Interesting phenomenon using a New York Style Pizza dough

[ngd1029]

I'm a relatively new pizza baker using a pizza stone that I bought that I think was made by Echo in one of those 3 pizza packages ( a thin baking stone, a rack for the stone and a pizza cutter that's practically useless) that you see almost everywhere. I noticed when I baked this style of pizza that the top and bottom bakes fine, but the middle is slightly raw (50% cooked). I have no idea how to solve this problem so I was wondering if anyone could suggest ways to fix it. The pizza was baked at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes (it was a "family sized" pizza on a stone 13-14 inches in diameter. Any suggestions would be appreciated .

Thank you.

[Richard]

Heat stone to maximum your oven will allow. This is usually 500 to 550 degress for at least 45 minutes.

[maver]

A thin stone may not have much ability to retain heat, I don't know that heating longer will make much difference, but certainly should try higher oven temp. I think those thin stones are pretty worthless and will crack in short order if you are not very careful. They perform no better than a perforated metal pizza pan. Consider picking up some firebrick splits to replace the stone, or better yet buy the real stone from FB.com.

[BrianShaw]

In addition to fully heating your stone (like Richard suggests), think about how much sauce/topping gets put on the pie. Too much and you can get uncooked crust like you describe.

What do you mean (in terms of color) by "top and bottom bakes fine". Perhaps a little more time on the stone would help.

[BrianShaw]

Another consideration is where the stone is located in your oven. Overs differ in how they conduct heat. One oven I had (an vintage Chambers) cooked best with the stone on the lowest shelf. My current oven (a run-of-the-mill Tappan) cooks best with the stone on the middle shelf. Experiment often and make sure you eat the mistakes!

[Dutchoven]

Originally Posted by BrianShaw

Another consideration is where the stone is located in your oven. Overs differ in how they conduct heat. One oven I had (an vintage Chambers) cooked best with the stone on the lowest shelf. My current oven (a run-of-the-mill Tappan) cooks best with the stone on the middle shelf. Experiment often and make sure you eat the mistakes!

Agreed, sometimes you might find that the lower oven postion tends to do the top slower because of the lower reflected heat but the bottom does better and vice versa. Experiment with different oven positions an pay attention to the pizza so you can get a good handle on the cook time.
Best
Dutch

[ngd1029]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I'll try out a longer prebaking time for the stones. I only let the prebake about 5 minutes which could be the problem. I'll bake the stones on the middle rack for one hour at 500 degrees fahrenheit and try the recipe again to see if it works. If it does, I'll let everyone know.

[Ken524]

Originally Posted by ngd1029

I only let the prebake about 5 minutes which could be the problem.

Bingo! That's definitely part of the problem. We have a Pizza stone that's about a 1/2" thick. We preheat 550 for an hour before cooking on it. Does a pretty good job.

Ken

[ngd1029]

i tried pre-baking the oven at 550F for one hour on a convection oven, and when baking on the second top rack position in the oven, I had one stone one that top rack and another stone that i used for baking. the pizzas cooked faster, about 6 minutes, but this time even though the cheese on the top was browner, when I flipped the cheese off the pizza, the top half of the pizza dough was still raw. my sister suggests that i'm overloading the pizza's toppings (to why it's half raw under the cheese), but I don't think it's that topping heavy.
I have to admit that the pizza tasted better, but it's still not perfect. Does anyone have any suggestion how to solve the half cooked pizza top?

[Richard]

Since you did pre-heating, would try your sister's recommendation and then adjust from there. Next step, use baking versus convection cooking, try stone on bottome shelf. change one thing at a time to control variables.
View less toppings - perhaps slightly thinner crust.

How thick is the pizza dough you are now cooking ?