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How to get crispier bottom on detroit / deepdish in conveyor

C

clownhair

Active member
I have been working on my detroit style pizza forever. I have the recipe down, I have the process down, what I cannot get down is the bake.

I want a nice crunchy crispy bottom on my pizzas and I just cant get it. I don’t want to dump a ton of oil in the pan to achieve this either. I know for a fact that a crispy bottom is viable with a deck oven but can it be done in a conveyor?

My conveyor is an edge60 with bottom full open, top is closed closed closed 1/2
time 10 minutes temp 500

anyone able to offer suggestions or maybe you have cracked the code yourself and would be willing to share how.
 
fresh dough but ive tried both and its always just soft. The thing I dont like about parbaking is how much the dough shrinks.
 
we finish any of our well done pies on the stone decks of our electric Bakers Pride countertop oven that we use for slices. We have been testing sicilian/detroit to roll out soon and finish those pies there as well and it works great. PS we use EdgeWB60’s to cook all our pies
 
I don’t have much to add here except we get ours in from a dough company, par baked. We use the Lloyd pans Detroit pans that have the perforations
 
Shortening is my go to already, and I am using lloyds pans, not anything near a crispy bottom for me. Not even when it first comes out of the oven. Maybe I need much more shortening? Do you do this in your operation in a conveyor?
 
Yes, I use a conveyor oven.
I worked on my detroit pizza for a while until it came out where I wanted it.

Couple things you can try since I don’t know your dough formula:

68%-75% hydration. This may sound counterintuitive but higher hydration will result in a crispier dough. You can overnight cold proof in the pan for higher hydration doughs.

As mentioned, parbaking will result in crispier results since it cooks twice.

For parbaking, if using a lower hydration dough, proof dough 3 times. Bulk rise, press dough into pan and rise in pan until dough relaxes. Then get corners stretched and filled and rise again for 3rd time.
It should double in size. This will limit the crust from shrinking after parbaking
 
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Another idea would be to use a small griddle to crisp the bottom. I’ve seen a place in San Francisco do this and thought it was a cool idea.
 
I use 70% hydration dough. Current process is mix the dough, ball it, put on sheet pans covered with saran wrap and into the walkin. Next day remove them, coat pan with crisco and push out dough, let rise for 3-4 hours. From here I haven’t been able to get 100% what I want. When I parbaked the crusts they shrink really bad, like at least 1/4" around all sides. If your par baking is that what you are seeing also?
 
We use an Edge oven, roughly the same oven settings and roughly the same hydration. Perhaps try pressing out the dough in the oiled pan and then instead of letting rise at room temp, put them back into the cooler until they are ready to use. To ensure it stays crispy once in the box, corrugated cardboard liners also work really well. Good luck!
 
I settled on a 67% hydration dough in the end for my purposes. I also do a room temp bulk ferment before shaping and putting into cold storage

I dont parbake. Too much hassle imo for my operation to do another step. But I did experiment with parbaking and did not experience shrinkage. If anything, I have more issues with sticking If shortening is not applied to the corners well enough. Also I use roughly the same time and temp as you

If you’re looking for a place that does detroit style pizzas in a conveyor oven you can check out emmy squared in nyc on YT

Off the top of my head, some things you can try to resolve your issues with parbaking or even direct baking:
Lower hydration
Changing flours. Maybe a higher protein flour
Take parbaked crust out of pan to cool on a rack if shrinking occurs when cooling
Play around with yeast amounts and time and Temps. This may help relieve your shrinking issues
Parbake with a foil cover on the top to maximize oven spring
I apply a thin layer of shortening. This should be enough to semi fry the bottom crust and make it crunchy.
 
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