My first pizza pictures for the forum!!

[scott123]

Jamie, I knead somewhat aggressively, but, for an overnight fermented dough, I only knead for about 3 minutes.  Overnight fermentation develops a lot of gluten- you don't want to be anywhere near smooth before the dough goes into the fridge. A good appearance to shoot for is between cottage cheese and smooth.

In your first post you talk about eventually selling something along the lines of NY style or Neo-Neapolitan. Is this still your goal? The reason why I ask is that the uniform deep shade of brown you're getting with the milk is more of an American/Chain pizza trait. My recommendation to lose the milk was to take you into a more authentically NY direction.   Without the milk, the additional sugar generated from an overnight ferment might not give you that same level of color. Now, if you prefer that deep shade of brown and are confident that your potential customers will respond favorably as well, then maybe you might want to keep the milk.  Another thing to consider is that, should you go with steel plate and decrease the bake time, you'll get less even coloring as well, so if an even shade of brown is that important to you, then maybe you don't want to go less than 7 minutes.  Imo, what you lose in even coloration, you more than make up in the superior texture of the crumb, but I'm a bit biased  

It can get a bit heavy, but generally speaking, for NY style, you want to get the biggest size of steel plate that your oven can handle.  If you oven shelf is 18 x 23, then I highly recommend an 18 x 18 x 1/2 plate.  I would especially suggest going as large as possible in your case, as, once you go into the business, you'll want plenty of experience stretching 16" (and larger) pies, as you'll be selling mostly 16-18" pies.

[Pete-zza]

Jamie,

scott123 is correct that using milk (liquid or dry) is much more characteristic of the American style than the New York style. In fact, I am hard pressed to recall a NY style dough formulation that calls for milk, although I can recall several for the American style (and some versions of the Greek style pizza). However, if you want to read more about the use of dairy products in pizza dough see the post at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg117024/topicseen.html#msg117024.

The above said, it is often recommended that a baker's grade dried dairy whey be used where there is a problem achieving adequate crust browning. Dairy whey is high in lactose, which is a milk sugar that promotes browning, but it does not add to crust sweetness because it has perhaps the lowest sweetness value of all mono-and disaccharides.

Peter

[Kostakis1985]

Scott,
When I first joined this forum I liked how neopolitan pizzas looked but after realizing that you needed a 900 degree oven and most pizzas were only 10 inches it started to deter me from that style and Im focusing on making more of a traditional NY style pizza.

The crust browning is probably something I myself am partial to I think everyone likes pizza well done like me. I dont mind if my pizzas are less colored as long as its made up for in taste.
Im definatly dropping the milk from the ingrediants it was just an experiment. Do you know if the milk has anything to do with the crust losing its crispy texture a few minutes after it comes out of the oven? or is that just going to happen no matter what?

Heres some pizzas I made tonight! They look absolutley stunning to me!!

[scott123]

Jamie, those are superb looking American Style pizzas.  From everything you're saying (even browning, crispness) and from the appearance of these pizzas, I think you're an American Style pizza fan.  I know a lot of forum members look down on chain pizza, but the reality is that a lot of people love it. Domino's sells billions of dollars worth of pizza a year. It really depends on the area, but you can make just as much money selling American pizza as NY style, and possibly even more.

I think part of the problem is that once you leave the NY area, 'NY Style' is a popular marketing term, so pizzerias use it to describe just about anything and a lot of people get wrong information.

Instead of moving towards a style with traits that you seem to want to avoid (lack of color and floppiness), I think you should fully embrace American style pizza- stick with the milk (or maybe use a bit less) and increase the oil.  If 2% oil and enough milk/bake time to give you this much color is making you this happy, then I think 4 or maybe even 5% oil will make you even happier. That's really where American style begins to shine.  The additional oil will help browning so you should be able to lower the milk and still get good color. I would try using half as much milk.

NY style is relatively lean, low sugar, some char but not much browning, chewy, puffy and almost always floppy pizza. Compared to this, it's incredibly floppy.  It's not Neapolitan floppy- that can sometimes end up like a noodle, but it generally has very little crispiness. If you want that, then I'll help, but I really think you should stick with what you love- and, from my perspective, that's American.

