take extra thick aluminum foil and take a rack out of the oven - cover it with foil. Heat the oven to 500F. put your stretched dough on the foil covered rack - add your sauce and toppings - put the pizza in the oven for 5 minutes - then reduce the temp to 350. And WATCH it.

in 10 min - perfect very large pizza. . . .

 

[catmandu]

Sacrilege to some, we pre-cook our homemade hand-tossed dough, just starting to bubble and brown on the stone. 4-5 minutes, Convection at 475 since the oven door gets opened a lot (4-8 pies is our normal production). Then build the pie on top of it. Anything but complaints about the thousands of slices that have been consumed around here. YMMV.

 

[SixPapaCharlie]

I'm hungry.
My garden burger was not a pizza.

 

[Alexb2000]

Reading some of these responses gave me pains in the soul.

What temp is the deck vs. top heat in the oven?

Your receipt sounds good, how is the hydration on the dough?

Are you a fan of Jeff Varazano? Have you read this bit about getting REAL margarita pizza at home?

http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

I am also a lover of the true margarita, I use a culture from Naples, etc.

Figuring this out sounds like fun.

 

[catmandu]

Reading some of these responses gave me pains in the soul..

You don't like EAB aircraft, do you?

Tweaks to a perfect process always appreciated, teach, Master!

 

[Jim_R]

Depending on the style of mozzarella you're using (I assume you're using fresh, which has a very high moisture content), that could contribute to your sogginess. You might try a drier cheese just as part of your testing.

But the sauce will have the biggest moisture contribution. If you build your pizzas by starting with sauce in the middle and pushing it outward, there's more time for that moisture to soak into the dough...try applying your sauce in a different way so that the center is last. If you continue to have issues, try not putting any sauce in the middle one time, and see what happens.

As for stone, I use the Alton Brown suggestion of unglazed "quarry tiles" from the home improvement store. About $3 a piece, and it takes about 6. I had the store cut a couple so that I could get them laid out on my rack from edge to edge. They're thin enough that they heat up quickly with the oven (though I still let the oven preheat for a long time, usually about an hour), but solid enough that they've never cracked. Very easy to slide a pizza in and out of there using a peel.

 

[Alexb2000]

You don't like EAB aircraft, do you?

Tweaks to a perfect process always appreciated, teach, Master!

I don't know if you are using electric or gas, but that link I posted has a way that you cut the safety and use an electric oven in self-cleaning mode. That will get it up to 8-900 so you can make some real pizza. Kind of an EAB oven (ok that was bad).

One of the toughest things is the bubbles in the crust. Bread size bubbles suck in a pizza, you want large bubbles and an airy crust, crisp on the outside, with just a bit of chew on the inside, can't be dry and can't be soggy. I'm sure you know this, but for others the yeast leave small bubbles in the dough, BUT the water in the dough when turned instantly to steam expands those bubbles. That is why the high temp is so critical, so that the water in the dough turns almost instantly to steam vs. just hot water.

True high temp margaritas use a dough that is so wet it is just barely workable. Very sticky compared to "normal" dough. Learning to work with dough that wet is like riding the stall, takes practice. That wet dough when put into a high temp oven creates a lot of steam (and bubbles). So a wet dough won't work for lower temps just as a "normal" dough won't work at higher temps, it just dries out.

I could talk about this all day.

 

[Matthew]

I could talk about this all day.

Enough talk. When do we eat?

 

[asechrest]

Reading some of these responses gave me pains in the soul.

What temp is the deck vs. top heat in the oven?

Your receipt sounds good, how is the hydration on the dough?

Are you a fan of Jeff Varazano? Have you read this bit about getting REAL margarita pizza at home?

http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm

I am also a lover of the true margarita, I use a culture from Naples, etc.

Figuring this out sounds like fun.

Yep, I've read the whole thing but it was quite some time ago. It's over my head at the moment, though. No self-cleaning function on my oven. I also haven't had the guts to try a real pizza dough. Just some no-knead versions.

