I made Lou's again lastnight. Here's the recipe. Lou's Pizza Dough 1 c warm water 2 1/2 t yeast 2 T sugar (I just added in an iced tea spoon worth, so you could avoid..but I find when using wheat flour it needs a little sugar or sweetener. I some times squirt in a bit of honey or Agave.) 1/4 c oil (I added in one small glug.) 1/2 t salt 3 1/2 c flour 1/2 c whole wheat ~I use 2 cups white and 1 c whole wheat, I've never used 4 cups of flour. Also when using wheat, it seems to help to have the dough a bit wetter..whole wheat absorbs more liquid and needs it to not be so "rough". I pour the water, yeast and sweetener into a bowl big enough to mix the whole batch. Let set for a bit to bloom the yeast. 6 or 7 minutes later I stir it well, pour in some oil and leave it again for a few minutes while I grate cheese or brown sausage. Then I add in 3 cups of flour 2 white, 1 WWheat and a big pinch of sea salt. Stir until it starts coming together with a fork..Then go in with my hand and start "working" into a ball. Form it into a ball and let sit on the counter, dust with flour if you want to avoid sticking. Let the dough rest a few minutes while again working on the sauce or toppings.. (the dough should be sticky) with some flour on the bench and some sprinkled over the ball of dough, start working the dough out into a circle or rectangle. Sprinkle the baking stone with corn meal and then move the dough over to the pan and stretch to your size. I tend to like the dough a bit thinner, so I usually make two 10-12" pizza's with one batch of dough..However the guys like fluffy deep dish pizza. So last night I used one batch of dough for each 15" pizza. Form the pizza dough to the size and shape you want, par bake at 450 until it starts to just turn golden on the top edges..Pull out, sauce, top and bake in the oven to melt the cheese and finish baking the crust. Lastnights pizza was deemed the best so far by my 16 yr old. I went back to using Lou's dough, used one batch per pizza and made my own sauce and didn't go super gloppy on the cheese.

Pizza Hut isn't really what I meant by a decent pizza place. It's basically fast food and doesn't have the kind of wonderful flavor a good pizza dough has, even if they'd sell you dough. Certainly not worth 45 min. drive. My pizza recipe is based on this one: http://www.food.com/recipe/100-whole-wheat-pizza-dough-and-pizza-tips-436030 I've made it as stated and it makes good pizza. The changes I've made for myself are to suit my wheat and my tastes. I don't know if this has enough guts (i.e., well developed gluten that isn't cut by the bran content) to stand up to direct grilling (i.e., on a grate or grate pan), though you could certainly make it on a solid pizza pan on the grill. It runs sticky, so oiling the pan is a good idea. It's best to use a high protein whole wheat flour, like King Arthur hard (soft is for cakes). You could sub in some bread flour, like in Lars's recipe or add some vital wheat gluten to up the gluten as well. My version uses home milled flour (finest setting on electric flour mill appliance). You can buy both hard white whole wheat flour and hard red whole wheat flour, but you could use all of either. Use the very freshest flour you can get if you don't mill your own or you'll need more sweetening, like the honey in the linked recipe. I do the combination for flavor. All red is too sharp and overwhelms the toppings. All white whole wheat isn't tasty enough. 100% Whole Wheat Pizza Mill flour: 204 grams hard white wheat 135 grams hard red wheat Add to mixer bowl with: 22 grams barley malt powder (diastatic or middle of the road, not sweetener only) Pinch or scant 1/8th tsp ascorbic acid (vitamin C crystals) 7 grams dry salt (any kind) (heaping tsp.) scant 2 grams active dry yeast (heaping 1/2 tsp.) 241 grams water 22 grams olive oil (I use EVOO for the flavor, and it seems to be well enough shielded by the dough not to go weird at the high heat) Mix with Danish Dough Whisk or flat wooden spoon and let rest for about five minutes. Knead in mixer with dough hook for about five minutes. Transfer dough ball to baking surface (silicone mat, lightly oiled is good), and cut into usable portions (don't use a sharp knife on silicone mats--use a bench scraper or the back of a knife). This recipe makes one really big pizza, two medium, or four individual. An individual portion is about 152 grams. Spray sandwich ziplocs with oil and put each portion in one, or the whole thing in a larger bag. Put all the bags in a gallon bag. Chill (hydrate) for at least 24 hours (i.e., put in fridge for a slow rise). Remove dough from fridge and turn out onto oiled thin aluminum pizza pan when you preheat the oven with baking stone to 475°-500° F. Shape the dough into a round, using gravity, as usual, or press to the sides with your fingers, but don't overwork--too much handling cuts the whole wheat gluten and spoils the rise. Let it rest for about half an hour. After it has relaxed a little, you can adjust the shape. Add toppings. Bake for 9 minutes, or whatever is appropriate for your oven. N.B. -- In my experience, this dough is at its best 2 days after being made. 24 hrs. is minimum and okay. Two days is spot on. Three days is fine. Four days and the yeast might be exhausted, or nearly, so you'll have more of a thin crust/flatbread, but it's still good. If you're going to keep the dough longer than that, put it in the freezer right after making it up, and defrost overnight in the refrigerator. It will only keep, unbaked, a month or two in the freezer before the yeast gives up. A better way to keep it would be to bake all of the dough on the second day, either as pizzas or untopped (for untopped, dock the dough so it won't puff up--poke all over with a big fork if you don't have a docker). Pull them from the oven before they brown completely. Maybe 7 minutes. Put them on baking parchment or waxed paper wrapped cardboard, and wrap for freezing.

Report card on last night's pizza experiment... I adopted and adapted much of the excellent advice from the generous people here, and to my taste, achieved a 90% result! First, turned on the oven to full bore before making the dough. Added around an extra cup of flour to my usual mix. (Who measures?) I think this made a big difference, as the finished pizza had a thicker base with some "chew", not crunch. Just threw the granular yeast into the flour, without proving it first. No oil. Added more water than I normally would. Got it to a consistency where it was sticky, without quite sticking to my fingers. Into a covered bowl. By now, the house was so hot that I went out and sat on the verandah, talking to the kangaroos while the dough was rising. An hour later, I just threw the beautifully risen dough onto the pan without a punch and 2nd kneading. No oil on pan. Spread onto the pan and added toppings. I only added minimal toppings, as in the past I've been guilty of overloading it, requiring longer cooking time. Grated the cheese on the fine side, rather than coarsely. Again, less time to cook. Still using top shelf of oven, put in empty 10" pan first, with 12" pizza directly on top of it. It's some insulation, no? Just 10 minutes later, time to eat, and it was wonderful! Bottom only slightly crisp, but properly cooked. Dough chewy but cooked through. I ate the entire thing in 10 minutes with a glass of nice shiraz, and toasted you all! (Paying for it today, though, as I think the 12 chillies were overkill.) So a big thank you from me to you!

If you like crackery thin pizza, that is a different recipe, but I make regular thin pizza by stretching it thinner. :) Really. As to toppings, if you don't par bake a thicker dough, and load up the center to the point where it's weighted down, it gets thin. Generally people who want thin crust aren't looking for a forest of toppings for the balance per bite, but thin doesn't prevent more toppings. what iit's baked on makes a big difference, IMHO. A clay "stone" will absorb excess moisture and give a nice solid bottom, from leathery to crusty to crunchy, depending on the recipe, heat, temp/time, etc. A pizza pan will give a more bready bottom. A steel gives a more leathery bottom, but that may also depend on recipe, etc. (I haven't played with it enough to know). I have a stoneware "stone" that's good for bread, but gives a very meh bottom to pizza. I haven't tried cast iron.