Brian's Pizza Recipe

Every recipe on the internet these days is legally required to start with a 10 paragraph essay/backstory about the food/dish. So here we go.

I'll freely admit that during the great quarantine of 2020 l, like so many other Americans, began baking at a feverous pace. But I only found I was interested in baking one thing. That thing was pizza.

It's already established that I like pizza. Even though our local pizza joint was still open during the great quar, I thought to myself "you got a 25 pound bag of flour, if you love it so much why don't you try making it you big doofus". So I did.

At first it was bad. Like inedible. But even the early bad ones made me want to try it again and see if I could make it better/edible. From the time I tried my first pie, I was hooked into pizza making. I read articles, watched videos, became a fanboy of Tom "The Dough Doctor" Lehmann (R.I.P.), and started tweaking variables. Little by little I started to hone things in. I actually kept a pizza diary that served like a chemistry notebook of sorts where I'd track things like the amount of salt I used and the output dough temperature along with how it came out and ideas of what to tweak the next week. I invested in a pizza stone, peel and a reverse spiral dough hook (a must have).

Every Friday I'd make a pizza and learn a little. Slowly I started to understand the things that seemed nebulous months before (e.g. how to judge when the dough has achieved full gluten development). My dough stretching technique got better. I experimented with different cheeses and topping strategies. I discovered that where the pizza was placed it the oven could have a major impact out the outcome depending on the pan/stone.

It was sometime towards the end of 2020 that I made my first pizza that I wouldn't have been disappointed with if I had paid for it. By mid-2021 I was making pizza that I thought was on par with the best pizza places around.

For Christmas 2020, I got a Detroit Style Pizza Pan. I found Detroit Style is a bit more forgiving, and an easier assembly than the rounds. I also benefited from eating it my entire life so I knew what it should taste like, along with the 9 months of dough making that I had under my belt already. In no time I was cranking out excellent Detroit style pizzas. I'll admit that it's not on the same level as Buddy's or Jet's but it is very good.

I think I've made well over 100 pizza's in the past 27 months, and often when eating them people ask me for the recipe. So here it is, but remember, I'm a total amateur who has no real understanding of baking sciences. For real advice ask someone who knows what they're doing, or at least has worked in a pizza place before.

Brian's Traditional Round

Dough Ingredients
Flour - 400g (I've actually not found much difference between high gluten/pizza/all purpose flour)
Yeast - 4g (1% of flour amount)
Water - 252g (63% of flour amount). Use room temperature or slightly colder water. You don't need warm or hot water to activate the yeast. It's an overnight ferment, they yeast will do their job if you trust them.
Salt - 4g (1% of flour amount)
Vegetable Oil - 8g (2% of flour amount)

Process
The night before making pizza make the dough.
1) Add all ingredients except the oil into the mixer bowl (I use a stand mixer). I recommend starting with the water for better mixing.
2) Turn on the stand mixer using a spiral dough hook and let it run on the lowest setting until all the flour is hydrated and the dough has picked up nearly everything off the bottom/side of the mixer bowl into a big blob.
3) Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for 10-30 minutes depending on how busy you are. When you come back, you should pinch the dough and already see it starting to get doughy and stretchy as those gluten bonds start forming and aligning.
4) Add the oil. I make a little hole like you do in mashed potatoes before adding the gravy. That way it just doesn't coat the bowl making the dough a slide around the bowl.
5) Continue mixing on the lowest speed for about 10 minutes. Once you make a few you'll notice when the dough gets nice and smooth and you've achieved full gluten development. You should be able to stretch it thin enough to see light coming through without it tearing.
6) Pat into a smooth doughball and put it in a covered container. Put it in the fridge until it's pizza time the next day. I don't coat my dough in any oil during the overnight ferment, I did this for awhile and then stopped and didn't notice any difference.
7) Take the dough out a few hours before making the pizza to let it relax and get up to room temperature.
8) Watch a YouTube video on how to open a dough ball into a pizza and then do what they do. 
9) Assemble the pizza with sauce, cheese and toppings. Put the toppings that need to cook the most (mushrooms, green peppers and onions) on top. I used to use a peel and pizza stone but had too many issues transferring between the two, I went back to using a steel pan with holes in the bottom which seems to work pretty well.
10) Bake in a 500 degree oven for 8 minutes or until cheese has brown spots and the crust is golden brown. If the bottom of the crust is too brown, try putting a baking sheet on the rack below, or moving the pizza to the top of the oven. If it's too soft and white, move it to the bottom directly above the heat source. Convection ovens seem to work well too.

Sauce
My wife makes the sauce using a recipe she found online. I don't know that it is or how she does it. So I guess that's the secret ingredient and why your pizza will never be as good as mine. Try adding a bit of black pepper for some extra zest. Seriously.

Cheese
This is open to preference, but I've found the best cheese to be a mix of about 75% mozzarella, and 25% Munster. The Munster really adds a nice nuanced flavor, especially on a white pizza where the cheese takes center stage.

Toppings
Do your thing.

Brian's Detroit Style Pizza
Essentially the same as the round with one major difference - for the amount of water use 68% of the flour weight instead of 63%, I'll also sometimes add a bit extra yeast. It should really rise and double in size. Put the dough in the Detroit style pizza pan (A Detroit style pan from Lloyd's is a must) at least an hour before baking and stretch it to the edges/corners every 10 minutes or so. Remember; dough, then cheese to the edges (for that nice crispy crust), then toppings, then sauce. Bake 24 minutes at 425.

