Pizza Raquel

[duckjob]

pftaylor, thanks for the tip. I read the thread on the mixer after I made that post. When I finish school and move out, I'll be upgrading for sure. Looks like the old c hook will have to do for now.

[Pete-zza]

J_Aiden_Pride,

James, I don't know if you have opened up the bag of flour that you bought from Doctor Earth, but it may be what we call "whole wheat flour" in the U.S. I say this because when the word "stoneground" is used for a flour in the U.S., it almost always means whole wheat flour in which all or most of the bran and wheat germ are retained and not milled out to make a whiter, softer flour that is more suitable for pizza making. Whole wheat flour also has a high protein content, usually higher than high-gluten flours. It will also require more water to hydrate it, and it does so slowly because it takes longer for the bran and wheat germ to absorb the water. It can be used for pizza dough, but it generally isn't used alone (that is, without blending with white flour) because the flavors can be a bit on the bitter side--at least for American tastes.

You asked about the price of the King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour. If one buys it directly from King Arthur, it is $2.95 (U.S.) for a 3-lb. bag, or about 3.93 Australian dollars (if my currency converter was right). Several of our members have found other sources for the flour at lower prices, either by the pound or in 50-lb. bags. In Australia, you may find that your most likely source of high-gluten flour is from a professional baker or foodservice company.

You also asked about hand kneading a dough using high-gluten flour. It is possible to hand knead a high-gluten flour dough, but you will in most cases want to limit yourself to a smaller pizza size, like a 12-inch. The amount of dough for that size can be hand kneaded with little difficulty, even though King Arthur does not specifically list hand kneading as an option for the KASL. I described how to hand knead a KASL dough for a 12-inch NY style pizza at Reply #68, page 4, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.60.html. The techniques are the same whether it is for a classical NY style or the Raquel style. My recollection is that the basic Raquel recipe can be used to make enough dough for two 15-16-inch pizzas. However, if you divide the total dough weight by 3, you will end up with an amount of dough sufficient for a roughly 13-inch pizza and that should be amenable to hand kneading. It will have the same thickness as the 15-16-inch size. If there is anything I can do to help you along, please let me know. If you are unable to locate a source of high-gluten flour suitable for pizza making, you will still be able to practice the Raquel recipe but you may have to make some small changes in hydration if you use a different flour, as previously discussed.

Peter

[OzPizza]

But hey, look what I found today:
In case you can't read, it says "Protein 14.1%"


Btw, that's 500grams for about $1.2 USD. How does that compare to KASL?
(OzPizza, I found it at a health food store in Newtown, do tell me if you manage to
find a good baker that'll supply high protein flour)

JF_Aidan_Pryde, some good news. Much internet searching yielded me an article from the herald on strong flour and it's protein levels for good breadmaking http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/25/1059084203206.html?from=storyrhs. This article was extremely handy in that it listed described places and types of flours they supplied. Out of it I have found that there are to varieties made my Weston Mills namely the Special White Flour and more probably the MaxiPro Flour that are at 14% percent or more. I spoke with a store in Marrickville which was mentioned in the article that sold the Special White Flour, unfortunately they indicated that there was no labelling (which I though odd), but bakeries buy it (how exciting..). I then spoke to Torino Distributors who have everything from Flour to Mozzarella blocks to sauces and toppings. They told me MaxiPro would be the strongest they have, no percentage given but it's something like 12.9 grams protein per whatever standard measurement is. The guy at Torino indicated that that should give it about 14% by content. In the meantime I have sent the NSW sales office of Weston Mills an email asking about the protein content of Special White and specifying I was after 14%. Hopefully they will get back to me with some definitive info shortly. If the MaxiPro is the only way to go then it may have to be a pretty big bag unfortunately.

I'm still waiting on my Equipex pizza oven to arrive, it would almost be quicker to get from the US than the time it's taking to send it 100km from Sydney...mind you they told me on Tuesday I would have it by today, so let's see what happens.

[pftaylor]

Tonight I made the first two Pizza Raquel's with a new sauce recipe. Simply put, they were to die for. I employed a four day cold rise, fresh mozzarella, my not-so-secret sauce enhanced with Splenda (hey don't laugh it worked for me), pepperoni and dry Italian spices.

Take a look at the tunnel of love on the one slice where there is a big hole seemingly bored through the rim. Now that's a light and airy rim.

