[PeterUbers]

I'm definitely chiming in very late (I see the last post was in January of this year ..)

Basically, a little about me: I'm a pizza LOVER!! I was born and raised and currently live in Chicago, and nothing (for me) beats (in this order, of best to second best): Gino's East, Lou Malnati's, Uno's/Due's, Giordanno's.

I've have been perfecting my pizza dough recipe for about 10 years now, and have NEVER experimented (let alone KNEW about) cold fermentation. Spinnybobo's recipe is one of several I've tried recently to get to my favorite pizza recipe --> Gino's East.

Spinny's recipe is spot on (in my honest opinion).

I added all of the ingredients spinny suggested, I used the 95:5 (corn:extra virgin olive) oil ratio, and I used the cream of tartar (McCormick). The only thing I didn't use was the food coloring (i surely would have used it if it had ANYthing AT ALL to do with taste, and since it was strictly for looks, i decided to pass on it).

Here's what I did with timing, and I think this was CRITICAL to my success:

If I was going to serve my fresh, deep dish pizza at 7pm on Friday evening, I prepared my dough on Wednesday at 5pm. I mixed all the ingredients (I only had to used about 2.5 cups of bread flour, not the whole 3 cups) starting at 5pm. I used 1 T of rapid rise yeast and 1 tsp of sugar and placed this in 110 degree water and let this sit until a nice frothy foam developed on top of the water/yeast/sugar mixture (about 5 minutes). I then mixed this into the remaining ingredients. I made sure to add flour very very very slowly (I do not have a kitchen aide, so i did this by hand initially with a wisk) until I absolutely had to continue to mix in flour with my hand.

As mentioned above, I only ended up using 2.5-2.75 cups of bread flour (makes enough for ONE nine-inch deep dish pizza) and began to knead it after all the ingredients were mixed. As Spinny mentioned, I kneaded meticulously for a total of 10 minutes, no more, no less. By the time the kneading was done, the dough was tacky/sticky, but no dough stuck to my fingers or the countertop. I then heavily oiled a bowl with extra virgin olive oil, placed the dough in there, and covered it with plastic wrap and then a kitchen towel. I then placed it in an area of the kitchen that is a bit warmer than room temp (it's close to the fridge, so the heat from the back of the fridge helps the fermentation process).

I let the dough rise from 5pm on wednesday (when i made it) to the next day (thursday) at 11 am when I then placed it in the refrigerator. I did not punch down the dough at ANY time. Sometimes, while manipulating the bowl (i.e. when moving it temporarily or when placing it into the fridge, the dough level would drop down a little -- no big deal). I never actively punched it down.

Now, on friday, the day of baking --> I pull the dough out of the fridge at 3pm and let it get up to room temperature. Around 5pm, I pull the dough out of the bowl, flour my countertop, and then evenly roll the dough into a circle that is 1/3 - 1/4 inch thick. The dough will be very fragile, so take care to flour it up while manipulating it so that it won't stick to the counter top or itself and then rip. I then VERY carefully dropped it onto and into my NINE 9" inch deep dish pan (non-stick, bottom drops out, purchased from Target) which is HEAVILY lathered in extra virgin olive oil. I pinch the dough at the top and use any excess to fill in/seal holes that occured in the dough while dropping it into the dish (if you're careful, you won't have any, but if you do, do not worry).

I then sprinkled a nice even layer of Romano cheese (aged, dried) on the entire base of the dough so that the entire bottom is evenly covered with a layer of the Romano. I then filled the dish with mozzarella (Lucerne) cheese until about 1/2 of the dish was filled with Mozzarella (it's a lot of cheese but TOTALLY worth it and necessary). I then added my other toppings. I made sure to sprinkle all my toppings with some mozzarella and Romano cheese as I added them so it pulled everything together when it baked. I finally added my custom pizza sauce (see recipe below) to the top.

Baking: Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Place in the MIDDLE rack, and bake for exactly 40 minutes, no more, no less. Let cool for 5 minutes and serve and enjoy.

Sauce recipe:

28 oz. crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp sugar -- to eliminate acidity.
1 tsp salt/garlic salt
black pepper to taste
oregano, basil, italian seasoning to taste
2 T extra virgin olive oil
1 T corn oil
Romano cheese to taste
Sausage chunks for taste
Crushed (2 or three) garlic cloves to taste
Add AP or bread flour a little at a time to thicken sauce (also reduces acidity)
Simmer for 30-40 minutes to reduce acidity and blend seasonings
Refrigerate overnight
Bring to room temp and then simmer over stove before applying to top of deep dish pizza.

This pizza sauce is good enough for TWO nine 9" inch deep dish pizzas. So only use 1/2 of it for one pizza. Too much sauce will kill the pizza, so resist the urge to add more.

I thank Spinnybobo for the AWESOME dough recipe -- it's got that famous beer taste that Gino's has, as well the exact texture/crispiness -- almost that biscuit like texture in addition to the right amount of oil taste. It's beautiful.

THANK YOU SPINNYBOBO!!!