Brian's Breadsticks
Use the traditional round dough recipe, but I usually half it to around 200g of flour. Take the doughball and press it out to a 5x7 rectangle. Use a dough scraper/cutter to cut into 10-12 pieces. Gently roll them and put them on a pan. Cook on an upper rack at 425 for 5 minutes or until golden brown. Once cooked, melt some butter in a small dish and add a shake or two of garlic salt to the butter. Brush on the butter mixture and then liberally apply grated parmesan cheese. For a real kick to the mouth add some powdered ranch dressing seasoning.

Pizza Gallery
Here's some pictures of my pizza making progression from March 2020 until now. They are in reverse order, so they get generally worse as you scroll down.

Coronavirus Part 9

Today marks 2 years since the beginning of the pandemic in earnest - at least for me. I still remember the night of March 11th, 2020 when it felt like the world came to a halt and every institution was shutting down for three weeks in an effort to contain the virus. What a wild ride it's been.

In Coronavirus Part 8, I anticipated that my next entry would be a victory message. At this point cases counts are way down - back to pre-delta levels - and there doesn't appear to be any new variants on the horizon. The CDC even announced that unless there is a high rate of local transmission, we no longer need to wear masks - even indoors, even if unvaccinated. So in that regard it seems like COVID is over, at least when it comes to our day-to-day lives. 

But on the other hand, nearly 1,500 people are still dying in the US every day of COVID. But I believe most of those death are the unvaccinated which only goes to increase our vaccination rate. 

The case count in our county is so low that we took the whole family out for pizza on my birthday and it felt like COVID was over. I don't think it's going away completely, but at this point I predict it will linger in small pockets and localized outbreaks, but we won't see another major wave like delta or omicron.

I've made a fair number of predictions and open questions so far in this series. Let's check in and see how I've done so far:

Coronavirus Part 1 - March 2020
Question: Will this be a minor scare ala Y2K, or something future generations learn about in school.
Result: I think this one is making the text book. This is probably the biggest global event since WWII. But in truth I answered that this would be a major event in Coronavirus part 2 less than a month later.

Coronavirus Part 2 - April 2020
Question: Would this be a 6 month event or a 2 year event.
Result: Almost exactly a 2 year event.

Coronavirus Part 3 - June 2020
Prediction: This isn't going away anytime soon and the worst is ahead of us.
Result: Uh yeah, that was spot on. For context this is when things started to reopen and people were protesting the restrictions, so this might have been a somewhat contrarian opinion at the time.

Coronavirus Part 4 - August 2020
No predictions. Smart move on my part.

Coronavirus Part 5 - October 2020
Prediction: A fall spike is coming. It'll be 6 months until vaccines are widely available.
Results: Both were true. The late fall of 2020 was a bad time and while the first vaccine became available at the very end of December, they really weren't widely available until March/April. So that was spot on. But both those predictions we're gimmies and basically what everyone believed.

Coronavirus Part 6 - March 2021
Prediction: "It's hard to say when we'll finally be able to declare victory over COVID. That's probably a ways away until kids can be vaccinated, but even then I'm sure there will be pockets of cases in the news for a long time to come."
Results: A year ago I thought there will be pockets of cases, so I whiffed on the idea of the variant surges, but that might be true now. I just made that prediction too soon. 

Question: "It'll be interesting to see what the long term impact of this will be on American society. Part of me thinks things will spring back to normal and people will carry on as they always have, but I also wonder if this will result in some major changes in how we value in-person events and activities like traveling to weddings or attending work conferences. Only time will tell."
Results: Inconclusive? I mean there have definitely been shifts in the workplace that are likely to be long lasting. But I get the feeling that people are still wanting to travel and see each other in-person. The jury might still be out on this one. 

Coronavirus Part 7 - August 2021
Prediction: COVID will still be a thing for at least another 6 months.
Result: Pretty spot on, as the Omnicron variant died down almost exactly 6 months later, and is pretty much no longer a thing. At least for the moment!

Coronavirus Part 8 - January 2022
Question:  "I think we'll get to the point where it's better contained and we can go back to life as normal. The question now is how many variants and how many surges will it take to get there." 
Result: Hopefully just that last one. It's only been two months, but that was written at the height of the biggest case spike of this whole pandemic. Since then the variant has pretty much been stopped. We're back to life as normal. I'm back to letting strangers sneeze directly into my mouth! Who knows what happens next - and I guess we could get new variants and new waves of cases, but it really feels like this spike was the last one.

Here's to hopefully not making it to Coronavirus Part 10!

Birthday Post #12

Another birthday has come and gone, which means another birthday post. I met up with a few fellas in Vegas the weekend before my birthday, but didn't do anything too wild for the actual big day. In fact, I spent the day building a new enclosure for my compost heap - fun stuff! But we did all go out to dinner for pizza and beer.

Let's see how we did this year:

There's not too much surprising in the data this year. I did manage 27 facebook posts, which is a very strong number, but I attribute some of this to having a birthday on a Saturday when people probably spend more time on social media.

I'm also relieved to get called fartface after not getting a fartface last year. That felt really nice.

The other surprising thing is that my facebook fried count has stayed level for the last 4 years. I'm not very active on facebook, and I feel like as I get older I hear of more and more people deleting facebook. I maybe accept 2 friend invites a year, so I keep wondering if my facebook friend numbers will go down like it did in 2018. I must have been a huge asshole that year and everyone unfriended me.

Thanks to everyone who reached out on my birthday. It really made me feel good, and provided some much needed content for the #blog.