Best Ever New York Style – improved crust voids
If you’ve been reading past posts, you know that I am currently trying to perfect the air bubbles in the crust of my New York Style pizza dough recipe. After several failed attempts, I turned to my friends at Pizzamaking.com for some advice. The feedback I got was very useful. Most helpful was this forum posting in which a lengthy discussion and some great notions were developed and shared.
From this post and my experience, I have formed the following thesis:
1. Hydration, or the water amount with respect to the flour amount, controls the “dough density”: high percent water (65-70%) makes light, crisp dough.
2. A bench rest prior to baking produces more bubbles in the crust rim (assuming careful handling while stretching).
I learned a handful of other things that I want to change as well. For example, everyone seemed to note a difference in the type of container used for retarding as well as the benefit of leaving the lid off for the first hour of retarding. Also, a wild variance in yeast percentage does not have a tremendous impact on small batches of dough allowed to retard for 24 hours. Finally, only minimal kneading is required when mixing pizza dough and there may be a negative effect from over kneading.
In order to prove my thesis, I set out to create a test in which I could obtain a crust similar to those of my friends. For starters, I decided to keep the recipe the same and only vary my dough handling. For this pizza, I would make the following changes to my technique:
1. Start with cooler water to end with a final dough temperature of about 85 degrees.
2. Only mix the dough until the ingredients come together into a smooth ball (about 8 minutes)
3. After balling, I would leave the lid off of my dough container for about an hour then seal it for the remaining 23 hours in the refrigerator.
4. Allow a one-hour bench rest prior to baking and minimally handle the dough while sheeting.
In general, I was able to stick with my plan. I used 70 degree water which results in 79 degree final dough temp. The dough did not rise much in the refrigerator. When I removed it, it was somewhat soft. I placed it in a bowl of flour, covered, for one hour. When I began to shape it, the extensibility was noticeable as was the difference in the size of the ball. Bubbles were visible just below the skin of the ball. In fact, I had to be very careful removing it from the bowl and shaping it so not to disturb the rim shape.
The pie was topped with more of the plum tomato Neapolitan sauce, cheese and pepperoni then baked at 480 degrees for 9 minutes.
After baking, I felt a sense of accomplishment! The crust rim was not as bread-like as before. There were still no large voids, but they were bigger than previous attempts. I assume this is from the bench rest.
Another notable difference was the light, airy feel to the slice and bite. It was a bit more crisp than before. I attribute this to the water content. Overall, I would call this the best yet New York Style for me. The flavor was wonderful. The slice shelf was a bit flimsy, but that has to do more with the fact that I’ve been stretching a smaller dough ball out to fill my 16 inch screen.
Though the voids were improved, I’m still not seeing the large open spaces that I want. I think I will try again with an even longer bench rest to see if that makes a difference. In the mean time, I’m getting some great experience and tasty pizza! 
