A real deep dish video

[tcarlisle]

tcarlisle and Ed (vcb),

You guys may well be right about the scale. However, at the time I was researching the Edlund scales, I saw that there were certain models, like the SR-2 (http://www.edlundco.com/pdf/PremierScales_Sheet_051409.pdf), that can handle up to five pounds of weight. I couldn't answer my own question with certainty because the Edlund model shown in the video was an older model and is not shown in the pdf document reference above (and in my earlier post).

Peter

I'm pretty sure they purposely used an undersized scale just as a prop and to add a little dramatic effect of the pizza bottoming out the scale, and the measurement is quite meaningless.

[Pete-zza]

I'm pretty sure they purposely used an undersized scale just as a prop and to add a little dramatic effect of the pizza bottoming out the scale, and the measurement is quite meaningless.

I am inclined to agree. I can roughly calculate what a fully-baked 10" sausage pizza as made in the video weighs, assuming that a mail-order sausage pizza is the same as one made by Malnati's in its stores, but pan weights can vary all over the lot. So, even if the video provided a clue as to the total weight of pan and pizza, we still wouldn't be able to accurately determine the unbaked weight of the pizza.

Peter

[DKM]

The average weight of the six pizzas I got on mail order from Lou's (out of the pan) around 2lbs.

The scale would be used for weighing out toppings, not for weighing the pizza.

[Pete-zza]

The average weight of the six pizzas I got on mail order from Lou's (out of the pan) around 2lbs.

DKM,

Was that the average weight before or after reheating? All of the Malnati's mail-order pizzas (they are all 9") other than the crustless sausage pizza are indicated in their Nutrition Facts as weighing 6 x 113 = 678 grams, or 23.92 ounces. I assume that the weights are for baked pizzas.

Peter

[DKM]

Peter, it was before. 

Also on the sauce I noticed that on all the sausage pizzas were a little more puree with some small chuncks, whereas the pepperoni had large chucks with little puree.  Has anyone else noticed that.

[FLAVORMAN]

Just thought I would pass this video on about the Brothers using their " Dough to Go pies". Dough looks very soft to me..mine is much more stiff. I use BTB receipe.  hope I wrote down the site right...and not repeating a site you have all seen....deep dish rules!!!!

www.loumalnatis.com/about/baking_reheating.aspx

[Pete-zza]

FLAVORMAN,

I believe the video you meant to bring to our attention is the one at

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMSGO9zYEs" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMSGO9zYEs</a>

. If so, that is a video that has been discussed a few times before in this thread, along with the webpage you referenced in your post. Interestingly, however, it looks like the LouToGo Dough is no longer shown as being offered for sale on the Best of Chicago website, as member tcarlysle mentioned recently at Reply 1 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10552.msg93510.html#msg93510. Thinking back, I seem to recall that there was a date associated with the original offer for the LouToGo Dough. I think it was a March date. Maybe Malnati's is rethinking that product. The LouToGo Dough video has been around since Dec. 9, 2009 and has only had 978 views. Our members are perhaps responsible for a good number of those views  .

Peter

[garyd]

FLAVORMAN,

I believe the video you meant to bring to our attention is the one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMSGO9zYEs. If so, that is a video that has been discussed a few times before in this thread, along with the webpage you referenced in your post. Interestingly, however, it looks like the LouToGo Dough is no longer shown as being offered for sale on the Best of Chicago website, as member tcarlysle mentioned recently at Reply 1 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10552.msg93510.html#msg93510. Thinking back, I seem to recall that there was a date associated with the original offer for the LouToGo Dough. I think it was a March date. Maybe Malnati's is rethinking that product. The LouToGo Dough video has been around since Dec. 9, 2009 and has only had 978 views. Our members are perhaps responsible for a good number of those views  .

Peter

There's a couple of people on here who got some Lou-To-Go-Dough. Has anyone tried it yet? BTB?

