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[NY pizzastriver]

Jim,

Good job, including adapting the dough formulation to accommodate a combination of room-temperature and cold fermentation of the poolish. I especially wondered about the honey in light of your comment about getting more crunch on the rim. Honey is a highly hygroscopic material--more so than sugar--so it does become difficult to get a crispy and crunchy rim because the honey keeps more moisture in the dough.

Will we have to keep coming up with new ideas for you to try out to be sure that you stick around the forum ?

Peter

Thanks for the compliment, and I'm not leaving, but it's nice you want me to stay. 

Interesting on the honey, never thought of that. Maybe the overnight poolish and autolyse helped? This had no chance to hit any breaks, like I said it really just grew slowly. The flavor and consistency were really nice though.

Yeah, new ideas, I agree. I have basically been messing with the same formulas, stretching GB's to 9 days, adding the above to this, but who knows what's next! I just hope I take home this month's prize for the "Autumn Harvest" contest, my entry is in and I could use that new Cadillac!

Wait, that might be Glengarry Glen Ross I'm thinking of...hmm. 

[torontonian]

I thought I'd post back my experience with this dough.

The rise on the dough was huge, so I did indeed punch it down about 90 minutes before baking. It rose up again almost to full size within the last 90 minutes.

I apologize for not having any pics (need a new memory card for the camera), but the visual results were similar to some of the other pics - very airy. The chewiness and crust were spot on for me.

The only problem i had, was that there was a definite yeasty taste. I'm almost positive I had the yeast measurement correct, so I wonder if it was the overnight in the fridge that developed this flavour.

Any ideas?

Thanks for the recipe Jerry.

[Pete-zza]

Josh,

I suspect that the "yeasty" flavor was a combination of the IDY, which is used in fairly large amount to begin with, and the increased fermentation byproducts that were produced because of the longer total fermentation time. Had you been able to use the preferment the same day, you would have had less in the way of fermentation byproducts. You still might have a "yeasty" flavor, which you may or may not like, but I think it would be less pronounced.

In the future, should you know in advance that you want to use cold fermentation of your dough, a logical approach would be to reduce the amount of yeast in the poolish while leaving the other variables (water temperature and fermentation temperature) the same as much as possible. Some experimentation with yeast levels may be necessary until you find the sweet spot for your purposes. That's a problem when using preferments. Their biochemistry is more complicated and it is more difficult to modify them with great precision and accuracy, especially if you change the fermentation regimen, as by going from room temperature to the refrigerator and back to room temperature. This requires good dough management.

Peter

[torontonian]

Thanks Peter. Agreed. The additional fermentation time probably did me in.

I really liked that recipe though. I will try it again either with the original spec, or one of the many successful variations.

Still learning!

-- Josh

[IEatPizzaByThePie]

This pizza looks great. A fluffy and airy crust is a normal characteristic of New York pizza, but this one looks even lighter and more airy than most. Is it because of the lack of oil?

[NY pizzastriver]

IEatPizzaByThePie, I'd say not really. In general oil softens the crust, yes, but the sugary honey would eradicate that omission I'd say. I also would say the overnight pre-ferm I did was the lightest and airiest I've seen. In general I see this pizza as a more bready type pie, great, but not ''NY light'' by any means. As we can see on Essen1s pizza project picks, the extra 100 degrees over 550 he achieves has a lot to do with getting what you speak of. I've never gotten it yet. You just can't in a home oven unless you're willing to lose insurance claims, in event of a fire, by cutting the oven latch.

That said yes it's a great pie! Still the best dough for same day usage I've had. 

[Pete-zza]

I agree with Jim. I think the greater crust volume and height is due to the high hydration, the large amount of yeast and the availability of a lot of food for the yeast to use to create carbon dioxide to lift the dough to above average height. That "food" includes sugars in the honey that, in my experience, are usable more quickly and readily than ordinary table sugar. Also, everything is done at room temperature, where there is no restraint on the fermentation of the dough as would occur if the dough were placed in the refrigerator. I think the lack of oil in the dough also helps the dough to rise better.

