MBE (Mini Black Egg) Project

[Jackie Tran]

Woops, forgot to say that the pizza looks very good as usual.  What is your favorite suggested "recipe" for using HG flour?  I now have a 25# bag of Kyrol and some cake yeast and I wanted a recipe for when the 10stone gets put back together.  Thanks Chau.

JD thanks for the compliment.  You can use any favorite recipe you wish with HG flour.  You only need to make a few changes. 1) You need to up the hydration ratio by about 3-4% if going from an AP flour to a HG flour. 
2) Decrease your kneading time a bit. 3) Bake it at a slightly lower temp for a bit longer.  You'll need to play around with these variables to find the happy medium.  Remember, you can make a light and airy crumb using just about any flour.  You just have to manipulate a few variables to achieve the crumb structure you want.  Sounds like a wild claim right? 

If you want the recipe I used for the pies in #279 & #280, it is...

HG bromated flour 100%
Water 72%
Salt 2.5%
Cake yeast 0.1%
oil 1%

This amount of cake yeast should allow for a 10-12 hour room temp (75F) rise, but as always you will need to vary the amount of yeast used with your observations of when the dough is ready.

If you find the hydration a bit high for you, then just decrease it by 2% or so until it's manageable. 
Please post up some pics as I always find it enjoyable and educational to look at other people's work.

Chau

[Jackie Tran]

OK - got a chance to try out the new vent lid mod and got mixed results.

First these are AP flour pies.  I wanted to see if I could get that airy crumb I've been getting with the other flours.  It's the "flour vs technique" controversy.

I made up 2 (200gm) pies.  I would bake one with the vent lid opened and one with the vent lid closed for the initial part of the bake.   I normally stretch these pies to almost 12" for the 12" stone, but decided to only stretch these out to 10" to exaggerate the rim a bit.  I thought it would make the results easier to see.

Well I wasn't paying attention and let the MBE get to almost 800f.  Being that the first pie was ready to go into the oven, I didn't want it to sit on the wooden peel to long and afraid it would end up sticking so I loaded it at a higher than normal temp.
So i took the lid off, lowered the burner output and let the hearth come down to about 720.  Being impatient I went ahead and loaded the first pie at 720F.    The temp I was suppose to load at and have been doing so with all these new mods is around 600.

Well to my surprise the first one got great oven spring all the way around (with turning) using my normal baking MBE procedures.  I didn't get any flat spots and think it could have been b/c the pie was a bit smaller and was recessed further into the oven AND the hearth temp was 120F higher than normal.  Needless to say, the bottom burned but I got some good oven spring and a great texture.

Here are pics of the first pie.   So to recap. 
-regular bake without vent lid mod. 
-hearth temp 720
-baked for usual time of ~3 min.
-burned bottom
-good oven spring all the way around.

[Jackie Tran]

Alrighty, now for the 2nd pie.

I let the hearth temp come down to regular loading temps of 600.  Flipped the vent lid up and left about 40% of the opening exposed for airflow.  I want to note that when I shut the vent lid further, I did notice a change in the way the airflow sounded.  It sounded muted and weakened.  As is though, the sound was unchanged.

After 30 seconds of baking, I lifted the lid and notice really great oven spring towards the back.  There was a huge bubble there.  I noted that the rest of the rim was so so at this point.  Not good.  If there was a postive effect, I would have seen it at this point.   I turned the pie 180 degrees and continued baking.   The vent lid was put down after 1.5 minutes or so and the rest of the bake was done with the lid down. 

Well, I got great spring in only one portion of the rim and one portion was actually FLAT!  Don't know what happened.  This wasn't suppose to happen.  Goes against my theory and purpose for the mod. 

2nd, bummer was that the bottom burned as well.  To the same degree as the first pie despite loading at 600F and not 720F.  Weird...   2 possible reasons for this.  1) The dough was a bit overfermented, which I don't really believe is the reason, but it's possible.  2) Jet Deck is correct in that when the airflow is blocked the hearth will get more heat.  I initially didn't think this was possible since i do still have the sand bowl buffer underneath, but at this point I'm willing to entertain any/all possibilities. 

Recap on pie #2
-loaded at a hearth temp of 600f.  Bottom still burned.
-Oven spring was better than pie #1 in only 1 portion of the pie.
-There was a flat portion of rim too.  Dunno how this happened since I opend the skin up to the same size and fairly consistent with my opening methods ie didn't press the rim.
-didn't timed the bake but it was around the usual bake time.

