Some advice for perfect dough -pizza party with G3 and 00 flour

[Pizzakoning]

this one i just made in 3 minutes with only olive oil.

[scott123]

Dennis, bloem voor patisserie is pastry flour and that's the lowest protein flour you can buy  

The air bubbles are a characteristic of fast baked Neapolitan pizza (as well as dark nearly burned spots, called leoparding).  If big air bubbles are not to your liking, then I think you might not be a Neapolitan pizza fan.  If that's the case, then I suggest continuing with your NY style quest (after Sunday) and finding bread flour.

One critical aspect to testing, as it looks like you might have figured out, is that it's important to top the pizza with something or the middle will have a tendency to puff up and burn.

One of the biggest complaints for longer baked 00 doughs is that they can be tough.  This is where the oil is invaluable- it makes for a more tender crumb.  If you do end up using the 00 and baking them a bit longer (the 3 minute pie looks great), then I suggest leaving the oil in the dough.

How long were these doughs fermented for?

Also, are you stretching the dough by hand or are you using a rolling pin to roll the dough out?

[Pizzakoning]

I like the big bubbles, but the cheese might roll off in the oven.

But it is nice to know that i can use the 00 flour.
I will go look for some other flour later today and use that for the conventional oven.

the dough is fermeted 24 hour in the fridge and after that a five hours at room temp. as a dough ball.
But dough balls rizes on and i can't get the ball out without tearing the outsides. So i have to remake the ball everytime (about 15min before baking) and i don't think that is the right way to do.
I flatten the ball with a rolling pin. Learning how to hand toss the dough is something i am going to learn in the near future hopefully.

[scott123]

Dennis, when you top a pizza, the toppings weigh down the center so bubbles don't form there (usually).

Re-balling prior to baking is really bad.  Maybe not for incredibly weak patisserie flour, but still bad. Are you oiling the containers you put the dough in?

Yes, avoiding a rolling pin is a good idea, but, for tomorrow, go with what you know.

[Pizzakoning]

hi scott, can you give your take on the best pizza sauce?
And how many hours do you reckon the balls should rise?

Please tell me what you think is the best way to produce the pizza after the long cold 24 hour rise?


Appreciated!!!!

[scott123]

Dennis, the balls should rise until they double.  There's too many local variable for one person to  predict yeast activity for someone in another region using different ingredients and water. Once you make a recipe a few times, you can better gauge when they'll be ready, but it usually takes some trial and error. This is why, when people are just starting off, I generally try to dissuade them from throwing parties 

Canned, peeled tomatoes are best for Neapolitan, while, generally speaking, passata is preferable for NY. Depending on the sweetness of the tomatoes, you'll most likely want to add some sugar, and, if the tomatoes contain no salt, add some salt.  San Marzano tomatoes are usually sweet enough to not require sugar.  Beyond that, for NY, a little dried oregano is popular, as is a little garlic powder.

After refrigeration, you want to let the dough sit out for an hour or two, then form, top and bake.

[Pizzakoning]

Scott! Today it is monday and my head is still a bit heavy from last night 

Yesterday was the pizza party and it went absolutely perfect.
Even though more people showed up than expected, at the end of the night everybody was full and gave me lots of compliments
The pizza's tasted very good. I am quit fussy about food, but i was very pleased myself too.

I want to thank you very much for the help. It helped me a great deal.

I wanted to take some pictures of the pizza's, but i was so busy baking them that i forgot... So i only have pictures of the preperations.
but the 00 flour dough was very tastefull. I made about 20 pizza's with that dough on the G3 oven.
And i made 3 large plate pizza's with the normal dough (i found 11% protein flour) in the normal oven and that was definitely less good.

So overal a big succes. Especially the pizza bianca was a winner.
And i did some new receipes. Like: pear, walnut, gorgonzola, honey pizza

very good taste

[scott123]

Dennis, I'm really glad things worked out well for you.  That's fantastic news. I have to admit, I was a little concerned that you weren't going to be able pull it all together in time but it appears that you came through with flying colors.

Now that things have calmed down a bit and the dust has settled, let's take a little stock.

