Reinhart New York Style Pizza Dough..........very easy!!!

[scott r]

I am having fun watching you guys play with this high oil dough.   It reminds me of when I was doing experiments with various oil amounts in a 62% hydration new york style pizza.   I made a batch every two days and upped the oil 1 percent each time.   By the time I got to 7 percent I stopped because right at that point it seemed as if the oil amount had begun to take away from the texture of what I consider good pizza crust, and was just starting to take it more in the territory of some type of dessert bread.    Basically what I found was that with each percentage point I raised the oil, the dough would get more and more tender.   I had settled on 6% being about the maximum I would ever recommend.  Right at that level I found that it could do wonders for non bromated medium to lower hydration doughs made with high gluten flour that could use a little help in the tenderness department.   I also noticed that this amount of oil only seemed necessary if I didn't have a really hot oven around.   Higher temps and wetter doughs seemed to need less help from the oil, but wether it was needed or not, it did bring some nice flavor to the crust.   Fazzari, I am awaiting your trials, especially as you move into the higher hydration versions, as I never spent much time doing both high hydration dough and high oil amounts in the same pizza.   I would imagine there is a point where having 6-7% oil can hold too much of the water in during the bake (probably in the 70's on up for hydration), leaving the pizza with a fully baked, but too wet sort of vibe.  Also, I wonder if it could possibly cause the cheese to burn a little too much because of its long bake tolerance once those hydrations and oil amounts get up really high.     

[norma427]

I am having fun watching you guys play with this high oil dough.   It reminds me of when I was doing experiments with various oil amounts in a 62% hydration new york style pizza.   I made a batch every two days and upped the oil 1 percent each time.   By the time I got to 7 percent I stopped because right at that point it seemed as if the oil amount had begun to take away from the texture of what I consider good pizza crust, and was just starting to take it more in the territory of some type of dessert bread.    Basically what I found was that with each percentage point I raised the oil, the dough would get more and more tender.   I had settled on 6% being about the maximum I would ever recommend.  Right at that level I found that it could do wonders for non bromated medium to lower hydration doughs made with high gluten flour that could use a little help in the tenderness department.   I also noticed that this amount of oil only seemed necessary if I didn't have a really hot oven around.   Higher temps and wetter doughs seemed to need less help from the oil, but wether it was needed or not, it did bring some nice flavor to the crust.   Fazzari, I am awaiting your trials, especially as you move into the higher hydration versions, as I never spent much time doing both high hydration dough and high oil amounts in the same pizza.   I would imagine there is a point where having 6-7% oil can hold too much of the water in during the bake (probably in the 70's on up for hydration), leaving the pizza with a fully baked, but too wet sort of vibe.  Also, I wonder if it could possibly cause the cheese to burn a little too much because of its long bake tolerance once those hydrations and oil amounts get up really high.     

scott r,

It was interesting to hear about the tests you did with a hydration of about 62% and different amounts of oil.  I had wondered when John posted his formula how that much oil in the dough would affect the pizza.  I am now wondering how much hydration this dough can take, with all the added oil.  I don’t know what the hydration is from John’s last formula with the added oil, but it must be up there. He obtained great results in a home oven at about 550 degrees F.  Since my home oven can’t get to high temperatures (only a little over 500 degrees F), I am interested how John’s last formula would bake in my home oven.  I might try Better for Bread flour and mix up a batch to see what happens.

I am also awaiting John’s experiments.