I've also done some research on turning kettle grills into high-heat pizza ovens. There are some DIY instructions for turning the Weber Smokey Joe into a gas pizza oven with nice high temps. Haven't had a chance to see if that's feasible for me.

But the pizzas on that website are basically my ultimate goal. Glad to see there's another fan of this style of homemade pizza. What I had been hoping to do is come to some kind of middle ground; a pizza that's good and close to what I want, but not my ultimate ideal.

 

[asechrest]

Depending on the style of mozzarella you're using (I assume you're using fresh, which has a very high moisture content), that could contribute to your sogginess. You might try a drier cheese just as part of your testing.

But the sauce will have the biggest moisture contribution. If you build your pizzas by starting with sauce in the middle and pushing it outward, there's more time for that moisture to soak into the dough...try applying your sauce in a different way so that the center is last. If you continue to have issues, try not putting any sauce in the middle one time, and see what happens.

As for stone, I use the Alton Brown suggestion of unglazed "quarry tiles" from the home improvement store. About $3 a piece, and it takes about 6. I had the store cut a couple so that I could get them laid out on my rack from edge to edge. They're thin enough that they heat up quickly with the oven (though I still let the oven preheat for a long time, usually about an hour), but solid enough that they've never cracked. Very easy to slide a pizza in and out of there using a peel.

These are good ideas. Thanks. I think I'll try leaving the middle circular section devoid of sauce next time and see how that goes.

[edit] - And yes, fresh mozzarella, and I had taken to squeezing it between paper towels to try to soak up the moisture.

 

[TazzyTazzy]

I make sour dough pizzas, everything from scratch.

1. Use a 3/4 inch pizza stone. Not the cheap thin ones. Preheat at 500 for at least 30 mins.
2. Roll out pizza dough. For thin crust, Score it with a fork 40 or so times - bubble preventer. For thick dough, score maybe 20-30 times.
3. Toss empty pizza in oven for 6-8 mins. Remove the second it starts getting color. Oven goes down to 450.
4. Cool on rack to get it cooled fast. Crank oven back up to 500. I like to bake the crusts before guests arrive. So, I turn off oven, but need another 20-30 preheat cycle.
5. After crust cools, very thin layer of olive oil to prevent sogginess. Add sauce, leafy veggies like spinach, down first. Add toppings. Cheese under any meats.
6. Toss in oven, reduce to 450. Bake 3-8 mins depending on toppings.

 

[Alexb2000]

Yep, I've read the whole thing but it was quite some time ago. It's over my head at the moment, though. No self-cleaning function on my oven. I also haven't had the guts to try a real pizza dough. Just some no-knead versions.

I've also done some research on turning kettle grills into high-heat pizza ovens. There are some DIY instructions for turning the Weber Smokey Joe into a gas pizza oven with nice high temps. Haven't had a chance to see if that's feasible for me.

But the pizzas on that website are basically my ultimate goal. Glad to see there's another fan of this style of homemade pizza. What I had been hoping to do is come to some kind of middle ground; a pizza that's good and close to what I want, but not my ultimate ideal.

Do you have a charcoal grill? I use a Big Green Egg and I can easily get it to 900. Of course it is much harder to control the deck to top heat ratio, but still better than a kitchen oven.

What flour are you using? Low protein flours tend to be soggier.

 

[asechrest]

Do you have a charcoal grill? I use a Big Green Egg and I can easily get it to 900. Of course it is much harder to control the deck to top heat ratio, but still better than a kitchen oven.

What flour are you using? Low protein flours tend to be soggier.

I have a standard 22.5" Weber Kettle, which I use for lots of stuff including smoking and paella. But I haven't tried pizza on it. What would you think, load it all across the bottom with charcoal or try an indirect method? I could put the pizza right on the grill grate or use my cast iron pizza stone.

Re: flour, I'm just using regular flour from a huge bag I use for bread. Finding a real pizza dough probably deserves more of my time.

