Problems with Dough

[buceriasdon]

Varun, Ok, perhaps next time you could reverse the mix method. Place the water, oil, sugar, salt in the bowl stirred, then add the flour a bit at a time stirring as you go. After work today I will make up a couple of dough balls at 60% and take some pictures.
Don

[VarunS]

Sure I will try it the reverse way tomorrow and post pics as well. I appreciate the help.

Also I have a batch of dough in the refrigerator that has 75% hydration (Reinhart's recipe). Should I snap a pic of this and upload?

Thanks

[The Dough Doctor]

Varun;
If you are looking to make a softer, more tender eating crust try adding fat, either as oil or shortening to the dough. If you add 6% fat (based on the total flour weight) you will get a softer eating crust with reduced chew/toughness, especially in the edge portion. In new York that toughness in the edge is a desirable feature, but in other market areas it is not. I've seen the fat levels as high as 15% in some pizzas crusts that had a very tender eating characteristic. One more thing, if you use oil, be sure to reduce the amount of water added to the dough by the same amount as you are increasing the fat content. Failure to do this can result in an excessively soft, and sometimes difficult to manage dough.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[VarunS]

Tom,

I definitely think that in this market the softer more tender crust is preferred. Increasing the fat percentage should have been my first choice before trying the bread improver but i am so fixated on the flour aspect that it never struck me. Thank you for the suggestion.
A friend and my grandfather both felt the pie made using the bread improver was a significant improvement over my previous ones and I think so to. Friend noticed a slight floury taste which I failed to note but I had to use this to stretch the dough, need to try cutting back.

Tom with regards to hand stretching is a 12" diameter sufficient from a 11.5 oz dough ball? When you or others on this board are hand stretching do you have to be careful so as not to tear the dough. Is it something that's at the back of your mind? From the videos I have seen they make it look effortless and the dough seems much more pliable. I sometimes have to do patchwork on mine

Scott not sure if I mentioned earlier but the uncooked tomato sauce with seasonings which you suggested has been very well received by people who have tried it; thanks   Going to up the seasonings though, bold flavor rules here

Cheers

Varun

[The Dough Doctor]

Varun;
For a 12-inch pizza we use anything from 9 to 16-ounces of dough weight. Obviously, the 9 and 16-ounce weights make a very thin and thick crust respectively, but these are more or less the extremes for a 12-inch pizza. I think anything between 11 and 12-ounces is a good starting point for most 12-inch pizzas, and you can adjust the dough weight accordingly from there to achieve the crust thickness you're looking for.
With proper dough fermentation (biochemical gluten development) and a stainless steel table, you shouldn't have any problem in opening the dough to 12-inches. One trick that I teach to our students is to use a dough roller/sheeter, or just a rolling pin, and open the dough ball to about 3/4 of the target diameter, then finish opening the dough by hand tossing or stretching on the stainless steel table top. I mention stainless steel as it is really easy to open the dough on it by the hand stretching method. On a wood table top the dough is very difficult to open by the hand stretching method.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[VarunS]

Dear Tom,

I checked my formulation and I had been using 1% oil and not even 6 in the last few batches of dough that I made. I changed this to 6 while reducing appropriate grams of water and there was definitely a noticeable difference in the tenderness of the crust. Also I tried using a rolling pin to start my dough and made a 7-8" pie before hand stretching. It mostly made the process faster for me but still I had to be careful towards the end. Since I continued having minor issues with dough tearing at about 11.5 " diameter from a 300 gram ball I kneaded some more (5 mins by hand) and let it rest for half hour. This dough was tighter or stiffer but was easier to stretch    . Perhaps next time I should knead some more at the start (before fermentation) to aid in extra gluten development?

Dear Don,

I tried the reverse mixing method and I landed up using 95 gms less flour than I normally would. When I felt the dough was little wet and sticky but still very manageable I stopped adding the flour. I have attached a picture of this. From this batch of dough I kneaded half by hand and the other half using a food processor and then let it rise for 2 hours at room temperature after which I scaled and balled the dough. The higher hydration doughs seemed to have a better oven spring.

Does this seem more like how a higher hydration dough would be or am I still off?

Thanks again

Varun

[buceriasdon]

Varun, If you choose not to try a this approach I would fully understand but at this time I suggest you drop your hydration rate into the low to middle 50s. Ten percent less in other words. Pratice getting the feel with working a less extensible dough and then upping your hydration as you gain more confidence a few percent at a time. I duplicated your recipe with a 11% protein flour at 63% hydration and was able to get holes opening that had to be closed up however I purposefully let it rest at room temp. for three hours knowing how it would behave. Another thing you might try is to work the dough on the cooler side, not letting it come fully to room temp.
Don