[Kostakis1985]

Scott, Its funny that you say that because as I was eating those pizzas I was saying to myself these are good but they're not what I want to make I was saying these are like dominos pizzas and I really want to make NY style pizza. The pizzas did look pretty, though they didn't taste or have the mouthfeel I'm looking for. I think a part of this confusion is I'm not articulate on what I what I want. Like i say i want crispy pizza because whenever I get slices from Tanos a local pizzeria the slices crisp up but when i order a whole pizza its not crisp at all actually really floppy but still just as good. I remember asking that I wanted to make the crust stand up to a lot of toppings because at the restaurant I work at now sometimes i put pizzas on the conveyor belt that have about 2lbs of toppings on them so I was nervous that if I made a thin crust pizza like that it would be a huge mess. Another part of the confusion is I have too many areas I'm trying to focus on at once. I read posts all the time and Im like "oh that sounds like a good idea, ill try that" then Ill talk to the guy at Tanos and he says try this (sometimes I think he knows Im snooping and tells me wrong information) then I read Peter Rheinhardts book American pie and I'm more confused. All I know is I want to make something I'm proud of and to me Ny style is something I would be truly proud of. American style is great too and has a place in my heart and stomach but its not what I'm after. So Scott I need your help in making great Ny style pizza please!

oh yeah Im going for lunch at tanos tomorrow. Ill take pictures and I would like your opinion on the style of pizza that is made there and how I can produce pizzas along the lines of the ones made there

[chickenparm]

I dont care what style you made,those are awesome!


Chain pies cannot touch what I see here.Great job!

[Kostakis1985]

Thanks Bill my girlfriend takes the leftovers to work and all her friends are saying they thought it came from a restaurant! I wonder if they're gonna like these ones haha!

[scott123]

Pictures, excellent- that will go a very long way in helping me get a sense of what you're striving for.  If you can time a pizza's bake time, that would be great as well.

Regarding toppings... American and NY (and for that matter Neapolitan and Neo Neapolitan) all have different approaches to toppings.  American with it's thicker and more rigid undercrust, and clientele that's comfortable with less melted cheese is very topping centric.  They can and they do load up the pies with anything and everything.

There are one or two exceptions, but NY has a far far purer philosophy.  The star players on a NY pie are crust, cheese and sauce. Nothing shines brighter than these three facets. American places have to put all those toppings on to hide the inferior flavor of their crusts!   Brian Spangler, of Apizza Scholls, in Portland, a NYish pizzeria, has a topping limit as a means of battling topping abuse. Here in NY, pizzerias don't have to do things like that because customers are usually smart enough not to push the topping envelope. In my entire life, eating probably thousands of slices, I've never had more than two toppings at a time.  To me, there's nothing more beautiful, more sublime than a plain cheese pizza.  Next to that, you've got pepperoni.  I'll put on other ingredients when friends visit (usually one or two per pie and also a bit sparsely), but, for me, nothing beats plain cheese or pepperoni pies- and nothing does more to showcase a phenomenal crust. If my friends want a topping fest, they can move to Chicago

But I live here in my ideal little pizza bubble and I'm not marketing pizza to a potential customer base that might have toppings on the brain. Like Brian, if I were in that position, I might try to gently steer people away from that mindset, but, at the end of the day, I'd probably give them what they want.

[chickenparm]

Thanks Bill my girlfriend takes the leftovers to work and all her friends are saying they thought it came from a restaurant! I wonder if they're gonna like these ones haha!

Im sure they will!

 

[Kostakis1985]

Scott, here is the pizza that I would love to be able to reproduce in my own oven.

Some backround- this is a 12" cheese pizza. The dough weight is 14oz one of the workers told me when I asked one day, an 18"  pizza uses 24oz of dough. I also asked how much water would he need to use to make a whole 50lb bag of flour he said about 16 quarts or 4 gallons making the hydration of about 64%. There is sugar and oil in the dough and uses fresh yeast. The dough is cold fermented for 18 hours before use.

I would describe the crust as chewy but not rip your teeth out chewy with some char which I love!

Oh yeah I timed the pizza with my phones stopwatch it was started when he put it in the oven(its a blodgett deck oven kept at 550 degrees) and stopped right when it was taken out which was 6 minutes 40 seconds

hope you can help me nail this!

[cosgrojo]

Kostakis- if I had a chain store that made pizza the way yours look... I never would have attempted to make pizza on my own! They look great!

[scott123]

Jamie, I'll help you reproduce that, but, throughout this process, please bear in mind that you can do even better than Tanos- with the better oven spring that comes from trimming the bake time a bit.