 

[steingar]

Sourdough pizzas are a speciality of the kitchens of Steinholme, better cannot be found anywhere. I suspect the broiler is the culprit, since it is a unidirectional heat. Remember, you're baking bread as well as melting cheese, the two things you do to make a pizza.

Several posters have given good suggestions. You can coat with olive oil, that will make a good barrier to liquid penetration. However, I'll bet the broiler is insufficient to bake the bread and you'll still have textural problems. Parbaking the crust will solve your problem, you bake with your oven and then melt cheese with the broiler. I don't know what kind of stone you have but mine gives the best pizza crust I've seen. That said, I've baked pizza on pans, stones, and the over rack all to good effect.

Here's one you might want to try. First, make your own crust, it isn't that hard and will be tons better. Second, dress the crust on a hot stone and bake as hot as your over will go. I use 550 degrees myself, and I'd go higher if I could. Should cook in 6-8 minutes. Not two, but still pretty fast.

And for Odin's sake add some damn anchovies.

 

[bluesky74656]

What I've always done is pre-heat the stone as hot as it will go and roll the dough out on my countertop. Then I transfer the dough to a pizza peel and build it there, and then transfer it from the peel to the stone and let it bake for 7-10 minutes.

I'm intrigued by building the pizza directly on the preheated stone. Do you roll the dough out first on the counter and then transfer it to the stone? I can't imagine you'd be able to roll it it out directly on the stone.

I might have to try that next time. The hardest part of the process is making sure the pizza will transfer from the peel to the stone without sticking. If I can eliminate that step it would be great.

 

[steingar]

What I've always done is pre-heat the stone as hot as it will go and roll the dough out on my countertop. Then I transfer the dough to a pizza peel and build it there, and then transfer it from the peel to the stone and let it bake for 7-10 minutes.

If I had a peel (more specifically if I had a place in my kitchen to stash a peel) I'd do exactly what you just said. Alas, the kitchens of Steinholme are a trifle incomplete.

I'm intrigued by building the pizza directly on the preheated stone. Do you roll the dough out first on the counter and then transfer it to the stone? I can't imagine you'd be able to roll it it out directly on the stone.

Exactly correct, though I dust the stone with come corn meal to keep the crust from sticking. You apply the crust carefully and assemble the pizza with alacrity.

I might have to try that next time. The hardest part of the process is making sure the pizza will transfer from the peel to the stone without sticking. If I can eliminate that step it would be great.

Corn meal is your friend, use liberally. If I had a peel I would certainly use it.

 

[Sac Arrow]

If I had a peel (more specifically if I had a place in my kitchen to stash a peel) I'd do exactly what you just said. Alas, the kitchens of Steinholme are a trifle incomplete.



Exactly correct, though I dust the stone with come corn meal to keep the crust from sticking. You apply the crust carefully and assemble the pizza with alacrity.



Corn meal is your friend, use liberally. If I had a peel I would certainly use it.

I think I just learned a new word today.

 

[LoneAspen]

If you're a pizza fanatic (like I am) and have questions about pizza making, I stumbled across this site years ago, and it seems to be a haven for all things pizza:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php

Now I'm hungry for pizza for lunch...

 

[Bill]

The phone works great.

 

[bluesky74656]

Corn meal is your friend, use liberally. If I had a peel I would certainly use it.

Yeah, I haven't had a disaster since I started using corn meal quite liberally. But if my wife attempts it we generally end up eating calzones.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Alexb2000]

I have a standard 22.5" Weber Kettle, which I use for lots of stuff including smoking and paella. But I haven't tried pizza on it. What would you think, load it all across the bottom with charcoal or try an indirect method? I could put the pizza right on the grill grate or use my cast iron pizza stone.

Re: flour, I'm just using regular flour from a huge bag I use for bread. Finding a real pizza dough probably deserves more of my time.