Thanks for telling about your experiments.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Before I started experimenting with the Papa John's clones at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.0.html, I had gotten a fair amount of experience with member Randy's American style pizza that was also based on a Papa John's theme and called for a lot of sugar/honey and oil. My objective was mainly to make thinner versions of Randy's pizzas and to use a standard home oven and a pizza screen, as Randy did. As I noted in the thread on the subject at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15310.html#msg15310, I thought that Randy's recipe was one of the best that I had used up to that time. I didn't quite know how to describe the pizza style I ended up with so I referred to my versions as a cross between a NY style (because of the crust thinness) and an American style (because of the high sugar/honey and oil levels). I eventually changed the baker's percents of my versions of Randy's American style pizza, but I always treated them as being different than say, a Lehmann NY style, which used no sugar and a small amount of oil. I isolated the two styles in my mind so I never gave thought to picking one over the other.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Before I started experimenting with the Papa John's clones at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.0.html, I had gotten a fair amount of experience with member Randy's American style pizza that was also based on a Papa John's theme and called for a lot of sugar/honey and oil. My objective was mainly to make thinner versions of Randy's pizzas and to use a standard home oven and a pizza screen, as Randy did. As I noted in the thread on the subject at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15310.html#msg15310, I thought that Randy's recipe was one of the best that I had used up to that time. I didn't quite know how to describe the pizza style I ended up with so I referred to my versions as a cross between a NY style (because of the crust thinness) and an American style (because of the high sugar/honey and oil levels). I eventually changed the baker's percents of my versions of Randy's American style pizza, but I always treated them as being different than say, a Lehmann NY style, which used no sugar and a small amount of oil. I isolated the two styles in my mind so I never gave thought to picking one over the other.

Peter

Peter,

I know I have tried Papa John’s dough in other experiments and didn’t get the results I have so far with Reinhart’s NY style pizza.  Maybe I wasn’t as experienced in making pizza back then, but the formula I used for Papa John’s wasn’t that high in hydration either.  I see you posted at Reply 11 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58438.html#msg58438 that when you experimented with the PJ dough clone hydrations above 60% the rim were much larger and the crumb was puffier or more open and airy. Then the same reply you posted http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15310.html#msg15310. but, even with higher hydrations, you are not likely to get gigantic rims. I think it is because of the limiting effects of the large amounts of oil in the dough on the retention of gasses by the gluten matrix.  Did you change your mind about that?

I never tried Randy’s American Style thin version, but I see how much sugar/honey is used in the formula, but it doesn’t have the high amount of oil used in the Reinhart NY style John is trying with the higher hydration. 

Do you think Reinhart’s NY style is really a NY style or an American style or a combination of both? 

I made a dough today following John’s directions to just dump everything into the mixer.  I have taken pictures of what the dough looked like after it came out of the mixer and after I did 2 stretch and folds.  I used Better for Bread flour and changed the oil to Bertolli extra light olive oil.  If John or you wants to post the pictures of what my dough looked like, I will.  I don’t know how long to let this dough cold ferment to see what kind of results I will get in my home oven.  Do you have any suggestions for how long I should let the dough cold ferment for the first experiment?  Since my home oven can’t even get to as high as John’s home oven, I am interested in seeing what happens, if I can get somewhat the same results I did at market.  I did use 0.10 for my thickness factor for a 14" pizza.

I also wanted to test out another idea that I saw on the new PMQ pizza magazine posted by Tom Lehman, when he talked about how water affects dough at PMQ pizza magazine http://pmq.com/digital/201104/  page 16.  Tom said, that water quality certainly does have an effect on dough quality, but not as much as many believe it has.  He goes on to say if two dough balls were made exactly alike, but used hard water for one dough and soft water in the other, you would see that the dough made with soft water was softer an a little slacker than the dough made with hard water.  He goes on to explained in the article, if anyone is interested in reading the whole article, about how the different waters do or do not affect the final pizzas. I wanted to try my regular tap water, which I know is very hard, because I have well water.  I usually use bottled water I buy for my doughs. 

Do you think at some point you might try out Reinhart’s NY style pizza?

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I know I have tried Papa John’s dough in other experiments and didn’t get the results I have so far with Reinhart’s NY style pizza.  Maybe I wasn’t as experienced in making pizza back then, but the formula I used for Papa John’s wasn’t that high in hydration either.  I see you posted at Reply 11 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58438.html#msg58438 that when you experimented with the PJ dough clone hydrations above 60% the rim were much larger and the crumb was puffier or more open and airy. Then the same reply you posted http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15310.html#msg15310. but, even with higher hydrations, you are not likely to get gigantic rims. I think it is because of the limiting effects of the large amounts of oil in the dough on the retention of gasses by the gluten matrix.  Did you change your mind about that?

About the only things I would add is that the way the pizza is baked can also have an effect on the size of the rim. I was using only a pizza screen for all of my PJ experiments since I was trying to stay true to the PJ methods. As a result, I never tried baking a PJ clone pizza on a pizza stone. However, a few other members have reported doing so. Also, I was using a thicker crust than the versions of Randy's pizza that I made.