For all intents and purposes, this pie here is really close:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,15978.msg164707.html#msg164707

Take this recipe, bump up the water to 64%, nix the milk, bump the oil up to 4% and cold ferment for 18 hours. Use enough yeast so the dough is between 2x and 3x the volume by the time you form it. It might be a little hard to work with.   If it's way too sticky, then we might need to consider a 14% flour like All Trumps. Have you spoken to the owner at all about flour? Have you seen any bags of flour lying around?  Trips to the bathroom tend to be excellent for this purpose.

The sooner you get the steel plate the better, but, in the mean time, put your current stone towards the top of the oven and use the broiler during the bake- maybe the last half. Until you get steel, your undercrust won't match theirs, but, at least the broiler will give you some good coloring on top.

Also, it looks like Tanos uses semolina flour (or a semolina/regular flour blend) during the form

One of the biggest differences between your pie and Tanos is cheese. That looks a lot like Grande. Once you go into business, you should have no problem purchasing Grande, but for now, you're just going to have to settle for what you can get. What was the cheese you were using in reply #7? I'd stick with that.

[Kostakis1985]

Thanks Scott for taking this project on with me it means a ton!

So about the flour, I asked about the flour awhile back and he told me pillsbury flour... I'm pretty sure he said 4x flour but not 100% but its defiantly not all trumps though, it could be that potentate or bouncer possibly.

The dusting flour isn't semolina. Its Wondra flour he showed me it when I very first started going there.

Now as for the cheese because i completely agree there is something off about the cheese I use, I've talked to him about cheese he said Grande was excellent cheese, but very expensive. So I don't think he uses that, they shred their own (I've seen the attachment grater)He mentioned Empire was a good cheese as well. Its has a pleasantly salty taste but I can't tell if its because he sprinkles grated cheese before the pizza goes in he said it pecorino romano. Im thinking he might use the cara donna brand whole milk mozz because I heard empire makes it for cara donna.

 I hope this helps! I never realized how much info I had on this pizza until I wrote it down. I wonder if they consider me an annoying customer haha. I do spend about $40 a week there which is about $2000 a year. and I've brought many friends who love the place and are now regular customers so I guess Im worth the annoyance of asking questions all the time!

Im going to make this dough formula tonight! can't wait for the results!

The guy who can get me the steel plate is on vacation until next week so i'll have to wait for that until then

[scott123]

Jamie, do some more digging about the flour.  If it's balancer (14%) that changes everything.

Wondra, huh? No semolina or corn meal? The undercrust looked a little gritty. I guess it's blisters in the dough.

You have to excuse my broad use of the term 'grande.'  I use it to describe all the Grande clones as well, which I'm pretty sure Tanos is using.  If the cheese is yellow-ish compared to what you get and very opaque, it's a grande clone.

Have you seen them make a pie? How heavy do they go with the romano?  Pecorino romano isn't reggiano expensive, but it isn't cheap.

$40 a week? Whoah  You're going to save a lot of money once you start making this on your own.

[Kostakis1985]

Scott,

Okay so I know its xxxx bromated flour and they been using it for over 20 years because of the oven spring.

the romano cheese is sprinkled on top of the cheese right before the pizza goes in the oven it looks like a healthy three finger pinch.

I made 2 batches of dough of dough today using the formula you suggested. I made one with fresh yeast and one with instant yeast.
Im going to cook the pizzas tomorrow or when the dough tells me its ready.

Do you know of a formula to tell me how much yeast I would need to have optimum fermentation at a set time? Like say I wanted to make dough for tomorrow using an 18 hour cold fermentation is there a way I could figure out how much yeast to use to have it at least 2x in volume by then? assuming I have a finished dough temp between 80-85 degrees. is that possible or are there too many variables? I've searched the forum and can't find it! thanks Scott

[scott123]

Jamie, thanks for confirming the xxxx flour.  That makes our lives a lot easier.

There's way too many variables to come up with a formula to tell you how much yeast to use. Here are just a few:

Yeast age
flour age
milling inconsistencies
wheat fluctuations
flour brand
protein content
humidity
moisture basis of the flour
water impurities
quantity/type of kneading
refrigerator temperature
container shape, size and material

The only reliable method for predicting yeast activity is through trial and error.  Control every variable (final dough temp, identical amount of kneading with the same intensity/tempo, same recipe- don't scale down or up, same bag of flour, same batch of yeast, same proofing temps, etc. etc.), use ballpark yeast amounts that you see in recipes similar to yours to give you an approximate target and then carefully note the actual amount of time it took to double.  Once you dial in the yeast quantity for a given time, then you can start testing another length of fermentation, and, hopefully, because of the trial and error you've already put in, dialing in that length of time should be a bit easier.  Once you have two lengths of fermentation, then the third gets a bit easier, and after that, it begins to become second nature.

