How to Toss Pizza Dough, and Why You Should - CHOW Tip

World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani's mad pizza-tossing skills aren't just there to impress. Throwing the dough into the air is extremely important in ensuring that you get a good crust. Looking impressive is just a side benefit.

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TRANSCRIPT
A lot of people thing that it's just cool tossing a pizza up in the air, but there's actually three important reasons why we toss pizzas. One, you get to the size you want. Two, as I'm throwing that pizza in the air I'm actually naturally building a crust, making it thicker on the ends but thinner in the middle. And three, the most important reason is, as I'm throwing that pizza up in the air I'm actually drying out the outside of the crust, making it crunchy on the outside but very light and airy in the middle. So when you throw a pizza, first you want to take off all your jewelry, wash your hands. Then you're going to grab your dough and dust that dough in flour and a slight bit of semolina. Once you get that done you're going to stretch your dough out to about a ten inch circle. For righties you'd put that dough in your right palm or a left palm out if you're a lefty. You would bring it inward and then toss the pizza up in the air. Just do that five times. The second step would be, as you toss it in the air you would catch it with two fists. It's not so important to get it high, just get it above your head. As your pizza gets wider, your hands will get wider when you catch it. That would make it so your pizzas not weak in the middle. Depending on the size that you want would be the size that you would throw your pizza into.