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

The day I get a rim like that is the day I'm going to stop making pizza and start eating pizza.

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

More failure -- I don't even remember what charamelized crust tastes like anymore.

Sequence of events:
1. Mix 2 cups of water with salt
2. Blend first two cups of flour (12.6% protein Italian bread flour)
3. 20 minute autolyse
4. Blend in next 3 cups over a period of 20 minutes
5. Work on bench until consistent
6. 30 minute autolyse (was having dinner)
7. Hand knead until smooth and non-sticky. Lower hydration that last time.
8. Cut into 4 balls (for 12") and refrigerate in freezer bags

20 hours later:
1. Bring to room temperature (2 hours+ since it's winter here)
2. Without punching down, use dough directly. At this stage the dough is like
a disk as you can see in the photo. The side you can see is the one facing the
plastic bag so that's why it has full of small holes. It took quite some bench
flour to keep it from sticking.
3. Slap into a 10" disc
4. Lift off board and it stretches instantly to 12"+
5. Bake for 3-4 minutes at 500~.
6. Cheese about to burn, bottom lightly charred, crust totally un-caramelized.

It wasn't very tasty. And the rim certainly doens't look anything like pftalyor's wormhole.
It was fairly dense but soft. I'm so tempted go going back to adding honey.

[dankfoot]

My 2 cents,

1st picture looks like the dough is really wet?

Even when cooking at 500 I always have to cook longer than 3 or 4 min. More like 8 min.

[Pete-zza]

James,

Dankfoot is correct. You are still using too much water relative to the amount of flour. To confirm this, I went back to the Raquel recipe. It calls for 3 1/3 cups of flour (KASL) and 1 1/8 cup water. That will yield a hydration of 60%. You indicated in your recipe that you used 5 cups of flour and 2 cups of water. Extrapolating from the Raquel recipe to 5 cups of flour, you would have needed 1.69 cups of water, not 2. So, it appears that you are off by at least a quarter of cup (on the high side).

I also weighed some flours on my digital scale to get a rough idea of the hydration percent of your recipe. I don't have any Italian bread flour, but I do have some Caputo 00 Italian pizzeria flour that has a protein content of 11.5-12.5%, and can also be used to make rolls and other bread products. I weighed 5 cups of the Caputo 00 flour. I measured out the flour by volume in the following fashion. I filled a metal one-cup measuring cup until it was slightly overflowing by dipping a tablespoon into the Caputo 00 flour bag and transferring the flour into the metal cup. I then leveled off the flour at the top of the measuring cup with the flat back edge of a knife. This is the way that King Arthur recommends as the way to measure out volumes of flour. I did this 5 times and weighed the flour. The total came to 22.9 ounces. I also weighed 2 cups of water on my digital scale. That came to 16.4 ounces. On that basis, the hydration percent comes to 71.6% (16.4/22.9 = 71.6), or over 11% higher than called for in the Raquel recipe.

As a cross check, I also weighed 5 cups of KASL, which has a protein content of 14.2%. The weight came to 23.35 ounces. or just slightly more than the Caputo flour. Using the same weight of water as in the last example, 16.4 ounces, the hydration would be 70.2% (16.4/23.35 = 70.2). So, even if you had used KASL, you would have been far off with the amount of water. In your actual case, the numbers might have come closer to the 60% hydration used in the Raquel recipe if you measured your flour with a very heavy hand, as by dipping your measuring cup into the flour bag, filling it to overflowing, and shaking or tamping it to get as much flour into the measuring cup as possible. But, looking at the photos, that doesn't seem likely.

What puzzles me most about your pizza is the lack of coloration in the crust. I'd be interested in getting more information on the brand of your Italian bread flour as well as any other information on the bag itself that might provide a clue as to the type of wheat grain used, or any other characteristics of the flour. I suspect that there won't be much, but maybe having the brand name will allow us to do further research on the flour. In any event, unless your flour is a 00 flour with a low protein level, you should have gotten considerably more color in the crust. I agree also with dankfoot that 3-4 minutes bake time seems very short. I think what may have happened with your dough is that it was overly fermented because of the excess of water and that when you tried to correct it with bench flour you ended up with a lot of raw flour that didn't properly bake and interfered with the proper baking of the rest of the crust. If that was the case, that might have accounted for the poor flavor you noted. Usually this condition shows up as a bitter taste. You mentioned using honey, but I don't recall whether the recipe you used called for any oil. In either event, you should have had better browning even without honey and oil.