Make notes of all your temps- water, ambient/flour, post mix dough, as well as pay attention to your yeast age and, to an extent, flour age. As long as you are fairly consistent when you make the dough balls, you don't need to measure your pre-fridge time, but definitely, write down your time in the fridge and your post fridge warm up time. If you're aware of all the variables and your dough doubles in too short or too long of a time, the next time you can match all those variables while adjusting the yeast accordingly. Eventually you'll be able to predict yeast activity to almost the minute in different conditions/seasons, but, for now, it's a lot of trial and error and note taking- lots of note taking.

Once you open your business, yeast will be a no brainer you'll be working with it so much. For now, though, it can get a bit tedious until you have plenty of notes to refer to.

[Pete-zza]

Jamie,

I agree with scott123 that there are many variables involved but I think it might help if you are able to get a decent starting point from which to conduct testing on yeast quantities. For this purpose, you might want to do a little math as discussed at Reply 6 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5028.msg42572.html#msg42572. In your case, the math is quite simple since you are only talking about a single fermentation period, not a series of different fermentation protocols/periods. When I use the methods discussed in Reply 6, I use a Reference Rate of 18 hours at 80 degrees F (26.667 degrees C) using 0.012% IDY. That is for a doubling of the dough. For the Predicted Rate, you would use 18 hours at whatever temperature you would be using in your cooler for cold fermentation purposes (maybe 38 degrees F or something similar?). A good online scientific calculator to use for calculation purposes is the one at http://www.ecalc.com/. Once the amount of IDY to use is determined, that value can be converted to cake yeast or ADY.

Peter

[Kostakis1985]

Scott,
       We are definatly getting closer to the goal for me! Well first I made a batch of dough only to find out my cake yeast died. Waste of time . I made dough yesterday uping my oil to 4% and coldfermented for about 30 hours. I think you are spot on with the pecentage of oil but I lowered the hydration to 62% for two reasons, the first being ive seen the workers balling the dough and its not overly sticky and the second he said around 4 gallons for a 50 lb bag of flour so I think that would still make sense. The crust was fantastic!

I got ahold of the steel guy, he seemed to be trying to steer me away from doing it, like saying its going to rust etc. I didnt know what kind of steel I should be asking for either. what do you suggest?

So im going to keep this dough formula until i get my steel plate then see how awesome it is once I can lower my bake time cant wait!

[scott123]

Jamie, it certainly looks closer.  Bake time?

How much yeast was that?  Did the dough double in 30 hours? If it did, you're going to need a bit more yeast for 18 hours, right?

Steel plate used as a baking stone doesn't really rust.  The type of steel you want is A36 hot rolled steel.

62% doesn't sound off on the hydration.  Once you match their bake time, I'll be able to dial the water in a little bit better to help you match the residual moisture in their crumb.  Their crumb, from what I can see, is both finer and has a bit more moisture than yours- but we'll get there.

Does your oven have a convection feature and are you using it?  If you are, don't.

What brands of cheese do you have at your disposal? Sorrento?  Polly-O?  Any good deals on cheese at the moment?

Lastly, I'm not sure what's going on, but it looks like the lighting is different for the Tanos photos vs. the ones you just took.  If you can, try to match that lighting, or, if possible, using natural sunlight, as that tends to produce the most natural colors.

[Kostakis1985]

I went to make the dough and measured everything out only to wake up the next day and there was no activity in the dough and I realized my cake yeast was dead. Frustrated i put together the dough in the above pictures from yesterday and I used a whole teaspoon of IDY because I wanted it faster It probably was overkill and the dough was ready around 18 hours but I wasn't so I waited until 30 hours.

as for the bake time I didn't remember to start the stopwatch, but I will get into that habit for my experiments.

Oh yeah I made 28oz of dough.

Im kind of confused on how to use the broiler because I can't run them simultaneously when i put the pizza under  it the bottom will still have enough heat to cook it right?

Im making dough tomorrow morning Ill record absolute everything!

I have a restaurant supply store near me so I bought some whole milk and part skim mozz 5lb blocks that i froze and take out as i need it because every  mozzarella i bought at the grocery store was atrocious. Do you know of any good grande clones bc I can't easily get it.