Ok, I’m going to take on a Me & Ed’s Clone

[Chicago Bob]

Well welcome aboard Gary!
Thanks so much for stopping by here on your first post....very interesting info you hare providing. Thank you.
Bob

[Lydia]

Gary

Great info. Thank you soo very much. 

Do you recall whether the yeast was powdered granules or brick form? And do you recall anything about the temperature of the water?

[Old Straw Hat Guy]

I don't remember much, must have made it hundreds of times though.  The yeast was dry, I remember the smell of throwing the yeast in warm water. 

[Lydia]

A few thoughts and updates:

In general, I'm not getting the crust color that I was when I first started “playing” with the new pizza yeast. The Harvest King flour was freshly milled when I received it in December and am starting to wonder if maybe I’m experiencing the loss due to age/storage issues or if maybe I damaged something in the pizza yeast by storing it in the refrigerator. I’m leaning more towards the loss of freshness in flour.

Any thoughts???
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Me & Ed’s

I spoke with the Manager again and he confirmed that the skins are not stored overnight for use the next day.

After each round of pizzas the cornmeal is swept from the oven decks and onto the floor. It is then immediately swept into the flip-down dust pan that is build-in between the oven legs.

I’m finding that over-all the pizzas made earlier in the day are better that those in the evening, but flavor isn’t quite as pronounced.

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I added a tsp of granulated cane sugar, changed up the fermentation and upped the oven temp. 500F plus.

Mixed dough “all-at-once”, finished dough temp 90F, and gave it a long (13 hour) room temp. (95 F) bulk ferment. Overnight refrig. and a 4 hour warm up before rolling.

Correct Fermented Flavor picked up nicely but still needs to be more pronounced. Bottom crust color is more even, but still weak. Crispness is where it was when I first started. Not layering dough to reduce the variables.

[Chicago Bob]

Flour vs yeast freshness...that new type of yeast packet is an IDY yeast, correct?
I keep my IDY in the freezer(1 lb. bag) and it can go a year and still be golden.....3 month old freshly milled flour should not give you any problems either though I wouldn't think Lydia. But I'm sure you know better than I on this matter.
Thanks for continuing on this...sounds like you are having good experimental results.

Bob

[Lydia]

Flour vs yeast freshness...that new type of yeast packet is an IDY yeast, correct?
I keep my IDY in the freezer(1 lb. bag) and it can go a year and still be golden.....3 month old freshly milled flour should not give you any problems either though I wouldn't think
Bob

I've assumed it's IDY or a RapidRise, based on recommend usage, but don't know for sure.

Well here's the deal....when I first opened the Harvest King flour, it was behaving a bit better than the GM B4B flour. Mainly better flavor and browning. So I was going to keep an eye on it to see if the Harvest King label was going to turn out to be different than the GM label, but now it's behaving just like I'd expect from the GM label.

I've lost the "magic" that came "so effortlessly" with my first doughs.  

I’m hoping that I’m wrong on the flour, but I don’t think so. When Harvest King first came on the retail market, with limited distribution, I had much better results. Then after a couple of label changes and full distribution I was having more inconsistencies. I suspected that the flour had been changed, as is usually the case, but after this little incident…. Well, I think it’s simply a freshness issue.

This is one of those things where it would be great to know for sure, but bad news for me if I’m right. GM flour has a high turn-over in my area, but the flour usually sets in a warehouse/distribution center for who knows how long before it hits the store shelves.

So, I’m still hoping that someone might be able to tell me that 3 months truly couldn't have made that much of a difference. And I'm not buying another 50 lbs of Harvest king right now to find out.  

Thanks for continuing on this...sounds like you are having good experimental results.

Bob

Yah, just because I'm not posting doesn't mean that I'm not working on it.   The good thing here is that I have a manager that is willing to talk "pizza" with me and I'm working on something "current" that I can sample and compare on a regular basis.

I did have a bit of a distraction. I found that the La Pina Harina flour I prefer to use for flour tortillas was discontinued in November, and had to source new flour. Thankfully, I found something even better. It's a professional tortilla flour that is just now entering the retail market with "very limited distribution". It a rare "California wheat" grown and milled here especially for flour tortillas.