I think if you get your basic recipe in order and measure out the ingredients along the lines I mentioned, you should get back on track.

Peter

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

My 2 cents,

1st picture looks like the dough is really wet?

Even when cooking at 500 I always have to cook longer than 3 or 4 min. More like 8 min.

I don't have a digital thermometer so I can't be sure but whatever temp it is (500+),
salami and cheese will be burning at the 4 minute mark. At 8min, cheese would unedible.

Pete,
I used more than 5 cups overall, as I used a lot of bench flour when I was doing the
final knead before refrigeration. But it still could be hydration overdone.

I don't think it's the flour. I've used general purpose flour too and the browning is on the
same level. I think it must be dough management. I mention honey from the ages back
when I first solved my "pale crust" problem. I used about 1 tsp of honey for each cup of
water. Caramelization was great.

I will try again today, with even lower hydration. Could you post a picture of what
your dough ball looks like just before shaping? Eg. After it reaches room tempeature
and put on the board.

Thanks everyone.

[varasano]

Hey guys,

I haven't posted in a long time. Been really busy. Just want to report on one new thing. I've done 3 very successful batches using Marco's strategy of:

-No commercial yeast
-Very tiny amount of starter (2-3%)
-High hydration
-18 hour warm rise

The result has been excellent. The big thing I learned is that what creates spring is high hydration, good mixing and not letting the dough overrise.   I used to think that I needed the IDY, but now I realize that letting the yeast act too much makes the dough rise LESS in the end. If you let the dough rise too much, the structure weakens and when you spread it out it collapses and ends up having less rise, not more. I mentioned this months ago, but since then I've done pies with even less and less rise and they are getting more and more spring and ending with a lighter final product.

This strategy also has the advantage that I can make the dough almost any time - a week before or a day before. Since the dough has very little yeast, putting it in the fridge for a week has not seemed to hurt it any. Just take it out about 18 hours prior to use.


FYI I used both Caputo pizzeria and a blend of KA Bread and Caputo. Good results for both.

Jeff

[David]

No commercial yeast
-Very tiny amount of starter (2-3%)
-High hydration
-18 hour warm rise

"  I used to think that I needed the IDY, but now I realize that letting the yeast act too much makes the dough rise LESS in the end.
Since the dough has very little yeast, putting it in the fridge for a week has not seemed to hurt it any. "

I'm confused by your comment?Are you adding yeast  to your starter or not?

[pftaylor]

varasano,
Glad to hear you are back. As usual you take strong positions. The courage of your convictions is refreshing. I have found that my best NY style doughs come when I use a pinch of commercial yeast and a couple of heaping tablespoons of your famous starter.

JF_Aidan_Pryde,
I just finished a batch of Raquel dough. Below are the pictures just after mixing but before placing in the fridge. The dough is perfect. It wasn't sticky at all. In fact, no bench flour was used to form the balls. I could tell the moment it came off the hook that the dough was stellar.

[piroshok]

Interesting posts and great work just an artisan like you pftaylor
I would like to know if I could get hold of varasano starter? looked everywhere but can't seem to find it
Thank you

[pftaylor]

JF_Aidan_Pryde,
Here is what the dough balls look like after 2.5 days in the fridge. I also took pictures of the dough right up until the point where I slid the pie onto the TEC.

I don't use any bench flour at all during the mixing stages but I use all I can get at the skin-forming stages. It seems to help the dough relax somewhat. It certainly makes it easier to work with by removing any surface moisture whatsoever. The dough pictured was unrippable. Just for kicks, I was tossing it back and forth to my 8 year old daughter and her friend seconds before dressing it. I had no fear that their little fists would poke a hole in the skin.

piroshok,
The Varasano preferment is not for sale. He made it by going to his favorite pizza parlor and buying raw dough and culturing it. You can do the same thing with your favorite pizza parlor's dough. In fact anyone can. I think it is the single fastest way to develop the proper crust taste profile in a home setting. Sourdo.com is a retailer of two very highly thought of cultures which have been well recieved by our members such as Bill/SFNM.

[pftaylor]

And here are the photographs to finish off the complete series.

[scott r]

count me in on the people who love the sourdo.com starters.   The flavor is amazing, and you can totally throw away all your commercial yeast.
Jeff, Glad to see you back here again. I agree with everything you said.  Caputo mixes well with KASL as well.  I miss Johnny's.