[Jackie Tran]

Results are inconclusive at this point as to the effectiveness of the recent vent lid mod.   I plan on redoing this test with the appropriate and same hearth temps for both pies and time the bakes.  If after a few bakes, the mod doesn't prove itself worthy, I'll remove it.  All thoughts, ideas, theories, and speculations would be most welcomed.

The bad news is that both pies were burnt on the bottem and I could only eat portions of them.  The good news is that the portions  I could eat were pretty good.   I got the texture I wanted which is an open and airy crumb with a slightly crispy skin. 

Here are some pictures of the dough.  This was a hand kneaded AP flour dough, 69% hydration ratio.

 

[Jackie Tran]

Here are various crumb shots coming off of both pies.

[c0mpl3x]

serious window paning there

[Jet_deck]

...Please post up some pics as I always find it enjoyable and educational to look at other people's work.

Chau

Here you go JT, this is the dough from your suggestion at reply #300 above. I made 2 batches, with and without the oil. The only difference that I noted between the two was that the dough without oil was "wetter and stickyer" than the other.  Perhaps the oil contributed to easier kneading, developing more gluten structure, thusly hiding the high hydration.  The dough was made with Kyrol (HG)that I grabbed at Restaurant Depot in San Antonio.  Adorning the pizza was Stanislaus full red pizza sauce, Polly O mozz and Jimmy Dean pork sausage (hot).  The dough was bulk fermented 10 hours at 80* in the garage, balled into 200 g portions and held cold in the fridge 24 hours.  Your suggestion of .1% of cake yeast seemed low. Mostly because i was looking at a saltine cracker sleeve full of cake yeast and I only needed (.001 x 500g = .5 grams) so I rounded it up to 2 full grams.  i estimate that the cook time was in the 4 minute range.  I had in mind that the higher protein flour would burn somewhere in the 600* range so I kept the 10stone fairly cool, around 500*, for the first 2 pizzas. After finishing the first two pizzas, I felt that they were "bready".  Not doughy or not fully cooked, not anything wrong, just not the best.  The cornicione, when tapped with my fingernail wasn't firm.  I sent these two pizzas to the neighbors, more later.  I jacked up the bottom heat to 650*, and should have turned up the top heat more as well for the third pizza.  I did jack up the heat about 1 minute before loading the fourth and last pizza.  The top was hotter than satan's bachelor party at the corderite factory.

[Jet_deck]

I sent the neighbor the first two pizzas in a mostly clean Papa Johns pizza box.  He called back, said that the family devoured them and that Papa Johns had nothing on me.  It was a great morale booster.

[Jackie Tran]

Nice work JD.  It's great that you tried it with and without the oil.   From what I've read the oil coats the gluten strands and (I believe) makes it harder for gluten to develop so I'm not surprise that dough felt stickier.    You can compensate for this by kneading a bit longer or lowering the hydration ratio a bit.   Lowering the hydration a bit would be better than more kneading though.   I believe the oil translates to a more tender crumb and slightly crispier shell, but I'm currently working on recipes without it as well.   I'll be blending caputo 00 with HG flour next with and without oil to see if  I can come up with a really good Neo-Neapolitan pie.

Good point about the yeast.  I have always told ppl to adjust yeast accordingly.  I live in a high altitude environment and yeast seems to work really well so I typically use 'low' amounts relative to other members.

Did you like the higher heat pies?  Did the dough tolerate the higher heat?  I'm not surprise the lower heat pies were breadier.   You'll find that to get your ideal or a lighter crumb, just keep changing one variable at a time and note the difference.   It will be different for each person since our ovens bake different and our ideal crumbs maybe different as well.  This is why recipes don't necessarily work the same for everyone.

Having said that, your crumb is looking more airy to me.  Thanks for posting your results.
Chau

[Jackie Tran]

I sent the neighbor the first two pizzas in a mostly clean Papa Johns pizza box.  He called back, said that the family devoured them and that Papa Johns had nothing on me.  It was a great morale booster.

That should be your new signature.   "Pappa Johns Ain't Got Nothing On Me!" 

