Interesting phenomenon using a New York Style Pizza dough

[james]

They say you should be able to see the pizza base through the tomato sauce. That might lighten things up a little -- and get you more even baking in the middle.

You should be able to get everything baked evenly with a hot, pre-heated, 550ºF stone. Definitely.
James

[ngd1029]

Since I had time after exams I decided to see if I could revisit this problem and experiment to see if I could solve the problem. I reduced the sauce and was baking with simply cheese. The gas convection oven was set to 550 degrees and I was experimenting with position. I was moving the pizza from 2nd rack from the bottom (bottom rack is too high) and the top rack preheating the stone for at least one hour. The pizzas were baked at roughly 2-3 minutes and while the bottom cooks beautifully, the tops are still somewhat raw (cheese barely melted and the top of the crust kinda doughy). I've been trying to complete this pizza recipe because if it would cook perfectly (top and bottom) it would be perfect. I was hoping that someone out there with more pizza experience could provide advice and insights on how to fix this.

[Acoma]

NGD, if you are using a pizza stone and oven for pizzas, why not attempt the one hour pizza oven. There has been discussions and a thread on it. Quite simple actually. You can have your successful pizza outside, and set up takes an hour to build. Do this until you get the true oven build should you decide to go that route.

[John Fahle]

Acoma, can you point me to that thread? I searched for it but couldn't find it.

Thanks

[asudavew]

Oven too hot... pizza too thick... = undone

the thicker the pizza, the slower the cook time, and lower temps are required.

A 900 degree pizza is very light!

[RTflorida]

I regularly cook pizza around 900 degrees...and YES, keep it light and keep it moving (I rotate every 30 seconds for the 90 seconds or so it takes).
took me a while to get my wife to "lighten up" her pizzas, she likes it thin but loaded with sauce and fixens, after a few stinkers, she got the message. Now we saute some of our toppings in advance and save the heavy sauced pizza for last and go a bit thicker at 700 - 750...works for us.

RT

[gjbingham]

I used a pizza stone for a few years. A big heavy one from King Arthur Flour, I believe. I think I occasionally had similar problems, but it always seemed to be a mystery to me as well. I'm pretty sure I used 550 degrees F as a cooking temp. Sometimes they were perfect, sometimes a bit underdone. I'm guessing that since I used the same toppings over and over again, it may have been the quality of the dough that contributes to the problem - a big guess!

[Alfredo]

John Fahle,

I believe this is what Acoma was referring to: The 1-Hour Brick Oven

[Acoma]

Thanks Alfredo.