Dough To Elastic and Pulling Back

[Logan]

On the last batch ( Varasano Specs all by Wieght) I made sure that I allowed the water to adequately hydrate the flour for at least 45 minutes then mixed for about 8 mintues . .  The dough was pretty good but there were two problems:
#1 the dough did not rise much at all   ( used Sour Dough Pol & I think 28 grms of dry)
#2  the dough was fairly elastic . . .it kept pull back and did not want to stay in shape ??     

Any ideas ??

Cheers

[Pete-zza]

Logan,

You did not provide enough information to be able to diagnose your problems. If you can give us the entire dough recipe you used and tell us the precise steps you followed to make and manage the dough up to the point where you used it, we may be able to help.

Peter

[Logan]

Hey there Peter thanks:

I used the 3 pie version from Jeff Verasano's wt measures table:

3 Pies
  Water  324.00
   Flour  510.00
   Sea Salt 12.75
   Starter 48.00
   Dry Yeast    1.50

For preparation:  Combined ingredients less 25% of flour, mixed for 2 minutes, let rest for 40 minutes, then mixed in my KA on 2 for about 8 minutes, while adding the remainder of the flour at the 5 minute mark.  Then let rest, placed dough into containers and allowed to sit for at least 24 hrs.

Hope this helps . .  thanks Peter

[RoadPizza]

What was the temperature of the dough when you used it?  Could it be that it was a little too cold?

[Pete-zza]

Logan,

Your dough formulation looks fine. Jeff's instructions call for the dough balls to be refrigerated after they have been made. Did you refrigerate the dough balls or did you let them sit at room temperature for at least 24 hours? Also, did you use IDY as called for by Jeff's recipe? If you refrigerated the dough balls, when time came to use them did you let them warm up first? And did you re-knead the dough balls before trying to shape and stretch them?

Peter

[Logan]

Very Smart Guys   . . . . .

No I did not, I removed the dough and let it sit for about 2hrs . . then did a little kneading not much. .  but the dough could have very well been to cold still . . ?

Thank you . .  So I could stick a thermometer in the dough to make sure it is 75 ish (room temp) ?

[Pete-zza]

Logan,

If I understood your reply correctly, you refrigerated the dough balls for about 24 hours and let them sit at room temperature for about 2 hours before using.

Based on that understanding, my best diagnosis is that your dough was not sufficiently fermented. Jeff says that the dough balls should be kept in the refrigerator from 1 to 6 days. One day, or even something a little longer, may not have been enough. It is also possible that your starter was not active enough. If that was the case, you would have ended up with a dough that would not risen much even under the best of circumstances. But even if the starter was active enough, and even with the addition of 0.294% IDY (by weight of flour), it would not have been unusual for the dough not to rise that much during the cold fermentation period you used. In all likelihood, the dough balls rose but you may not have been able to detect it. Often the dough balls slump and flatten into a disk-shaped mass, making it difficult to tell visually whether they really rose. If you had allowed the dough balls to rise several hours longer at room temperature, I believe you would have seen the IDY kick in and cause the dough to rise very noticeably--not double or anything like that but perhaps by 25-50%. At that point, the dough would have been soft enough to handle. If you re-kneaded the dough balls before shaping and stretching, that could well have contributed to the "buckiness" of the dough you experienced. But even if you didn't go overboard with the re-kneading, if the dough was underfermented to begin with, that condition would also have manifested itself by buckiness in the dough.

Using a thermometer is always a good idea although I don't think that would have mattered much if the dough didn't receive adequate fermentation and was on the stiff side.

Peter

[Logan]

Right again . .   the dough also did  not rise that much at all . .  guess the sour dough starter was not very active . .  Can I compensate by adding more dry yeast ?

Will watch the temperature this time . . .

Thanks again . .

[Bryan S]

No I did not, I removed the dough and let it sit for about 2hrs . . then did a little kneading not much. .  but the dough could have very well been to cold still . . ?

Thank you . .  So I could stick a thermometer in the dough to make sure it is 75 ish (room temp) ?

I do not use Jeff's recipe but I use my dough straight from the fridge and it's so easy to work with. You should never knead the dough before streching. If you do re-knead, you'll have to let it rest for awhile to let the gluten relax again. This sometimes comes into play with a pan pizza daough. If you roll it out and it starts pulling back in, you let it rest for 15 min before rolling it out again. HTH, Bryan

[scott r]

Bryan, do you cook a high temp pizza?  I know Logan is using caputo flour and a cleaning cycle (1-2 minute pizza) from his other posts on the forum.   While I have no problem using cold dough for normal 7 minute pizzas, I have found it to really cause problems with the cleaning cycle pies. 

[Bryan S]

Bryan, do you cook a high temp pizza?  I know Logan is using caputo flour and a cleaning cycle (1-2 minute pizza) from his other posts on the forum.   While I have no problem using cold dough for normal 7 minute pizzas, I have found it to really cause problems with the cleaning cycle pies. 

Scott, No caputo for me. I think that his main problem with the pull back was the keading before stretching out the dough. I could be wrong but....... I do not know of any pizza joints here that use the caputo or cook at the wicked high temps. On that note every pizza joint here pulls the dough right out of the cooler and stretches it out. When I worked at a pizza shop in my teens that's how we did it and I find it so easy to work with when it's cold. I tried the on the counter thing for X hrs and found it to be like liquid dough, so I much prefer to use it cold. That said if he did any kind of kneading at all it will make the dough harder to stretch out, NO? 

[Pete-zza]

I gave Logan the benefit of the doubt that he did not overly re-knead the dough ("a little kneading not much") and that the problem he was having was due to either underfermentation and/or an insufficiently active starter. But if Logan re-kneaded the dough without really intending to do so, or without really remembering how much re-kneading he did, then that could also have made the dough bucky.

As far as using and shaping and stretching a cold dough is concerned, there are several members who use that approach, and there are professional pizza operators who do likewise. But, for others, that approach doesn't work (usually there is too much bubbling in the finished crust). Because it is difficult to tell when the approach will work and when it will not work without analyzing dough formulations and dough preparation and management procedures, the advice usually given by folks like Tom Lehmann tends to be prophylactic and general in nature, that is, allow the dough to warm up for about an hour or two before using. But even Tom would tell you that if you are getting perfectly good results using cold dough, then by all means continue to do so. But he won't give that advice as generic advice. He would end up spending all of his time diagnosing dough problems.

Logan, you could add more IDY and get a higher rise, but in my experience using too much IDY will cause the IDY to overtake the natural starter such that you lose the benefits (mainly flavor) of the starter. In fact, you may not even be able to tell that you used any starter at all. I have found that even a small amount of commercial yeast beyond a pinch or two can have that effect. You will get better results if you can master using the starter alone. You may forego some lift in the dough but you should have better crust flavors. Even professional bakers sometimes use a small amount of commercial yeast with their starter cultures, as a belt and suspender's approach just in case the starter doesn't perform as hoped.

Peter

[BenLee]

working with a sourdough culture is hard to time.  I'm guessing that's why varasano says to add some IDY to it.  I really don't find that necessary.  I just leave the dough in the kitchen for a day and let it fully puff up to 2 to 3 times the original size.  In the fridge, the dough won't rise at all.  So, if I take it out a day before, I'll have a fully risen dough.