JD overall nice work BUT to challenge yourself and improve your game, keep tinkering.   From looking at the crumb, it looks a bit overkneaded to me but if the crumb wasn't dry or leathery then no harm.  Also to get a less bready pie or rim, stretch the pies out thinner and/or just thin out the rim.   The high heat will still puff it up.  A thinner crust will give a nice crunch to the bottem as well (if not there already).  Just adjust or lower the amount of sauce and toppings accordingly as well. 

Now if the pie is too chewy, then again you can fix that by decreasing the kneading, a higher HR perhaps, and/or blending in a bit AP flour. 

Good luck,
Chau

[ponzu]

JT,

Really nice looking pies.  Which flour mix are you preferring these days.  I assume from the appearance of the caputo pie with its light brown leaparding versus large dark brown spots, that the crust had a softer bite and mouth feel.

Although I very much like the appearance of the caputo pie,  The crumb shot of the HG pie in reply 280 has a well defined rim which looks much crunchier (and thus more delicious.)

This is the paradox that I am struggling with in my own bakes.  How to get the softness and leaparding of the neapolitan formulations along with the crunchy rim of a more NY formulation.

What is your feeling on the ideal pie at this point.

One final point,  I really like the way the MBE browns the lower aspect of the cornicione just above the stone line.  As you know, this is a challenge in the broiler method.

AZ

[Pete-zza]

From what I've read the oil coats the gluten strands and (I believe) makes it harder for gluten to develop so I'm not surprise that dough felt stickier.    You can compensate for this by kneading a bit longer or lowering the hydration ratio a bit.   Lowering the hydration a bit would be better than more kneading though.   I believe the oil translates to a more tender crumb and slightly crispier shell, but I'm currently working on recipes without it as well.

Chau,

According to what member November stated in Reply 64 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.msg40113/topicseen.html#msg40113, there is a quantitative relationship between oil and flour and the amount of oil that can be used with flours with different protein levels. However, with a hydration of 72% and 1% oil, I think it would be hard to isolate the effects of such a small amount of oil. Also, based on my Papa John's clone work, I believe that you have to get to above about 4-5% oil to achieve an observable tenderness in the finished crust.

Peter

[Jackie Tran]

JT,

Really nice looking pies.  Which flour mix are you preferring these days.  I assume from the appearance of the caputo pie with its light brown leaparding versus large dark brown spots, that the crust had a softer bite and mouth feel.

Although I very much like the appearance of the caputo pie,  The crumb shot of the HG pie in reply 280 has a well defined rim which looks much crunchier (and thus more delicious.)

This is the paradox that I am struggling with in my own bakes.  How to get the softness and leaparding of the neapolitan formulations along with the crunchy rim of a more NY formulation.

What is your feeling on the ideal pie at this point.

One final point,  I really like the way the MBE browns the lower aspect of the cornicione just above the stone line.  As you know, this is a challenge in the broiler method.

AZ

You are so very observant Alexi!  I love that.    I agree with your assessment.  Maybe I'm just crazy or it's just all in my head, but I can get the crumb structure b/t caputo 00 and HG flour to be very similar in a 12hour fermentation window.  Of course the HG crumb is a bit chewier but not much.  It's all in how you manipulate the variables of hydration, kneading, fermentation, and baking temp/time.  

Now as far as the crunch, you can definitely get a slight crisp to the skin of caputo depending on the hydration, kneading, and time and temp of bake.  You can get it as crunchy or no crunch at all if you want.  When I bake my caputo pies for around 3 mins in the MBE, it has a very pleasant crispy skin to it.  

When I bake my HG pies in the MBE (and I'm happy you caught that nice defined shell since I was purposefully showing it off), it has a crunchy rim - almost too crunchy.  If I lower the heat a bit and bake it not so long so it's not so dark, the crunchiness is less.  

My ideal? Somewhere in between.  I'll start blending 75% caputo with 25% HG flour next and see what I get.  I may do a 50/50 blend.  I hope it won't take too many tweaks.  We're almost there baby!!

Yesterday I lowered the HR to my caputo pies to get a drier crumb in the home oven bake but I wasn't please with the bake.  I took the same dough out to the MBE and got great oven spring with a great crumb but guess what?  Almost no leoparding or any pattern.  Very muted even looking color.  I'll post some pics later.  Hydration ratio definitely has an effect on rate of fermentation which in turn has an effect on 'the look' of the rim.  That's provided you have sufficient heat surrounding the pie.

