Ballooning crust
I've made pizza a few times using various crust recipes, but one recurring theme is I seem to have an issue with oven spring. Last night I made a pizza in which the crust inflated like a balloon. It looked sort of like an inflated whoopee cushion. This particularly pizza recipe called for par-baking the crust for six minutes before removing from oven and adding toppings. I deflated the crust as best I could before adding the toppings. It ended up tasting great. In fact, it was the closest to a perfect NY style thin crispy-chewy crust that I've come up with yet. I used HG flour and the methods prescribed by Steve from breadcetera.com. I put my stone on a rack placed as close to the top of the oven as possible, preheated at the highest heat and then turned on the broiler for a few minutes to get the stone as hot as possible before sliding the crust in. I know the extreme heat had a lot to do with the oven spring, but what is the proper method of shaping a pizza dough that would result in a fairly even crust with no excess ballooning? Do I need to beat the heck out of the dough to get all the excess gas out first? I must admit, I've read a bunch about shaping pizza dough and never seen this issue addressed.