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry I haven't provided any update. All your help is appreciated. A lot has happened in the past few weeks
and only yesterday have I managed to get back into pizza making.

I have acquired some new pizza gadgets as per suggestions by pftaylor, Peter and others.

First, I have bought a digital scale. I didn't realise it can be had for so cheap -- I bought mine for A$40. This
translates to about US$30. It weights up to 1KG with accuracy of +/- 1g. I love it!

Second, not as high-tech, but equally as thrilling to a hand mixer like myself, I bought a new wooden spoon!
It's made in France using birchwood. Lovely.

In anycase, to the main point -- using my newly acquired gear, I gave Raquel another attempt. I found mixing
much more challanging with the new spoon. So I fixed the bowel and used both hands to mix with the spoon. I used the scale to
weight the water and flour. In the end, I used 450grams of water and 720grams of general purpose flour, yeilding
a healthy 62.5% hydration.

By the time I was finished, I could tell this dough ball was truely remarkable. It *looked* like the pictures pftalor
put up. It was smooth and silky in a way that could not be matched by any of my previous dough balls. I don't know
why though, since I measured the 720grams of flour and that turned out to be precisely 5 cups, which is the same
amount I used before but ended up with an over wet dough. But in anycase, perhaps it's due to the new scale, the spoon,
or the two hand mixing method, but the new dough is phenomenal.

As I type, it is fermenting in the fridge (yes I have one!) but I'm a little giddy and I just had to post. In the back of my
mind a horror little voice still echos: "What if this dough still comes out pale and un-caramelised?". We shall find out if
I can finally put that voice to rest in a few more hours.


 

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Unsuccessful.

The crust failed to colour -- it's pale white as before.

The issue of not punching down also still bothers me. I had two dough balls. I punched down one and
left the other untouched. The one that was punched down produced much better bubbles and strength.
The untouched one just didn't have 'energy'.

My bottom crust is nicely charred but the top is just pale. Maybe it is a heat distribution issue; too little
heat on top vs. bottom. But even broil only burns the cheese but not the crust. Very strange.

I did manage to char the crust by baking the pizza without the cheese and adding cheese half way.
But this is definitely not right.

I'm going to experiment more with hydration and my oven. This is proving quite a challange!

[Pete-zza]

James,

Because of your comments on the way the dough rose, I wondered how much yeast (and type) you used, and how long you refrigerated the dough.

Also, can you describe your oven setup and how you bake your pies?

Peter

[JF_Aidan_Pryde]

Hi Folks,

I've been doing some more baking. Results are improving somewhat, but my central problem, that of
rim browning, remains largely unsolved.

I made two pizzas today using a strict 60% hydration. The flour was general purchase, with 10.8% protein.
Pizza was topped with mushrooms and salami.

I cooked this pie on the highest rack of the oven with broil on. The goal was to get better rim browning
without burning the cheese. After about three minutes, cheese began to brown but the crust was still
pale. At this stage, I transfered the pizza to the lower stone (bottom rack) and let it cook there for 2 minutes.
The final product is about a six minute bake.

There is some degree of browning but not as much as I'd like. The rim lacks a solid texture; it's still
fairly soft. But this is probably the best I've done without adding sweeteners.

After making tens of such pizzas, I feel the dough and the topping aren't cooking in the same time scale:
* The (block) mozzarella melts in 2min, forms initial brown spots at 3 and is boiling and screaming at 5.
   This is from a frozen state.
* Salami takes 5min before rim becomes crispy, but never fried to bits like Pizza Hut
* Mushroom is rather soft at 5min, but cooked. It does not have that dry, roasted texuture found in pizzerias.
* Dough bottom is lighted tanned at 5min using one stone. Using both, it has nice dark spots. Using one or
   two stones, the top rim does not brown well at 5min. I'm guessing it needs about 7-8, possibly with broil.

The biggest 'browning gap' is between the cheese and the top rim. If I use broil, cheese burns in 3-4min, dough
still needs about twice as long. I've overcome this before by adding honey, which closed the gap and allowed the
dough to brown at the 5min mark. But if I stick to a un-sweetend recipe, could it simply be that my cheese is
too sensitive? (Yes, I am cutting it before hand into big chunks and freezing it prior to use)

In anycase, I can't find fior de latte in Australia. Boccincini is everywhere though. What's the difference between the
two? I will see if fresh cheese improves the situation.