Chau

[Jackie Tran]

Chau,

According to what member November stated in Reply 64 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.msg40113/topicseen.html#msg40113, there is a quantitative relationship between oil and flour and the amount of oil that can be used with flours with different protein levels. However, with a hydration of 72% and 1% oil, I think it would be hard to isolate the effects of such a small amount of oil. Also, based on my Papa John's clone work, I believe that you have to get to above about 4-5% oil to achieve an observable tenderness in the finished crust.

Peter

Thank you for the links Peter.  When I use oil (even at 1%) versus not I can perceiveably feel the difference in the dough.  From what I've read about the oil coating the gluten matrix, it does make sense.  

As far as % of oil, when I used about 3% oil alongside with a minimal knead experiment, I noted an unusually tender crust.  But now that  I think about it, the minimal kneading may have played a huge part in that tenderness along with the high hydration.  

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11015.60.html Reply #45

[Jackie Tran]

Yesterday I lowered the HR to my caputo pies to get a drier crumb in the home oven bake but I wasn't please with the bake.  I took the same dough out to the MBE and got great oven spring with a great crumb but guess what?  Almost no leoparding or any pattern.  Very muted even looking color.  I'll post some pics later.  
My premature assessment?   Hydration ratio definitely has an effect on rate of fermentation which in turn has an effect on 'the look' of the rim.  That's provided you have sufficient heat surrounding  the pie.

Chau

Here is the lower hydration pie baked yesterday in the MBE along with with a few crumb shots.  HR was decreased from 66% to 62%.   Flour is caputo 00.  I'm thinking I could have gotten more color or character out of the rim if I had fermented the dough longer.
 

[Bobino414]

Peter, Chau

I too have noticed a significant difference in softness of crust when using less than 2% oil.  This is made up of 1/2 in the dough ball and 1/2 to coat the dough for cold fermentation.  The knead time for  this dough was 5 minutes in the Bosch (Kyrol, 60% hydration, IDY, 1.5% salt), straight to fridge.
I can alter the softness by reducing bake temp(usually in the 660-710 range) and baking longer but this dries out the crumb to an unpleasant state.

Bob

[Jet_deck]

... stretch the pies out thinner and/or just thin out the rim...

These both were very difficult to stretch, Ill let them sit out an additional hour tonight before I put the heat to them.

[Pete-zza]

Peter, Chau

I too have noticed a significant difference in softness of crust when using less than 2% oil.  This is made up of 1/2 in the dough ball and 1/2 to coat the dough for cold fermentation.  The knead time for  this dough was 5 minutes in the Bosch (Kyrol, 60% hydration, IDY, 1.5% salt), straight to fridge.
I can alter the softness by reducing bake temp(usually in the 660-710 range) and baking longer but this dries out the crumb to an unpleasant state.

Bob

Bob,

As I have noted before, I can tell when I omit the oil from the basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation but it is more in the flavor department. I once sent an email to Tom Lehmann in which I asked him what the oil was used for in his recipe and why in the amount of 1%. I wanted specifically to see if he would mention the tenderness in the finished crust, or a greater dough volume, or something like that. His reply (on 9/2/08) was as follows:

The addition of 1% oil to the dough improves the flavor of the dough significantly. It isn't necessary to add the oil, but it sure helps to improve the overall appeal of the finished crust.

Peter

[Bobino414]

Peter

My post was based solely on your reply #311 to Chau in which you stated you "believe that you have to get above about 4-5% oil to achieve an observable tenderness in the finished crust."
But my guess is you suspected some degree of tenderness at 1% when you queried Tom. 

Bob

[Pete-zza]

Bob,

I knew that oil could produce a tender crust but I didn't know if 1% would be enough to do it. I did not want to bias Tom's response to my question so I used my standard practice of asking the question in an open ended manner, without any mention of oil's possible effect on tenderness, particularly at 1%. In this case, I wanted to see if Tom would say anything about tenderness. For whatever reason, Tom highlighted the effect of the oil on crust flavor.

Oil quantity is also related to hydration because oil has its own "wetting" effect on dough. At 72% hydration, 1% oil would seem to me to be too little to have much effect. When I use both oil and water in my doughs, I select the values for both such that they are about equal to the rated absorption value of the flour in question. So, for example, if I want to use 7% oil with a typical bread flour, I will select a hydration of about 56%. Of course, in Jet_deck's case, he was intentionally using a very high hydration.

Peter