I'll give you a tip that can save you months of bad pizza. The hardest things for home pizza makers is identifying and buying the right tomatoes and cheese. Most grocery tomato products and cheese are no good for pizza, and that goes double for the ones that have "pizza" on the label. The ingredients are much more critical than you would think. You can write a perfect recipe, change one ingredient, and end up with something that makes Papa John's look good.
Two companies named Stanislaus and Escalon make great tomato products. You can find their products at restaurant supply stores. A lot of people love Grande cheese, but you may have to work to find a source. Lately, I have gotten great results by combining Publix sliced provolone and Publix sliced muenster. Boar's Head mozzarella is good, too, if cheese is worth $10 per pound to you. I used to combine Gordon Food Service provolone with Costco bagged mozzarella, and I got great pizza. Costco mozzarella bakes well even though the label says it's part skim.
There are all sorts of other cheese out there, but everyone needs an easy place to start.
You may want to get a pizza steel. Stones used to be the standard, but now a lot of people prefer steel. I made myself a steel from 1/4" plate. Some people go thicker. It's excellent for thin pizza, but I don't use it for Sicilian because stuff tends to slide off onto the hot steel, and I set the smoke alarm off once.
If you're using a home oven, you should probably not try to make fancy-shmancy, high temperature, Neapolitan pizza. Just go for something like New York or Detroit style. You can make perfect New York pizza at 500°. If you go around to pizzerias that make that style and look at their ovens, you'll see they're right down here with us mortals. Don't listen to anyone who says you need a special oven to make a New York pie.
Also, don't listen to people who say the dough has to ferment for days at low temperatures. Not all styles require that. I make the best Sicilian pizza I've ever had, anywhere, in about two hours, starting with flour and water. I did it the hard way, and there was zero improvement. You can beat the restaurants.
Oh, one more thing. Don't spend a fortune on fancy steel pans for Sicilian. They rust, and they're no better than aluminum, regardless of what anyone says. They make money for people who sell them. That's the only benefit. Get yourself some quarter-sheet pans and bake seasoning (fat) onto them. Pizzas will brown perfectly on the bottom, and they will pop right out. You can put a stone in the oven, too, and put the finished pizza on it if you want to touch the bottom up a little more.
Hope this helps.
Two companies named Stanislaus and Escalon make great tomato products. You can find their products at restaurant supply stores. A lot of people love Grande cheese, but you may have to work to find a source. Lately, I have gotten great results by combining Publix sliced provolone and Publix sliced muenster. Boar's Head mozzarella is good, too, if cheese is worth $10 per pound to you. I used to combine Gordon Food Service provolone with Costco bagged mozzarella, and I got great pizza. Costco mozzarella bakes well even though the label says it's part skim.
There are all sorts of other cheese out there, but everyone needs an easy place to start.
You may want to get a pizza steel. Stones used to be the standard, but now a lot of people prefer steel. I made myself a steel from 1/4" plate. Some people go thicker. It's excellent for thin pizza, but I don't use it for Sicilian because stuff tends to slide off onto the hot steel, and I set the smoke alarm off once.
If you're using a home oven, you should probably not try to make fancy-shmancy, high temperature, Neapolitan pizza. Just go for something like New York or Detroit style. You can make perfect New York pizza at 500°. If you go around to pizzerias that make that style and look at their ovens, you'll see they're right down here with us mortals. Don't listen to anyone who says you need a special oven to make a New York pie.
Also, don't listen to people who say the dough has to ferment for days at low temperatures. Not all styles require that. I make the best Sicilian pizza I've ever had, anywhere, in about two hours, starting with flour and water. I did it the hard way, and there was zero improvement. You can beat the restaurants.
Oh, one more thing. Don't spend a fortune on fancy steel pans for Sicilian. They rust, and they're no better than aluminum, regardless of what anyone says. They make money for people who sell them. That's the only benefit. Get yourself some quarter-sheet pans and bake seasoning (fat) onto them. Pizzas will brown perfectly on the bottom, and they will pop right out. You can put a stone in the oven, too, and put the finished pizza on it if you want to touch the bottom up a little more.
Hope this helps.