The Chicago deep dish pizza is somewhat problematic to bake in an air impingement oven, this is why so many pizzerias in Chicago use reel type ovens. The problem stems from the long baking time required. About the best we have been able to come up with is about 22-minutes, roughly half of what is typical in Chicago. To bake for this length of time you will need to set the temperature at 400F and begin experimenting with the bake time which may vary with the specific finger configuration your oven is equipped with. Also, with the reduced baking times we do not recommend using raw sausage as is common in Chicago, it just isn’t worth the risk.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