What kind of bake times were you seeing with the G3? Could you, at this point, aim for and consistently hit a 90 second bake or are you still working out kinks? How about a 4 minute bake? Can you reliably hit that?

In all of the excitement, I got a bit turned around on the flour you're using.  Pizzeria 00 (11-12% protein) can be tough/have issues with longer bakes, but not the pastry 00 you were working with.  Pastry flour basically doesn't have enough gluten to give you a good rise, and, although I'm glad it worked out well for you, in the future, I'd avoid using pastry flour for pizza.

Flour is important to good pizza, but nothing is more critical than fast bake times.  I'm guessing the 11% flour dough in the normal oven was a much longer bake, right?  It was the longer bake that gave you inferior results, not the 11% flour.

From here, I suggest two paths.  If you're relatively certain that you can, on command, bake a sub 90 second pizza in the g3, then it's time do track down pizzeria 00, not pastry 00.  Look for 00 with an image of pizza on the packaging. Once you have pizzeria 00 and consistent sub 90 second bakes, that will be authentic Neapolitan pizza.

The second path I recommend is either using the g3 for 4 minute bakes with the 11% flour, or using the 11% flour with your normal oven with a better stone to hit that 4 minute target. This will be authentic NY style.

Tell me a bit about your oven. Is it electric or gas? Does it have a top and a bottom burner?  What are it's interior dimensions?

[Pizzakoning]

The bake time with the G3 is in production use about 3-4 mins. I didn't time every pizza, i tried, because it was to much hassle. I just preheated the oven and then put the oven on full power when in use.
Most of the time baking was pretty hectic because of all the friends hanging around the kitchen who wanted to chat or help out, but instead they were standing in the way of me trying to streamlining production

Since the baking time is short and the avaible space is not large enough to roll out 20 pizza on forehand.. i had to 'juggle' a lot. So some pizza's stayed in longer than others when i was trying to prepare the next pizza. But nothing black came out and i did not see any crust coming back

Sometimes i could hear the mozeralla steaming away and by hearing that sound i knew it was just about to be ready. The problem is that i can't see the pizza when it is inside and opening the lid makes a lot of the heat go away. And that is not good for baking the toppings which essentially makes the baking time longer and is the thing to watch out for with this oven.

So i've gotten a real feel for the oven now and i think i can make 1 pizza in around 2 minutes. It all depends on the preheating. The heat should be hot enough to bake it, but not to burn it. Which can happen fast if it heated up on full temprature for a while with the lid closed.
 I've orded an infrared thermometer a while back which should be delivered any moment...  I hope that helps a bit.

About the dough, i had about 1kg left of dough, made with the normal flour.
It rised for about 2 days in the fridge and i made a very tastefull fociacio with it. Baked in about 20 mins on 200 degrees. I am amazed about the flavor. It tasted much better then the plate pizza.
I am not sure how long the plate pizza baked in the oven or at what temprature. It could be 250-280 celsius.

The normal oven is just a normal electric ATAG build-in oven 90 cm. I can set the heat from two directions.

I am sure to keep on using the G3 pizza and not the ATAG oven.
And maybe i am going to try the Kettle Pizza.

Ow.. And i can now make the pizza's by hand.
Hand toss them and everything

Yes, unfortanely i am still infatuated by the pizza making  
I was even daydreaming about starting a real wood oven pizzeria.  I even think there could very well be a market for it.
The place i live in, there are none. Only Amsterdam there a lot, which is like 100km away. But that is also only recenty, i've read that only 2 years ago there were 2 pizzaria's and there are now 16 in Amsterdam.
So it must be generating some money, but i have a well-paid job in IT and a family with 2 young childeren, so i am not really reading to dive in that adventure with absolutely no experience as a restaurant-entrepeneur or anything remotely similair.

[buh]

Hi Folks:
I'm going to try the 58% hydration dough recipe using Gold Medal bread dough.
My Q is how would I be able to use my starter as an ingredient in that dough?
Can I just lessen the amount of water by the amount of starter I add?
Thanks a lot!
buh