In relation to the classic NY style pizzas baked in deck ovens or in higher temperature ovens, I would be somewhat surprised to learn that a NYC pizza operator would be using close to 5% sugar in any form. They would perhaps have to use pizza screens in their deck ovens and watch the bottom crust color development quite carefully. These matters aside, JerryMac's recipe does do a very good job for a dough that can be made in 8 hours from start to finish.

Peter

[norma427]

NY pizzastriver,
Your pizza looks great.    It intrigues me about not using oil. I have read some about how the old pizza masters used no oil.  Your light and airy crust look amazing.
Norma

[NY pizzastriver]

Norma, thanks!  Any praise from a pro is always nice to hear. And yes, no oil is pretty common in NY style. I've done the Lehmann both ways. At 550 I actually prefer some oil though as the slower bake time at 550 gives it too much chance to dry out and the oil aids in that issue. If I had your ovens I'd probably never use a drop!

Peter, I didn't want to take over Mike's thread continuing the poolish talk there, but I mentioned here I left mine out for an hour or so, then into fridge overnight. I only did this as the site I linked said 1/2 hr then in. What are your thoughts on going longer first, say 3 hrs? Do you think I cut the process short and it would get better with more pre-aging, so to speak?

[Pete-zza]

Jim,

One of the purposes of using a preferment such as a poolish is to shorten the dough preparation time once the preferment is ready. Of course, the total time from the start of the poolish to the end of the final mix will be longer but professional bakers, who are the biggest users of preferments, routinely prepare their preferments and have them on hand at the time they are ready to make their doughs, so for them it shortens the rest of the dough preparation process.

I personally prefer to use a more or less classic poolish because its hydration is high (100%) and the prefermentation is faster as a result. I also prefer to get a fair amount of the formula flour in the poolish and have it participate in the process of forming organic acids and other byproducts of fermentation. It seems to me that if you going to carve out a small amount of the total dough formulation, which is basically the definition of a preferment, and make just a dinky amount of preferment out of it and don't give it enough time to develop all of the byproducts of prefermentation, then you give up many of the benefits of the preferment and may not get the desired degree of crust flavor, aroma and texture. Putting the preferment into the refrigerator is a common option although the classic poolish is prefermented at room temperature. Refrigeration will slow down the biochemical activity of the dough, including the yeast and the enzymes, and this result will be reflected in the final dough. Maybe it won't matter much, but you also might not see a break point. There are many ways to skin the cat and some methods will be better than others, so some experimentation will usually be needed to get the desired end results. Often, the results comport with the user's personal schedule rather than trying to optimize the process itself.

JerryMac's recipe uses a preferment that is even thinner than a poolish and he crams a lot of flour and a lot of yeast into it--far more than one would normally use for a classic poolish--but that is why his results turn out so well. He isn't trying to make a dough with a long useful life. Where people most often go wrong with preferments is to freelance or ignore the biochemistry of the preferment and try to get it to do things that were not programmed into it. Then, when the results are not as desired, they will often ask why the recipe didn't work.

Peter

[james456]

Hi !

I've just registered after reading a lot of the content on this forum; this is an exceptional forum with enormous value! 

After seeing positive results from other members having tried this recipe, I'm giving it a shot. At the moment, my poolish is almost complete. However, I may not go ahead and make the pies today and thus is it possible to freeze the dough after the second fermentation is complete without any adverse affects? 

If so, can I place the dough in some cling film and put it straight into the freezer? I don't have any containers that can fit in my freezer compartments.

[james456]

ok, after some more research I've decided against freezing the dough.

I'm a newbie to pizza making; I didn't realized how hydrated this dough would be, I can barely knead it without it sticking to my hands. It's certainly going to be challenging stretching it out. 


Will take and post some pics of the finished pie.