[BTB]

Yesterday I made two 9" diameter Chicago Style deep dish pizzas with sausage, one utilizing a favorite formulation of mine and one utilizing the Lou-To-Go-Dough (hereafter LTG) that I received a couple of weeks earlier, which remained frozen until yesterday morning.  Using the Deep-Dish Pizza Dough Calculator, the home made dough formulation for the first 9" deep dish pizza was as follows:
 
Flour Blend* (100%):  206.65 g  |  7.29 oz | 0.46 lbs
Water (45%):  92.99 g  |  3.28 oz | 0.21 lbs
ADY (.75%):  1.55 g | 0.05 oz | 0 lbs | 0.41 tsp | 0.14 tbsp
Salt (1%):  2.07 g | 0.07 oz | 0 lbs | 0.37 tsp | 0.12 tbsp
Olive Oil (6%):  12.4 g | 0.44 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.76 tsp | 0.92 tbsp
Corn Oil (12%):  24.8 g | 0.87 oz | 0.05 lbs | 5.51 tsp | 1.84 tbsp
Butter/Margarine (6%):  12.4 g | 0.44 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.62 tsp | 0.87 tbsp
Sugar (1.5%):  3.1 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.78 tsp | 0.26 tbsp
Total (172.25%): 355.95 g | 12.56 oz | 0.78 lbs | TF = 0.126875
   Note: For 9" pan with a depth of 2" and the dough rising 1 1/2" up the sides of the pan; nominal thickness factor = 0.125; bowl residue compensation = 1.5%.
*The Flour Blend was 80% KAAP (165.3 g/5.83 oz.) and 20% semolina (41.3 g/1.45 oz.).
 
The homemade dough was made in the early morning, rose and was punched down several times until it was pressed out into the pan shortly before baking in mid afternoon.  The LTG dough was taken out of the freezer in the early morning and allowed to thaw throughout the day on the counter until it was pressed out into a pan shortly before baking in mid afternoon also (used only 12.5 oz. of the 15.9 oz package).  Both were "dressed" the same:  about 6 to 7 ounces of sliced cheese (mostly mozzarella with a small amount of Scarmoza added), mild uncooked Italian sausage, some crushed tomatoes (San Marzano brand) that had a lot of small diced tomato pieces, spices (oregano, basil, garlic, salt), and all topped with some freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.  Both pizzas were baked on a low oven rack in my electric oven at 425 degrees F for about 38 minutes, rotating the pans a couple of times during the baking cycle.
 
There were four of us who did the taste test.  All were in the past familiar with Malnati's great pizzas.  None but me knew which crust was which.  Matter of fact, none but me knew that one of the crusts was from the LTG dough.  In the 4 pictures that follow, the LTG dough was used in the pizza on the right.

[BTB]

The pizza with the home made crust baked up nice and golden brown, and got that way quicker than the Malnati's crust.  I wonder if that was because of the sugar and/or butter in the home made recipe.  Anyway, the home made crust's flavor, texture, taste, etc. was considered "excellent" by all tasters. 
 

[BTB]

The pizza that used the LTG dough looked good after baking, but had a hard time getting to brown more.  I pulled it out from the oven last after giving it a minute or two more.  The sides or rim of the LTG pizza had a hard time staying up along the side of the pan and consequently fell down more.  But the baked pizza looked almost as good as one from their restaurant.

[BTB]

But while the baked pizza looked almost as good as one from a Malnati's restaurant, therein the similarity ended.  It didn't taste much like a Malnati's pizza.  The crust wasn't light, airy, crispy, tasty and flaky as all of us know a Malnati's crust to normally taste like.  The four of us were unanimous in agreeing that the home made crust formulation was not just a little better, but much, much better than that made with the LTG dough. 
 
I don't know why the LTG dough turned out the way it did.  I froze it immediately upon receiving it a couple of weeks earlier when it was delivered in a frozen state.  I pressed out the thawed out dough as normal in the pan and was careful not to do anything close to "overworking" the dough.  It baked up kind of flat, dull, with a little bit of tough or chewy character to it, which is not normal with a Malnati's pizza crust. 
 
