The real secret to NY-Style pizza (It's not NYC water)

This is Episode 2 of my journey to recreate the ultimate New York pizza slice at home.

Watch Episode 1 Here:

Work With Me👇🏼
✉️ Start Making Restaurant-Quality Pizza in Just 3 Minutes a Week
🍕 Discover The Dough Handling Secrets To Make Perfect Pizza EVERY Time

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🍕 My Final NY-Style Pizza Recipe

🔪 EQUIPMENT USED IN THIS VIDEO

TABLE OF CONTENTS 📃
0:00 - How Did We Get Here?
0:44 - The Aspect I've Been Missing
2:41 - Taking a New Approach
4:58 - Learning from New York Pizza Shops
8:03 - Developing and Testing my New and Improved Recipes
11:11 - Building the Ultimate New York Pizza Dough Recipe

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[CharlieAndersonCooking]

Let Me Help You👇🏼
✉ Start Making Restaurant-Quality Pizza in Just 3 Minutes a Week
🍕 Discover The Dough Handling Secrets To Make Perfect Pizza EVERY Time

[littlefellwin]

Im really surprised, anytime i see this level of professionalism (camera work, audio balancing, script), charisma and content, im expecting this from a youtuber that has several 100 of thousands of views per video, please keep at it my man, you're going to make it far

[YouTookTheRedPill]

Something that makes a difference to is when your buying a slice rather than a whole pizza, the slice has been cooked, cooled, and reheated. I think that makes a huge difference in the structural integrity

[sebastieanludolf]

dude I watch a lot of cooking videos (adam ragusea included and many more) and Im just completly blown away by the dedication, experimentation and quality of this video. This is the ultimate conclusion for the search of the perfect NY-Pizza for home cooks. Thanks a lot for concluding this years long odyssey.

[anthonym]

I've been making homemade pizza for close to ten years and these videos are insanely informative. I've been trying to nail the NY style pizza for ages and sometimes I've been lucky but can never duplicate it twice. Thanks to these videos I might have a chance. Stellar work Charlie! Bring on the final video!!!

[garethowen]

There seem to be a lot of NYC pizza videos popping up recently, this was the best produced and most clear of all of them. Glad to see this video's really taking off, hope your channel grows massively as you make really great content!

[tonkaGuy]

I spent over ten years trying to perfect homemade pizza. I varied the recipe, hydration, mixing/kneading technique, dough handling, sauce, and temperature (550˚ on a 3/4" stone, preheated one hour). My $.02: I finally realized I'd get a crispier crust by leaving the olive oil out of the dough. I drizzle a little on the dressed pizza just before baking, but without question, using it in the dough makes for a softer and less crisp result. You seem to have really nailed the style. NY is the standard of great pizza, for my money.

[Gnny]

I recently had the same epiphany of cutting back on the hydration for a classic NY style and it paid off. Hands down the best at home pizza making series dedicated to the NY slice I've seen on YouTube.

[johnmiller]

Couple of things you should know. Many, not all, NY pizza is made with part skim mozzarella. You need to sprinkle Romano (parmesan) cheese on top of the sauce, before putting on the mozzarella. Some places will mix the Romano in with the Mozzarella. But the number one thing, dealing with the crust, is that you have to have the dough rise twice. It has to sit out, covered, at room temp for 12 to 24 hours. Then you round it, and let it rise again, for a few more hours.

[DollarProductions]

Best slice I ever had. When I was working in New York 10 years ago I took a trip to Joe's and had a cheese and pepperoni. Ate it on the church steps right down the street. I'll never forget that lol.

[jtrourke]

As a Jersey boy whose parents owned a Pizzaria for many years, I gotta say your Joe's recipe is pretty darn close to what I make as my Friday night dinner. I'll let the dough rise over night in the fridge to help develop flavor. In the restaurant, you'd whip up the dough the night before giving it a little time to ferment. The other problem with home cooking is the lack of a real pizza oven. The stones in a pizza oven are 2 inches thick or more. This allows it to retain the heat and cook through evenly. At home, the stone/steel will cool as the pie cooks reducing that crispiness. I'll start with a 500deg oven, 1 rack at the top with my stone on the bottom rack as low as it can go. Start the pie on a pizza pan for 5 min on the top rack then slide the pie off the pan onto the stone for another 5 to 7 min or so. You'll get the missing crunch and well-done bottom with this dual cooking method... This is the best method for home ovens and thinner stones. Good luck.

[alexvld]

As someone who got totally sucked in the pizza dough rabbit hole a few weeks ago, this kind of video is exactly what I want all day every day. Thank you. Very interesting and fun man!

[TravelGeeq]

I grew up in NYC so I know a thing or two about slices of pizza. I truly appreciated your level of enthusiasm and scientific tenacity to create the perfect slice. I'm very much looking forward to the next video.

[alexbarkell]

Go Blue! The opening of joes satellite shop convinced me to visit new york solely for pizza. Glad you were able to find some success in recreating such a delicious slice.

[danielbarrett]

Thank you for teaching about baker’s percentages. I will now be able to innovate and experiment with new combos to bake the way I like. At first I was like, “I already follow like 10 food YouTubers, no way will I follow this guy…” Once you broke down bakers %, I was hooked.

[InitialDrifterZ]

Another reason pizza shop slices have that crisp is because it’s reheated from room temperature. I’m not sure if that was accounted for in your analysis. You’re recipe looks good. Try reheating a slice on the steel after it has been sitting out for an hour. You’ll probably get what you’re looking for.

[mikechan]

Nice vid— I think NYC pizza has evolved in recent years. I grew up in the city in the 80s and the pizza seems different today than it was back then. I also hear criteria for a New York slice that doesn’t seem familiar. As a kid, I recall gagging on the cheese because there is so much of it. I had to eat slow and really chew. I don’t recall the concept of “too much” cheese. If fact there would be thick pools of melted/caramelized cheese on the pie. When the slice was folded, the cheese and sauce would slide down to the sides to the center and you would have what almost resembled a calzone. I usually didn’t fold my slices because I preferred eating them flat. But point is, you couldn’t fold the slice and have the cheese and sauce stay in place; it was much more wet and runny. Next, grease, I hear people saying “not too greasy”. The pizza we ate had grease running down your arm! There was grease all over the place by the time you were done. This was a sit-down meal. The crust was thin, but not overly thin and not exceptionally crispy and there was a fair amount of sauce. As for tip sag, I recall slices flopping. There was still some crisp but they could flop due to the thinnest of the crust. But you never wanted to let your tip flop over because if you did, all the cheese and says would slide off that area of the slice. This is very different from what I see now where every slice resembles a flatbread.

[brownehawk]

This man understands what a proper slice of pizza is. The crunch is mandatory. I worked with some weirdo idiot that would order pizza lightly cooked.

[matgggg]

As someone from NY and I’ve also been trying to make great home pizza and I’ve worked in pizza places and asked owners what they do and keys that I came up with are you can go up to 6% salt I like 6% the best and some places go as low as 30% hydration! Which I found so crazy but for home ovens this works great. I do love high hydration dough for pizza but you need a pizza oven at like 850F or higher for this to come out right. And for cheese low moisture full fat mozzarella is best in my opinion. Sauce I am still figuring out lol but I hope this can help. You already conquered one of the hardest aspects which is stretching the dough properly. Also to better replicate the pizza ovens they use I would try stacking maybe 2 pizza steels to give more mass or a pizza stone on top of a steel.

[BrainwashingDetectiv]

The Sbarro's and New York Pizza food court fakeout was exquisitely done.