Best thickness for shaped pizza dough for good sliding from the peel/tray into the oven

Question

I made pizza yesterday and encountered an issue.

My dough was not very sticky, it was sliding well when adding flour to the surface.

However, after I added toppings (tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, olive oil) it seems like the weight made the dough stick a little bit or at least it did not slide well. I had issues to slide it into the oven and had to end up putting the first tray where I put together the pizza into the oven, losing the heat of my pizza stone.

I assume this issue is caused by the thickness of my shaped dough, which was maybe too thin and did not have enough "body" to slide out properly from the tray (peel).

What is the ideal thickness for a Neapolitan pizza when you shape it? I mean the inner areas of the pizza, not the external crust.

Answer 1

Sliding well has nothing to do with weight or thickness, although too thin makes the dough prone to tearing. A generous spread of ground semolina under the pizza dough after shaping will keep it from sticking to your counter while you top it, and in your oven when you bake it. The grainy semolina will act as a barrier, keeping the bottom of your dough off flat surfaces, think of it as natural ball bearings. You can use corn meal as well but I don't like the taste or texture as much.

As for the ideal thickness of an authentic Neapolitan pizza I've never measured it, but let's just say you can't get the dough any thinner in the center without it tearing. I make mine thin in the middle and just a bit thicker on the outside.

Answer 2

I agree with GdD that sliding well can be accomplished with even a very thin crust loaded with toppings, as long as you have something it can slide on. Semolina does seem ideally suited to this.

Stretching very thin can, however, make the dough more likely to stick just because as you stretch, you often expose more of the interior moisture of the dough to the bottom surface, meaning it's more likely to get sticky. (This is particularly true of high hydration dough, but it's a factor even in drier doughs.) Also, when sliding off a very thin dough with lots of toppings, you risk tearing and/or bunching up the dough if you don't unload at an even pace.

To counteract the problems of sticky dough, I'd advocate shaking the peel periodically while adding toppings. If you keep the dough moving, you'll need a smaller amount of semolina/cornmeal/flour since any place where this barrier of dry stuff is thin will get moved around by the shaking. When I deal with wet doughs, I'll shake the peel at least once after every topping addition and often more frequently. (The only downside to this is that your dough will "spring back" a bit when you shake, so you'll need to stretch a bit more than you expect at first.) If you see an area of the dough that isn't moving, it also allows you to correct it early, before it "gets more stuck" and probably while you have fewer toppings and weight, making it easier to get under the dough and free it.

In any case, regarding Neapolitan style pizza, the center of the dough is often stretched so thin that it is quite translucent. As long as you have adequate semolina/cornmeal/flour to "lubricate" the peel, there's no reason to stop stretching unless you prefer a thicker crust or are afraid of tearing.

Answer 3

Your question regarding pizza thickness, as you are making Neapolitan pizza the answer is:

When stretched, the center of the dough must be no more than .4 centimeters (±10%) in thickness.

From: The Serious Eats Guide To Pizza In Naples

But this has nothing to do with sliding it into the oven or baking steel.

While you add the toppings on your pizza dough, it absorbs the flour you added on the surface. here are some tips:

• Use semolina as it won't be absorbed so easily
• Add the toppings as faster as you can
• Shake the peel when adding the toppings, check this answer for handling sticky dough