I may have more to say about it after I collect my thoughts a bit.  But I just wanted to get out this report as I know some are interested in the findings regarding the new LTG dough.  For now, I would be in no hurry to repeat the use of the LTG dough in the near future.
 
                                                                                           --BTB

[loowaters]

Thanks BTB for a rather detailed breakdown and excellent side-by-side comparison of the Lou to go Dough.  I think we all know that frozen dough does not react the same as a room temp or fridge risen dough so I don't think it's much of a shock that it didn't perform as well as yours.  I'm also not surprised by the taste of yours being better as I've thought for a long time that we're doing better with our homemade pies than they're doing at the restaurants.  Perhaps we use higher quality oil(s).  Something's up with that flour blend if it's the same they use in the restaurants (Peter indicated that Jim Freeland pretty much told him it is).  That light color continues to be a head scratcher for me.

Loo

[Pete-zza]

BTB,

I, too, thank you for posting your results using the LTG dough.

Offhand, do you, or any other member for that matter, know of any pizza operator in the Chicago area that uses frozen dough for their deep-dish pizzas? It would seem to me that someone must be doing that, just as is the case with regular (flat) pizzas. It could well be that the places you frequented and liked were not users of frozen dough, at least to your knowledge.

The diminished crust coloration may be due to the fact that the only fermentation that a commercially frozen dough (flash frozen) gets is during defrosting and any subsequent tempering prior to being used. A frozen dough can take many hours to defrost, which suggests only a modest increase in fermentation during that time. The fermentation materially increases as the dough approaches room temperature, but even then it can be somewhat subdued if the room temperature is on the low side. The bottom line may be that there is a reduced level of conversion of starch to natural sugars to be available to contribute to final crust coloration, even with a small amount of sugar in the dough (which is very low in the LTG). Even added sugar (sucrose) takes many hours to be converted to simple sugars for the yeast to use as food and for crust coloration purposes (any residual sugar after the yeast has been fed). Most commercially frozen doughs usually do not last more than a couple of days in the refrigerator after defrosting because of the increased amounts of yeast used in frozen doughs and the tendency of the dough to overferment and become slack. However, I believe that there is a pretty good chance that using the dough after an extra day of refrigeration should produce better results all around, in terms of crust coloration and flavor because of the increased byproducts of fermentation. That would be my best advice to those who have LTG dough.

Peter

[BTB]

I had thawed out the LTG dough for about 6 or 7 hours that I recall and thought it was good to go, but I do remember feeling some degree of coolness in the dough with my fingers.  Maybe it needed to be thawed out much longer.  It seemed to feel similar to doughs that I've handled in the past, maybe even a little moister or oily.  I think you maybe able to see that on one of the photo's of the dough.   Here are some pictures of the dough, one of the topside and the other flipped over. 

Edit  -  the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined in the future to do something along the lines that Peter is getting at.  I would  suggest to thaw the dough in the refrigerator the day before, take it out the day of use for a large number of hours (est. 7 to 10 hrs) until the dough is thoroughly warmed up to roughly room temperature (70-ish).  I recall a few years ago using cool dough that was just shortly taken from the refrigerator and not having it perform as expected.  Am not certain, but maybe I rushed use of this dough.  But again, given what great doughs and crusts we can make on our own, I am in no rush to again try the LTG dough.

                                                                                                     --BTB

[Pete-zza]

BTB,

To my eye, the LTG dough looks pretty far along the fermentation process, maybe even too far along. If so, that could account in part for the way the LTG pizza baked up.

I went back to http://www.loumalnatis.com/About/baking_reheating.aspx to review again the instructions given by Malnati's to defrost their LTG dough. All that those instructions say is "Thaw dough thoroughly." In practice, pizza operators who use frozen dough balls typically use one of two possible defrosting methods. The first method is to let the frozen dough balls defrost in the cooler for about a day. From that point on, they plan on using the dough a day or two later. The second method is to let the dough defrost at room temperature. However, that defrost time might be only a few hours. I discussed both of the above methods in greater detail in relation to the Lamonica's frozen dough balls, which are commercially prepared dough balls, at
Reply 24 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9121.msg83041.html#msg83041. Although not discussed in that post, some people knead the dough ball after it has defrosted and then allow it to temper at room temperature for the required period of time. This technique is one that Tom Lehmann sometimes recommends, as discussed at the PMQ Think Tank at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=20525#p20525.

