I would let my hubby take the guests out for pizza and he would never do that to me again if he valued his life.

sweet_betsy, he got the word this morning! Dude is in BIG trouble! Trust me, this will cost him, but now I'm busy making more dough. It's really not expensive or hard to make the dough, but still a pain!

minipadv, my only sure thing is the same old pizza we make from scratch from my sourdough and grill it. Delicious, BUT not anything like Deep Dish Chicago Style. I could always do that in a snap. So if Friday arrives and all dough options have failed, I'll just do the build your own and we will grill it thing.

Right on, Suzi! I've never attempted deep dish. I've done thin crust and Sicilian/grandma, but not deep dish.

I trust ATK's recipe like the bible, and here's a link to a blog that made theirs

http://www.madeinmykitchen.com/2012/06/chicago-deep-dish-pizza.html

mimipadv, I'm going to do that recipe today, follow the instructions precisely, and hopefully I'll get the beer flavor from the long refrigerator ferment. I only have 2 nine inch pans, so there will be more dough than I need, but I read you can use the excess for bread sticks.

Yum, take pics!

Suzi, I get all your recipe experiements, but I also wouldn't worry so much about your three day ferment not showing a rise after one day. Do you have any more of the yeast you used? If so, you can reassure yourself by proofing it. Put 1/2-cup warm but NOT HOT water in a glass or glazed measuring cup or bowl. Add a pinch of the yeast and a double pinch of sugar. Stir with skewer, chopstick or handle of a fork. Put it someplace warm but not hot--think of the old on top of the pilot light trick--so on an almost cool toaster or coffeemaker heater, the cable receiver box, near but not in a sunbeam. If it starts to bubble and rise, your yeast is fine, and you should have nice strong dough by Friday. My own go to pizza dough recipe (adapted from one that was adapted from Reinhart) uses very little yeast and needs two days to get just right.

Meantime, all those batches mean a lot of pizza, but since you were wanting to change to a yeast recipe, anyway, it just speeds up the process.

BTW, did you try reading through your previous threads on the subject? I thought you said you mostly did the recipe you found on Chowhound or linked to Chowhound, but used half starter half flour. Or something like that...

Pillog, yep I read through every post on both sites. Took me a long time and I took notes that seemed important.

Reinhart says you should let your dough rise for 30 min, punch down and then refrigerate. Well, I didn't get that memo for the different recipe I used yesterday. That one used instant dry yeast and you weren't supposed to proof it.

Today, I did proof the new dough and it's now resting for it's 30 min before it goes in the fridge.

Comparing the two sizes, one makes two 10" and the other 1 9", the ball sizes are different. I may have a lot for extra pizzas. Not a problem.

Both dough recipes feel the same when doing a short knead. Now that I have all these different dough balls fermenting, I will probably do one of each and let the guests be the judge.

My own recipe (two steps from Reinhart) doesn't have the rise and punch down because it's whole wheat, which is different. I just put it in an oiled bag and pop it in the fridge and it rises. Slowly. Very slowly.

That they feel the same is a good sign. Some people make very wet or dry pizza, but there's a "normal" feel to pizza dough. :)

By all of which, I mean that I'm sure you'll have something nice to feed to your guests. And I wish you all the best for a lovely evening.

I don't understand why, if you originally used your sourdough dough and your friend from Chicago loved it, you feel the need to look for a different, more "authentic" recipe. Clearly your original recipe was"authentic" enough.

DH is someone who really has no taste buds. If I cook it, he likes it, but I know. No beer flavor in my crust. Completely sourdough! And completely wrong. It was good though, but didn't have that buttery flaky crust Malnati's does. Tomorrow night is when I serve the pizzas. Wish me luck.

Yeast dough is very forgiving...really! if you think you have not added enough years and the dough isn't rising....pat the dough out flat on the counter....sprinkle some dry yeast on top, roll up the dough, cover and let sit in a war, 72 or a little more...spot.

Yeast dough is never an exact formula....too many variables...so feel free to add more.

Linda, it's crazy, but sometimes I start to panic when I see that my dough 'isn't right". I didn't know about being able to add yeast like that.

This morning I took the dough balls out of the fridge. I took 2 back-ups and 1 Fail. Thanks to Linda, I tore open the Fail, patted it out, sprinkled more yeast, flipped it, more yeast, and softly patted it back into shape. You are supposed to handle this dough as little as possible. I will say, that fail was loaded with yummy yeast pockets when I pulled it apart.

So this morning here is the result of my two pizza dough attempts. The two back ups are for 2 10" pizzas. My pans are 9" so I'll have to cut some off and freeze for another day. The small ball is the FAIL, now rejuvenating on the kitchen counter with additional yeast.

I borrowed my neighbor's stone. That thing was filthy. I had to clean my oven anyway so I put her stone in on self clean. She'll be in shock when she gets it back. Perfectly clean. Like new.

You wanted pics, so here they are. My guests understood that the fillings were identical and that we were judging the FAIL and the Backup. The backup was the winner. The FAIL was too thin so it baked harder, but they still ate it! We had one piece left. I even had to patch it with some of the leftover dough from the backup.

And this morning we had grilled breakfast pizzas made with leftover backup dough, one Italian Sausage, some bacon, sliced tomatoes, basil and an egg.

Poor ol' Fail. Such a sad name for what looks like a delicious, if hard, pizza!

Your breakfast looks particularly good. I wish I had some of that right now. :)

I wouldn't call either one a fail. I'd be thrilled if I had a failed pizza that looked like that! Great job Suzi.