It has been a year since my last statement about home-made pizzas, so it may be a time to serve up (deliver?) an update. Here’s one from the most recent batch:
Ken Forkish’s straight-dough, low yeast, long-rise recipe continues to be my go-to, and there is little left to complain about. It has a great crumb and nicely developed taste, especially when the dough is a day or two old. I still do need some work on the technique side: getting an unbaked pizza off the peel — without using so much flour or cornmeal as to mar the taste — still eludes me. Thus, I have settled on using parchment paper for the first couple of minutes, then, after the crust firms up, lifting the pizza with tongs and yanking out the parchment paper before it incinerates in the 550 degree oven. This, it should be said, is a maneuver not without danger to one’s fingers.
Our grocery carries “pizza yeast” in addition to the normal stuff, so I decided to give this a try to see how it stacks up. Apparently, the packet consists of highly active yeast along with some conditioners that make a thirty minute dough handle like one with a longer rise. The resulting dough was as easily stretchable as advertised, but also had little to no strength. It was altogether too easy to tear a hole while trying to shape it into a round, but I persevered. Here is the side-by-side (pizza yeast on the right):
The resulting crust was rubbery and tasteless, so my advice is to not bother repeating this experiment.
I am considering branching out into a wild-yeast version next, depending on whether I can manage to get a viable starter going.