Overfermented defrosted dough balls is quite common in the pizza business because of the action of the high yeast levels used in frozen dough balls, and pizza operators are very attentive to the different stages of their defrosted dough balls to be sure that they use the dough balls before they overferment. If they overferment, they will often use the overfermented dough balls to make breadsticks and the like. Others just discard the overfermented dough balls, usually because they have become overly slack and wet and hard to open up into skins. This would be much less an issue with a deep-dish skin because the dough is pressed into the deep-dish pan. However, any negative effects on the finished pizza crust will still be there. It's hard to say where your LTG pizza fit into the picture.

Peter

[Randy]

Well done.  This is one of those post people will reference for some time to come.

The folks here at pizzamaking .com have far exceeded the restaurant quality in just about every case across the board from Chicago to NY style, to cracker and American I would think.

[DKM]

BTB,

To my eye, the LTG dough looks pretty far along the fermentation process, maybe even too far along. If so, that could account in part for the way the LTG pizza baked up.

Based on the description of the out and looking at the dough in the picture, I would say it was over proofed.

[Pete-zza]

In Reply 135 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10161.msg93419.html#msg93419, Loo indicated that he thought that Malnati's may be using the "a Gradito" tomatoes from San Benito. When I read that, I decided to call the Neil Jones Food Company, the company that cans the San Benito line of tomato products, to see if I could get some information out of them about the tomatoes that Malnati's uses. The customer service rep said that I would have to talk to someone in my area and referred me to a broker just outside of Dallas who brokers the San Benito products.

I ended up speaking with the fellow who runs that brokerage. He has been brokering tomatoes for over 20 years and seemed to know just about everything about canned tomatoes. I told him that I was assisting someone else who was trying to make a deep-dish pizza using tomatoes such as used by Malnati's. He was not familiar with Malnati's but I filled him in on the pertinent details. He said that it is very common for companies like Malnati's to have tomato products tailored to their specs, usually by inviting customers out to the cannery and giving them all kinds of samples and combinations to try out. As a result, a given product might differ from the standard line of tomato products. He said that if such was the case, he would most likely be prohibited from giving me any proprietary information on that product if he was able to find out what Malnati's is using. On the chance that Malnati's was using a standard San Benito product, I described the Malnati's tomatoes and offered to email him a link to the Malnati YouTube video at

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_ymnmarRU&amp;NR=1" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_ymnmarRU&amp;NR=1</a>

. That way he could see the tomatoes used to make the pizza in that video and be able to see the composition, texture, consistency and color of the tomatoes. He said that he thought he could tell me what the product was just by looking at it.

Today, I received a reply to my email. Based on the video, I was told that the tomatoes "look like" the a Gradito San Benito tomatoes and are "similar to" the Kitchen Style tomatoes (also a San Benito product). One of the differences is that the a Gradito tomatoes contain calcium chloride whereas the Kitchen Style tomatoes do not. The ingredients list I saw for the Malnati's pizzas do not list calcium chloride. I had earlier mentioned the a Gradito tomatoes during the course of our telephone discussion, and especially the use of heavy juice rather than puree. I was told that heavy juice has a Brix number of about 6-6.5. Above that, apparently you are in "light puree" territory. The a Gradito tomatoes are the fresh-pack variety, which confirms what scott r told us recently.

Before I forget, when I mentioned to the broker that Malnati's had about 30 outlets, he said that it was likely that a chain that size would have only one supplier. However, he acknowledged that there are back-up suppliers that could step in to help a chain the size of Malnati's.

Peter

[mrmojo1]

Pete! you blow me away with your knowledge! you are soo the master!  thank you for all that you do! you have helped make a ton of people better pizza makers!