The Science Behind a No-Flop New York Style Pizza Slice!

🍕 No-Flop New York Style Pizza | Crisp, Foldable, Authentic! 🍕

In this video, I’ll show you how to make a true New York-style pizza with the perfect fold — no soggy slices, no flop! We’re using a hybrid dough method combining biga pre-ferment with sourdough starter, creating a crust that’s light, airy, and structurally strong.

Whether you’re a home baker or pizza enthusiast, you’ll learn the techniques and science behind achieving that crispy-yet-chewy crust that holds up — just like the best NY pizzerias.

🧪 Recipe Breakdown:

Makes one 18 inch New York Pizza

Biga (Pre-Ferment):
• 1g active dry yeast
• 150g water
• 110g bread flour
• 15g whole wheat flour
• 25g semolina flour
• 160g 00 flour

Final Dough:
• 60g water
• 30g sourdough starter
• 15g olive oil
• 8g salt

🔬 Method Overview:
1. Ferment the Biga at room temperature for 8 – 14 hours.
2. Mix the final dough, incorporating the biga, water, sourdough starter, olive oil, and salt.
3. Tightly shape into a dough ball.
• Let rest at room temperature for 1 -2 hours before baking, or
• Place directly into the fridge to cold ferment in the fridge for 24 – 48 hours for deeper flavor.

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🧠 Got questions about the process or ingredients? Drop them in the comments — I read and respond!

