In order to make the dough in Denver I would either need to transport all the ingredients with me or find them there locally (who knows what I would be able to find), I figured it would be easier to make the dough here and just have to take my stone and peel with me. We make the trip in one 19 hour car ride, so my plan was to transport it in the same sealed containers I normally refrigerate in kept in a cold cooler.
inSaNE iRIsH,
One approach you could take is to freeze the dough balls and defrost then en route in your cooler (which would be equivalent to defrosting them in your refrigerator) and use them shortly after you reach your Denver destination. Once defrosted, which usually takes about a day in the refrigerator, the dough balls should keep for about another day in the refrigerator at your destination. Usually when you know that you want to freeze the dough balls up front, you increase the amount of yeast because freezing kills some of it. I don't know which of the PJ clone doughs you have been using, but in general I think they should hold up reasonably well to freezing because of the high amount of oil and relatively high protein content (if you are using bread flour or high-gluten flour or flour supplemented with vital wheat gluten). However, if you choose not to freeze the dough balls and, instead, to make and then transport fresh dough balls in your cooler in the car, you will have to take steps to insure that the dough balls do not overferment during the 19-hour car ride. This usually means using cold water, less yeast, and/or doing somewhat unorthodox things, like using dry (nor-rehydrated) ADY in the dough.
Denver is a pretty big place, so I would think that you should be able to find the ingredients you need to make fresh PJ clone doughs at your destination, just as you would do at home in Michigan. You would perhaps have better quality control making the dough fresh at your destination.
With respect to altitude issues and possible formulation changes and other changes, I have seen recommendations that vary quite widely, based on a fairly wide range of altitudes, from about 2500 feet above sea level on up. Denver is about 5200 feet above sea level and, as such, may be somewhat on the cusp (depending on which expert's advice you follow) as to whether your dough formulation needs adjustment and/or you need to alter bake times and temperatures. Even experts like Tom Lehmann waffle a bit on these issues, as you will note from his PMQTT posts at
http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=59128#p59128 and at
http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=38310#p38310.
Depending on what you decide to do, you may find yourself having to make adjustments to the dough formulation to compensate for travel issues and/or elevation issues, and possibly changes to the bake protocol.
Please let us know what you decide to do and with what results. That is how we all learn.
Peter