I use a 3/4" pizza stone sitting directly on the grill grate. I don't put it on until about 10 min before cooking a pizza. I use one of those $40 laser thermometers to check the deck (stone) temp. You want the stone about 80% as hot as the overall BBQ. So if the BBQ is 900, I am looking for about 725 measured on the stone. That will allow the crust to cook all the way without burning and the top will be done as well. In a commercial pizza oven like a super deck there is an adjustment where you can vary the top to bottom heat distribution, that's how they get consistency. As you cook multiple pizzas you will find the stone gets too hot each time you are about to cook one. To cool it off I spray it with a little water and keep measuring those temps. I promise if you take the time to cook one at high temp you will never go back to bread baking temps again.

I have used all the common flours. I like King Arthur Bread flour mixed with OO Caputo at 50/50. If I don't have any Caputo handy the King Arthur makes a fine pizza all buy itself, just a little firmer on the crust. Check the protein content of whatever you are using, if it is less than about 11% the crust will be soggy.

 

[steingar]

I use a 3/4" pizza stone sitting directly on the grill grate. I don't put it on until about 10 min before cooking a pizza. I use one of those $40 laser thermometers to check the deck (stone) temp. You want the stone about 80% as hot as the overall BBQ. So if the BBQ is 900, I am looking for about 725 measured on the stone. That will allow the crust to cook all the way without burning and the top will be done as well. In a commercial pizza oven like a super deck there is an adjustment where you can vary the top to bottom heat distribution, that's how they get consistency. As you cook multiple pizzas you will find the stone gets too hot each time you are about to cook one. To cool it off I spray it with a little water and keep measuring those temps. I promise if you take the time to cook one at high temp you will never go back to bread baking temps again.

I have used all the common flours. I like King Arthur Bread flour mixed with OO Caputo at 50/50. If I don't have any Caputo handy the King Arthur makes a fine pizza all buy itself, just a little firmer on the crust. Check the protein content of whatever you are using, if it is less than about 11% the crust will be soggy.

I am immediately and forthwith going to stop bragging about my pies. Dang.

 

[GeorgeC]

We roll the dough out onto a silicone mat, put dough+mat on cookie sheet, parbake for 2-3 mins at 500, brush with olive oil, add sauce/toppings/cheese, and then finish for 7-8 mins at 500. Heap easy, heap good.

And yes, anchovies are a spice, like bacon.

 

[Alexb2000]

I am immediately and forthwith going to stop bragging about my pies. Dang.

Not at all, I am a margarita amateur, there are some serious players in the game, real serious. I took a 2 week cooking class in Italy, there were some people there that were absolute masters. Since margarita pizza is vegetarian and a true food of the gods and enlightened people, you might read that link I posted if you have any interest, it's a really good primer.

 

[asechrest]

I use a 3/4" pizza stone sitting directly on the grill grate. I don't put it on until about 10 min before cooking a pizza. I use one of those $40 laser thermometers to check the deck (stone) temp. You want the stone about 80% as hot as the overall BBQ. So if the BBQ is 900, I am looking for about 725 measured on the stone. That will allow the crust to cook all the way without burning and the top will be done as well. In a commercial pizza oven like a super deck there is an adjustment where you can vary the top to bottom heat distribution, that's how they get consistency. As you cook multiple pizzas you will find the stone gets too hot each time you are about to cook one. To cool it off I spray it with a little water and keep measuring those temps. I promise if you take the time to cook one at high temp you will never go back to bread baking temps again.

I have used all the common flours. I like King Arthur Bread flour mixed with OO Caputo at 50/50. If I don't have any Caputo handy the King Arthur makes a fine pizza all buy itself, just a little firmer on the crust. Check the protein content of whatever you are using, if it is less than about 11% the crust will be soggy.

I may do a test run to see how hot I can get my Weber. I have only regulated temps for low-and-slow, never for ultra high-temp cooking. It may be a few weeks but I'll report back. Thanks for the advice.