Need Dough help

[wizard]

I tried i recipe from this forum which was 3 1/2 cups high gluten flour, 9oz water ,1 tbs olive oil,
1 tsp instant yeast,3/4 tsp salt. The flour i used was o gold metal All Trumps high gluten flour?

Here is what happened first batch looked perfect the dough was like silk to the touch i thought it was perfect i let it rise for about 1 hour i doubled rolled it out and made i pizza with my stone like always
but it would now brown at the same time as any other doughs i have done and when i finnaly
took it out it was like a cracker what did i do wrong?

[Pete-zza]

Wizard,

I think it will help if you can tell us where on the site you found the recipe. It looks like a NY style dough, but knowing for sure will be a big help.

In the meantime, just from what you have said, I can see a few problem areas with your dough management.

First, it's almost impossible to make a high quality pizza when the dough has risen only an hour. This is difficult with any dough, but even more so when you are using high-gluten flour. It is possible to make a same-day dough using high-gluten flour, but it can take several hours of total rise time and a nice, warm kitchen to do so.

Second, if you used a rolling pin to roll out the dough, you will in effect have deflated whatever gasses were trapped in the dough. If you did indeed use a rolling pin, that may have contributed to the thin, cracker-like crust.

Third, I suspect the reason you didn't get decent browning is that the dough hadn't fermented enough to be able to extract sugar from the starch in the flour. It's that sugar, along with proteins in the high-gluten flour, that contribute to the browning of the crust. You might have gotten better browning if you had added sugar to the dough to begin with, but the quality of the pizza would still have been poor because high-gluten doughs require a long fermentation time to produce a good crust. High-gluten doughs can't be rushed and get a high-quality product.

Once you indicate the source of the recipe you used, I think we can diagnose your problem more fully and offer tips to get you back on track.

Peter

[dinks]

WIZARD:
  Good Morning. I read your post with much interest. I would like to mention to you the following information. The industry standard for hi-gluten flour is 5.5 oz per cup of flour. Sooo, I must assume the weight to be 19.25 oz of flour. Your hydration amounts to 9.5 oz. Divide that by 19.25 & you get approx 50% hydration. I do not know wether or not you know the following but that is a optimum bagel recipe that you have used to make a pizza.  Wizard, try 12 oz of hydration  you can add 1/2 TBLS of sugar as well. At this point I do not wish to start a cival war, however when doing only "THIN CRUST PIZZA" the only requirement is a "FERMENTATION". Proofing is not a requirement. I generally tell people to do so is your affair. Your recipe failed not because you did not proof the dough but because of the lack of hydration & also somewhat due to lack of gluten development. Good luck to you my friend, & have a nice day.
   ~DINKS.

[Pete-zza]

I have learned that when Dinks speaks, it pays to listen.

I. too, wondered about the hydration. But, when I actually weighed 3 1/2 c. high-gluten flour--using two different brands of high-gluten flour--I got weights of 15.65 oz. and 16.05 oz. Since the flour was stated by Wizard as a volume measurement, to convert from volume to weight I scooped the flours from their respective bags into measuring cups, using a tablespoon, and leveled off the flour with a flat knife edge. I also assumed that the water measurement was a weight measurement rather than a volume measurement, and on that basis the hydration percentage was about 58% in one case and around 56% in the other. Those numbers are a bit on the low side for a NY style dough, but close enough to have led me to believe that the recipe was for a NY style dough rather than a thin-crust dough. Those hydration percentages might have also been close enough for a soft, thin-crust dough but were too high for a thin-crust cracker-style dough, where the hydration percents can run in the mid-30s to the mid-40s, depending on whose recipe one uses. So, on balance, the ingredients and quantities looked closer to the NY style. I chose to await a further response from Wizard before hazarding a guess whether the hydration percent was too high or too low, since that would depend on what style of dough Wizard was trying to make.

On the chance that I was wrong in my speculation and that a thin-crust dough was intended, I believe that Dinks is right that only a fermentation is needed for a thin crust dough, not a follow-up proofing. For a soft, thin crust dough it is common to use a proofing in addition to fermentation, but not so for the cracker-style dough, which is usually rolled with a rolling pin or using a commercial sheeter after a period of fermentation. In these cases, I would defer to others on this forum who are far more knowledgeable about thin-crust doughs than I.

Peter

[wizard]

First i would like to thank you for your response. Now to the dough you are right the recipe say's new york -style pizza and i guess that is not what i want. What i would like is a recipe for a thick crust i terms that i can understand i don't know about hydration and so on. Also any info on proofing,rising how long that is what i want if you can help i think i am better with this high gluten flour as opposed to the all purpose?

[Pete-zza]

Wizard,

High-gluten flour tends to work best for thin-crust NY style pizza doughs, thin-crust cracker-style doughs and what is sometimes called an American style dough. You have ruled out the NY and thin-crust doughs, but I suspect you would prefer to use up some of your supply of high-gluten flour rather than switching to some other flour.

It might help if you indicated what qualities you are looking for in a thick-crust pizza. It it softness, chewiness, Sicilian style, deep-dish, etc.? And how thick is "thick"? Also, how are you planning to bake the pizza? On a pizza screen, pizza stone, pan? And in what size (diameter)? There are many ways to take a basic pizza dough and make a thick crust out of it. But it depends on what you are looking for in the style of crust and how you plan to bake it.

In the meantime, you may want to take a look at one of the more popular dough recipes using high-gluten flour. It is fellow member Randy's recipe for an American style dough at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,753.msg6759.html#msg6759 (see the first posting at that link). Also, you might take a look at Big Dave's Old Faithful recipe as I adapted it for a 14-inch pizza to be made in a home setting. This recipe also calls for the use of high-gluten flour and can be found at the Big Dave's Old Faithful link, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,660.msg6542.html#msg6542 (see the first posting at that link). Randy's recipe provides detailed steps on how to make his dough. I used a food processor to make a dough based on The Old Faithful recipe, but if it looks like that recipe is of interest to you, I can give you instructions as to how to make the dough using a stand mixer or food processor.

Peter