Yeasty dough

[seannn]

I bought some dough from Lucca Ravoli, a great italian shop here in San Francisco, and it was tramendous!  The bag said "flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar" for the ingredients.  One thing I noticed about the crust of the pizza is it had an incredibly "yeasty" flavor, almost like there was alcohol in there or something.  I'm trying to replicate that flavor myself but haven't yet had success.  My first inclination was that maybe they were using wild SF yeast (as in the famous SF sourdough), but the label did indeed say there was yeast in the ingredeints.

Any ideas?

[c0mpl3x]

lots of yeast and minute (<.25%) sugar perhaps?

[Pete-zza]

seannn,

Whenever you see the yeast high up in the ingredients list and above just about everything but the flour and water, that usually means one of two things: the dough started out its life frozen (and the amount of yeast was elevated to compensate for the fact that some of the yeast is impaired or killed by freezing) or else the dough is intended to make an emergency, or short-time, dough to be used fairly promptly. If you assume that the salt in the dough is about 2% of the weight of the flour in the dough, which is fairly typical and above which the crust might be too salty, then the yeast quantity would be higher than that. We don't know what kind of yeast is used in the dough (cake yeast, ADY or IDY), but yeast above 2% can impart a yeasty flavor to the finished crust. Also, because a dough with better than 2% yeast will have a tendency to rise fast, especially if the dough is at an elevated temperature, you will get a lot of fermentation activity and, as a result, a lot of ethyl alcohol. That may account for the alcohol aroma you noted.

Can you tell us what the label on the packaging material says about using the dough, in terms of time period or any other cautionary advice?

Peter

[seannn]

I doubt they're taking any shortcuts.  It's a very high quality shop and everything they have there seems to be very fresh and of the highest quality.

Unfortunately there are no instructions on the bag at all.  All it has is the ingredients.

Do you think that actually putting alcohol (beer?)  in the dough would help replicate the effect?

[Pete-zza]

Do you think that actually putting alcohol (beer?)  in the dough would help replicate the effect?

seannn,

You might ask the folks at Lucca Ravioli sometime to explain their dough to you, particularly if it is a fresh or previously frozen dough. It is also possible that they have not presented the ingredients list the way the government requires (assuming that the dough is subject to the applicable government regulations).

As for introducing alcohol into a dough, I have not done much with that approach but I have tried replacing part of the formula water with beer, with results that were not good enough to warrant the increased cost of the pizza because of the high cost of the beer I used. I have also seen dough recipes that call for red or white wine, although I have not tried using wine in pizza dough.

Peter

[seannn]

Thanks for the advice.  I just might try the white wine!

I'm having a hell of a time finding actual *recipies* for dough on this forum.  There is talk about different flours and rising times and stuff, but no recipies.  Do you have any you could share?  What recipe might you suggest to achieve the sort of dough I'm going for?

Thanks.

[Pete-zza]

seann,

What kind of dough are you looking for, in terms of style (e.g., New York, American, Chicago deep-dish, cracker, Neapolitan, etc.)?

There are hundreds of dough recipes on the forum although they are not aggregated in one place. There are a few recipes at http://www.pizzamaking.com/pizza_recipes.html, but they were assembled years ago when the forum was much smaller in terms of membership. Since then, there have been several hundred dough recipes posted by the members. There has been no attempt to update the recipe section. However, there are some collections of dough recipes at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8297.0.html and http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11860.0.html and also some stickys under some of the pizza styles (e.g., http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.0.html and http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6480.0.html).

If what you are really after is a dough that uses wine as an ingredient, you might take a look at the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8731.msg75618.html#msg75618.

Peter