I never tried Randy’s American Style thin version, but I see how much sugar/honey is used in the formula, but it doesn’t have the high amount of oil used in the Reinhart NY style John is trying with the higher hydration.

That is true. However, one of the things I learned about dough recipes that call for a lot of oil and sugar is that the amounts can vary over a fairly wide range without materially affecting the final results. However, the amounts have to be on the high side.

Do you think Reinhart’s NY style is really a NY style or an American style or a combination of both?

At the PizzaQuest website where the Reinhart NY style recipe is posted, at http://www.fornobravo.com/pizzaquest/instructionals/59-written-recipes/169-ny-style-pizza-dough.html, Peter relates his recipe to the Ray's NY style. There are so many different Ray's pizza joints in NYC and I have only tried a couple. My recollection is that the Ray's pizzas I had did not look like any of the Reinhart NY style pizzas I have seen on this forum. Also, the slices I had were huge, most likely from pizzas 18" or more. I subsequently had a slice of a Ray's pizza made by a former licensee in Arizona, and I had a nice long chat with the owner, and the pizzas made there were classic NY style pizzas with small rims and no hint of sweetness or puffiness. The Reinhart NY style pizza reminds me more of an American style but with a NY style crust thickness, more like a cross between the two styles. However, there are others who are more qualified than I to say whether the Reinhart NY style is an accurate description. I saw a video recently of a pizza operator who uses eggs in what he calls a NY style. Maybe someone somewhere in NYC is making a NY style pizza with eggs, but such operators are perhaps on the tail of a bell curve of NY style pizzas.

Do you have any suggestions for how long I should let the dough cold ferment for the first experiment?  Since my home oven can’t even get to as high as John’s home oven, I am interested in seeing what happens, if I can get somewhat the same results I did at market.  I did use 0.10 for my thickness factor for a 14" pizza.

Normally, I would say one day. However, John has had such good results with longer fermentation times, you may have a lot more flexibility than I would have thought.

Do you think at some point you might try out Reinhart’s NY style pizza?

I have thought about that but I will await your results. My thinking was for a larger pizza size, but that might not be possible with my pizza stone, which is limited to a 14" size. Also, I can't get the oven temperatures that John and others have been using.

Peter

[fazzari]

Here's my second dough from this batch, and remember that even though the thread is entitled Reinhart New York Style dough....I did the first batch exactly as Mr. Reinhart discusses except for the reball, which I am convinced makes all the difference in the world.  In this dough, the hydration was raised from 62.22% to 67%, I used bread flour instead of high gluten.  I also want to explain again, that after this dough is mixed 4 minutes, rest 5 minutes, and mixed for 3 minutes...it is scaled, balled and refrigerated and is never touched again until it is time to reball.  And so, this dough was refrigerated for 46 hours, it was reballed 6 hours prior to bake time, and was taken out to warm up 2 hours prior to bake....it was baked at 550 degrees for 5 minutes 45 seconds.

John

[fazzari]

I can't explain the texture of this most excellent dough.  It is crisp enough to stand straight out on it's own, but it is soooooo incredibly tender.  I wish the whole pizza could be the outer crust though, that's my absolute favorite part.  I have written earlier that reballing 5 to 10 hours prior to bake seems to make the bottom bake a straight golden brown all the way across....this is what I mean:

John

[norma427]

John,

Again, a wonderful job!  I really like how your bottom crust browns and the tenderness of the crumb.  I see your are getting great results with KABF.  Looks like your idea when to reball is good.

Norma

[norma427]

John and anyone else following this thread,

I had planned on making the pizza tonight from the dough I made yesterday, following John’s last formula.  I had placed the dough ball out to warm-up for three hours.  Somehow I fell asleep and when I awoke, 3 ½ hrs. later my dough ball had expanded and had some bubbles on the top.  When I took it out of the refrigerator it looked like it wasn’t fermented enough.  I can post the pictures what it looked like from the time I mixed it up until I fell asleep.  I then decided to reball the dough ball and put it to sleep in the refrigerator, because now it is too late to make the pizza.  I am going to make the pizza tomorrow, but it might not turn out as I wanted.

