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Not crispy enough, help!

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ekang

New member
Hi,

I’m using a high gluten flour (12% protein), 70% hydration and a starter with no oil or sugar in my recipe. I’m getting nice rise but not enough crispiness in the crust. How can I solve this issue…I want to keep the open, airy structure but also have a crisp, crunchy outer shell.

I’m using a conveyor belt oven at 300C for about 3:30 cooking time. The pizza comes out nicely coloured.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-ekang
 
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Oil will help. What is your doughball weight for what size? Oven temp?

Your cook time is VERY short.
 
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Also, is the hydration too high? 70% seems high but I know every dough is different. I am curious what Tom thinks! :?:
 
Boy, all I know if our dough and times etc. but I’d start with lowering your temp and increasing your time. I use a XLT and our particular recipe bakes our ultra-thin and crispy, our std. hand-tossed, AND our deep dish all at 465F for around 6:30. We ran several small cheese pizzas through in the week prior to our opening to dial in where we wanted to be. You might simply have to sacrifice a few dough balls.
 
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Hi,

I thought oil made the dough more pliable and soft thus less crispy…am I mistaken? When sourdough breads are made high hydration with steam it creates a high rise with a crunchy exterior. This is why I’m using the 70% hydration.

I’m getting great rise and colour but want more crispiness. I’m cooking at 300C for 3:30 for a 250g dough ball stretched onto an 11" screen.

Flour 100%
Water 70%
Salt 1.5%
Starter 10%

Mixing at speed 1 for 6 min and speed 2 for 6 min…total 12 min mixing time.

Thanks for all your feedback!

-ekang
 
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When I use the area of an 11" and your dough weight, I come to amost exactly the same equivalent dough weight we use for a 12" screen.

We set our ovens for a 7 minute cook time and adjust the temps so the pizza comes out the way we want it. That gives us a fully cooked crust. If we turned our ovens up to the temp you are using and shortened the cook time we would have a nice brown crust and an undercooked soft center. (Been there when a manager wanted to shorten door times and thought saving a couple of minutes in the oven was the answer)

We use 64% water and 4% oil. We also use honey. We get a fully cooked, nice brown crust with great texture but if you are looking for sourdough type crunch maybe someone else will chime in with ideas.

My guess is a longer cook time and lower temp is part of the solution though.
 
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Ekang;
I totally agree with the rest of the posters, you are baking your pizzas too hot. Think of it like searing a steak, you sear a steak at very high temperature, it is brown and crusty on the outside, but uncooked in the middle, and you have locked the moisture in the steak. You can do the same thing with your pizza dough, which is what I think is happening. Reduce the oven temperature to 475 to not more than 500F/246 to 260C, and look for a bake time of about 5 to 6-minutes. If the edges are getting too hard (pizza bone) you may need to get some Hearth Bake Disks from Lloyd Pans <www.lloydpans .com> These disks are made specifically to address the pizza bone problem when baking in an air impingement oven at these high temperatures.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Thanks for all the input! I will try lower temp and increase of cooking time.
 
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