Puffy Pizza Help!

[Tscarborough]

Re: Puffy Pizza Help!

Less dough per ball rolled thinner and sauce cheese to the edge. You may need to reduce the water in your dough if you are using a high hydration dough (70%+). A docker will certainly help, but when I do cracker crust, I roll it out thin (1/4"), fold, roll, fold, and roll out to 1/4". Also, I usually use fine semolina at 20%, so that is not an issue. Here are a couple of almost cracker crust in the WFO:

[mamaspizza]

Re: Puffy Pizza Help!

8 oz balls for individual/dinner plate size pizzas.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Puffy Pizza Help!

I use 10oz for 14-16", so you have quite a lot of dough.

[Tonyp]

Re: Puffy Pizza Help!

still having puffy crust....

I did notice that that my crust was practically like pita bread on the outer edges, hollow inside this last time, that was without rolling.

I typically bring the dough to room temperature before finger kneading and even hand tossing it for pizza. If it's too cold, the dough just bounces back to a flat ball and puffs up twice as much.

I typically let my dough rest room temperature for at least an hour preferably two after pulling from the fridge. It should be rising and making bubbles in the dough. Once you remove from it's proofing container do not knead it again! It should be gently removed and stretched. I usually go around 1/16 -1/8" for most of the pie with a little thicker right around the edge. I use 10oz dough balls and end up with 12-14" pizzas. If your dough is not rested enough the tighter gluten will spring back into a thicker, much smaller diameter crust when stretched and tossed into the oven instead of allowing the individual bubbles to puff up. The thicker crust also tends to want to make that pita like bread with the two layers and air pocket.

I would also suggest making your dough with weight measurements instead of volume. You will have much more consistent results and be able to make small changes much easier going forward.