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The dough ended up too spread out, too big, so I tried to ‘compress’ it a bit, which creates wrinkles.

I learned in #1535 that mixing the salt into the tomato sauce is a far better approach. It spreads the saltiness evenly across the pie.

The crust could be crispier.

Superseded by #1545. This comment was generated automatically.

During parbaking, the pizza burnt slightly in the middle, on top. Next time, I can probably reduce the parbake time to 2 minutes. Or I could just move the steel to the middle rack before placing the pizza on it and do a single bake for about 5 minutes.

Too much salt. Try 3 or 4g next time.

Superseded by #1542. This comment was generated automatically.

The dough was bland and hard/tough.

Describing it as “not very crispy” is vague. That could mean it was too soft or too hard. In reality, it was too hard.

I now think that heat wasn’t that big of a problem; I believe I overcooked the dough.

In #1535, I learned that my steel reaches around 620°F under the broiler. That’s plenty hot to make pizza at home.

Improved since #1515 but could still be better.

During parbaking, the pizza burnt slightly in the middle, on top. Next time, I can probably reduce the parbake time to 2 minutes. Or I could just move the steel to the middle rack before placing the pizza on it and doing a single bake for about 5 minutes.

The center of the dough got a touch too thin and I ripped a small hole in it.

Ingredients

• Store-bought dough (1 pound)
• Crushed tomatoes (100g)
• Mozzarella (whole milk, shredded, 150g)

Then, for garnish:

• Oregano
• Fresh basil leaves
• 5g of salt

Steps

1. Preheat oven for 1 hour. Ends up somewhere between 450 and 500°F.
2. Preheat pizza steel for 30 min on top rack underneath broiler, reaches about 620°F.
3. Rest dough at room temperature for about 1.5 hours. It felt like it had reached about room temp.
4. Add salt to the tomato sauce.
5. Grate cheese.
6. Stretch the dough.
7. Dust the pizza peel with flour.
8. Remove excess flour from dough.
9. Place dough on peel.
10. Add the tomato sauce.
11. Add cheese.
12. Place dough on steel; still on top rack with the broiler on.
13. Bake for 2.5 minutes.
14. Take out to add cheese.
15. Move to bottom rack for another 2.5 minutes.
16. Move back to top rack for 1 min.

Results (markedly better again than last time):

• Top: https://drive.proton.me/urls/R5NC0NVP1M#lEvW9YodqSZR
• Bottom: https://drive.proton.me/urls/RYQPFZJSCR#LQKeZiiTbp9G
• Bottom (another slice): https://drive.proton.me/urls/N7VM0C48P8#XSP9bVZUyxUz

Got the thermo gun today and played around with it. If I put the steel on the bottom rack (which is directly above the heat source), it hovers at around 450 after about 40 min. But on the top rack with the broiler on, it hovered at around 620 after another 30 min. (It may reach that temp sooner, I didn’t check.) 620 is plenty hot to make pizza.

The dough came out really good this time. It was light and fluffy in most places, even had some crispy air bubbles. I had previously overcooked it – I think that’s why it got so hard last time.

I found myself moaning as I ate this pie and wanting more afterwards.

Adding more salt as a ‘topping’ helped improve the taste of the pizza overall. Decent workaround for now.

I don’t think I’m ready for that. It’s an added difficulty, another task to master; let’s get the other stuff right first. Once I’ve gotten pretty good at that, I can make my own dough.

Might be better if I made my own dough.

Because then I would have expected burning on all sides of the undercarriage but only one side was burnt.

Maybe the center didn’t burn because it lifted up.

Because then the center should have been burnt the most.

Why not because of the increased heat?

Remember to place the pizza on the steel before adding toppings.

Superseded by #1525. This comment was generated automatically.

Preheating the pizza steel on the gas burner possibly got the temperature up but it created an unevenness. The center of the steel was apparently much hotter than the rest, which is why the center of the pizza cooked faster (visible both on top and underneath).

The center lifted up while cooking, which is presumably why the leopard print is missing in the center.