Norma

[fazzari]

Norma
I'll bet you money, your pie will be great tomorrow!!!  Here is dough 3 from this batch.  Fridge time 63 hours.  Reballed 6 hours prior to bake.  Taken out of fridge 2 hours prior to bake.  Baked in deck oven at work at about 570 degrees.  So, they just get better, and better and better and...

John

[norma427]

John,

I can imagine how good that pizza tasted.  Too bad I am not near enough to try a slice.

Norma

[chickenparm]

John,
Wow,those are amazing looking! I can imagine the flavor of the 63 hour fridge time paid off!Hope to try them out someday!
 

[fazzari]

Bill, Norma
I have to tell ya....these particular toppings on this particular dough today....made what had to be a top 10 meal for us today.....tomato cream sauce seasoned with chipottle in adobo, very light mozzarella, pepperoni and Italian Sausage. ....it was an absolute killer!!!!

John

[norma427]

Bill, Norma
I have to tell ya....these particular toppings on this particular dough today....made what had to be a top 10 meal for us today.....tomato cream sauce seasoned with chipottle in adobo, very light mozzarella, pepperoni and Italian Sausage. ....it was an absolute killer!!!!

John

John,

Your combination of toppings does sound good.    Do you mind posting how you made the tomato cream sauce seasoned with  chipotle in adobo?  I never tried that as a topping before.

Norma

[DannyG]

John - Try one pie where you don't re-ball after refrigerating and see what happens. Like you I divide the dough before placing in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. Each dough ball is in it's own container. About 3 hours before baking I take the containers out of the refrigerator, carefully remove the dough, and place them on an lightly oiled plate or cookie sheet. My containers are lightly oiled so I can just turn them upside down and the dough drops out on its own. I don't reball. I just let the dough rest for the 2-3 hours before sheeting. This gives me a very pliable dough to work with and I find it to be just a bit more tender after baking. I would be interested in someone else trying this and reporting their results.

[norma427]

I made the pizza late this morning from John’s last formula. This is the dough ball I posted about letting out, and then reballing last evening, before letting it cold ferment again. The final dough temperature of this dough was 77.2 degrees F.  The first picture is how the dough looked after it was mixed, by just dumping everything in my Kitchen Aid mixer. Really after the mix, the dough ball didn’t look too good.  Then the second picture is after doing 2 stretch and folds or reballs.  The 3rd and 4th picture is right after I took the dough ball out of the refrigerator to let it sit out for 3 hrs. I didn’t take a pictures after the dough sat out for 3 ½ hr. That is when I reballed the dough again.  I wouldn’t have reballed the dough if I was going to make the pizza last evening. The 5th and 6th pictures are after the dough ball warmed up this morning for 1 ½ hrs.  

The dough ball was easy to open and I just dressed this pizza with my regular tomato sauce, a blend of mozzarella cheeses, and pepperoni. The skin was very bubbly. The pizza was baked in my home oven, on my bottom rack, with the pizza stone, at temperatures of about 518 degrees F.  I took the temperatures of the pizza stone with my IR gun.  I left the oven warm-up for a little over an hour.  The time to bake this pizza was 8 ½ minutes.

The final pizza turned out well, and also browned well on the rim and bottom crust.  The crumb was moist, but not as moist as the pie I made at market, with the shorter bake time.  I would say the crust had a very good taste for such a short ferment time.  The open spring was good and I couldn’t detect any sweetness in the crust.  When the slices were still warm, they drooped some, but after the pizza slices cooled they stood straight out.  

I agree with John, this is a very easy dough and pizza to make and the final results are very good, even if baked in a lower oven temperature like my home oven.

Thanks again, John!

Pictures below

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures

Norma

[fazzari]

John,

Your combination of toppings does sound good.    Do you mind posting how you made the tomato cream sauce seasoned with  chipotle in adobo?  I never tried that as a topping before.

Norma

Norma
Don't know if you are familiar with chipottles....they are smoked red jalapenos, canned in kind of sauce called adobo.  If you throw the whole can in food processor you get a brownish, redish paste....you can use this to flavor sauces, dressings etc.  Our tomato cream sauce is simply 3 parts of your favorite tomato sauce, 2 parts white sauce, and seasoned to taste with chipottle paste...you get a kinda smokey, warm delicious sauce....great with meats such as pepperoni, linguica ,italian sausage etc

John