What’s up everyone and welcome back to another video where I’m going to be showing you a New Yorkstyle pizza in a professional oven. Within this video, you’re going to find two different trials of me testing dough recipes and seeing which one works the best. So, the first recipe I am using my original New Yorkstyle pizza recipe in a home oven using a bea. Here is the recipe. And let me just suggest that this recipe is the best for a home oven. And you’ll see later why I ended up changing this. However, look, you make the bea and you let it ferment at room temperature for at least 12 hours. As soon as that lid comes off, you’re going to be punched in the face with this alcoholic aroma. It is very intoxicating. However, bea still happens to be one of my favorite alltime pre-ferments for bread and pizza. And as you can see now, I’m going in with cold water, bread flour, going in with semolina and diastatic malt, little bit of sugar, salt, closing the lid, and watching this dough become velvety smooth in my sun mixer. Okay, I’m using diastthetic malt because lately it helps my pizza brown evenly and way better in my home oven. And I’m just testing this and seeing if it benefits my pizza in any way. All right, now the dough is velvety smooth. It’s got a nice gluten structure. I’m going to let this rise until doubled in size and we’re going to make an 18in New Yorkstyle pizza. All right. And now baking at home. Most of you know I love a mix of two different mozzarellas. This right here is a whole milk mozzarella, which I cut nice and thick to look spotty. And then I have that OG low moisture mozzarella for that typical New York style pizza look. You could see that the dough is a little bit cold. I popped it into the fridge before coming here to work before stretching it out. It’s very lovely to stretch a New York style pizza. It’s definitely different than Neapolitan. This particular dough right here weighs around 610 g. Now, for an 18-in pizza, it sounds normal. However, later you’re going to see that it comes out bigger than I expected. All right. Now for my New York style pizza sauce. The only difference is that it has garlic and oregano, which is the classic flavors of New York. I’m laying down some parmyo and pecorino romano mix. Going on heavily with that low moisture mozzarella and then finishing it with this spotted whole milk mozzarella. Hoping to get those nice milky splots on the pizza. Now, here at work, we have a wood stone pizza oven. Now, this oven right here is pretty good. Goes up to 600° F on average. And right now, it’s only 6 minutes in, and this pizza’s risen and starting to look quite golden. I popped it on to the oven’s floor to get it nice and charred. As you can see in the back, I have the 18in pizza screen. This oven is meant for Neapolitan pizzas. And I’m testing the limits to see if I can cook a New York style pizza. And right here, in about 8 minutes, I cooked this 18-in pie, and it didn’t come out very lovely. As you could see, that cheese on top dried out way too much. I have an idea later of how I could fix this mistake, but I always finish my pie off with nice extra virgin olive oil, a shave of parmyo, and basil. As you can see, there’s flop. The crust is a little bit softer than I like. The browning is very lovely. However, this pizza is a little bit soft for my liking. All right, everyone. Allow me to explain. With this first recipe, it’s meant to be baked in a home oven. The sugar and diastthetic malt helped the crust brown nice and evenly with a low temperature home oven. But in this professional one, it just browned too quickly and actually got soft in the end. And as you could see, that cheese dried out way too much. We’re going to change something with this new recipe. I’m going to go back with that Miami sliced pizza dough, which I will eliminate the sugar. Don’t even put diatic malt and allow the bea and its natural fermentation to create that nice sturdy crust with no flop. Wait until you see. Now this here is 100% bea recipe. I have bread flour, double zero flour, semolina flour because that gives a nice sturdy crust. And then whole wheat for more flavor because that first dough I made was a little bit bland. So, as you can see, I’m putting in the yeast into the water and then all of this into the mixer. This is a low hydration bea around 47%. It’s meant to be like this to maximize the flavor with an overnight fermentation of around 14 hours. And in this recipe, I do include sourdough, which happens to give amazing flavor to your pizza dough. I highly recommend it. If not in this recipe, just add 0.5 grams of instant or active dry yeast. Now, this bea is smelling sweet, lovely, and fermented. I’m going to cut it into small pieces, pop it into the mixer, and let’s start mixing this beautiful dough. On top of this VGA, I’m going in with the sourdough, sea salt, and half of this cold ice water because you want the dough to come together before it turns into a sloppy mess. So add the water in small dosages. And as you can see, olive oil or any oil or fat is the main factor of getting a crispy, flaky cracker crust for New York style pizza. Now, this dough here happens to be only slightly higher in hydration. So, be careful. Use wet hands or a little dusting of flour to help round out the dough. And as you can see, I lowered the total weight to 570 g, which I think will be perfect. And I don’t allow this for any bulk fermentation. I found when stretching that first New York style pizza, I came across thin spots. So, I tightly balled up the dough immediately after it came out of the mixer, and I’m letting this double in size. All right, for my mozzarella combination here, I have the Bel Joyoso pearls, which will go on top of the sauce. And this thinly sliced whole milk mozzarella block. These slices are going to go under the sauce. Wait until you see. Now, this dough is looking way better than the first one. It’s a little bit softer. However, I know that this is going to be a success. It has both sourdough and dried yeast. So, the fermentation is quite significant. I’m leaving a little crust, not as big as the first one. And with the slightly higher hydration, this allows me to be more flexible with this dough, stretching it out easier. It just feels better. Now I’m going on the bottom of this pizza with that thinly sliced whole milk mozzarella from Bor’s Head. On top I’m going on with the tomato sauce. This technique happens to be quite common within my city of Philadelphia. They have a lot of classic pies like this. Now I’m going on with Parmyo cheese and the Bel Joyoo pearls. I feel that this will work because the cheese is protected and the top mozzarella will burn at a slower rate than that low moisture mozzarella from the first trial. Now the crust happens to be browning at the perfect rate. This was a success eliminating the sugar and diastatic malt. I’m taking the pizza off of the screen to put it right onto the stone to get a nice rustic crust. It’s 8 minutes in and it’s already baking at a better rate than the first one. Now, this is resembling a legit New Yorkstyle pizza. It baked a little over 1 minute more than the first pie, which is good because it yielded this crusty no flop pizza dough. I’m a big fan of this look and aesthetic of the pie where the cheese from under is hidden, but the top mozzarella is browned and spotted. Cutting this pie in six instead of eight like the last time. And there you have it. No flop New York style pizza. Dave Portoi, how you doing? So, any of you trying to get into New York pizza, this recipe is a great start. I highly recommend it. However, I feel like the dough is the first part in this journey. The next part happens to be the cheese and sauce ratio and combination. I think I need to get my hands on some grande mozzarella. These results are exactly what I wanted. A nice juicy crusty New York style pizza that’s well fermented, really flavorful. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. You need to try this recipe out in a professional oven. Works even better. And don’t forget, pizza making is trial and error. Every error happens to be edible. So, yes, we’re in a good business here. We get to eat our creation. But if you have any questions of what ingredients you need to use or what doesn’t work for you, just put them in the comments below. I’m here to answer. I saw it. There you have it. This probably is part one for New York style pizza. Julian signing out. I’ll see you in the next video.