Pizza Roller

[Steveinid]

I was out somewhere recently and watched the person behind the counter use a roller on pizza dough. They stretched the dough out and put it down flat. Then they got out a roller with little spikes or something like little spikes and rolled it over the pizza dough leaving small indentations in the dough.

What is the purpose of that piece of equipment? 

[buceriasdon]

The tool is called a dough docker. Docking prevents large air bubbles from forming in thin crust pizza skins. Some pizzerias use a sheeter, a rolling machine that uniformly reduces the thickness of the dough ball, so thin that several layers can be laminated together and then by pressing the docker over the cut out crust aids in sticking the layers together while allowing the layers to remain distinct.
Don

 

[Pete-zza]

Steveinid,

See also http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8405.msg72655.html#msg72655. As noted in one of the posts in that thread, Papa John's routinely uses a dough docker for all of its skins. I believe that in PJ's case it helps open up the dough balls easier, possibly by partially dismantling the gluten structure, thereby reducing the natural propensity of the dough to shrink back, especially if the dough is cold when worked. This is a fairly old video but you can see a PJ worker using a dough ball, quite aggressively in his case:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPm8aHvpjE8" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPm8aHvpjE8</a>

. According to Tom Lehmann, one is supposed to only make a single pass across the skin. Otherwise, according to Tom, you are likely to end up with what he calls a "poker chip" (see his post at the PMQ Think Tank at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=194&p=776&hilit=#p776). I have seen PJ workers work a skin with a dough docker unmercifully, such that the rim, even after baking, was riddled with holes.

Based on my experience, I would say that a dough docker is most commonly--and properly--used to make cracker-style skins, typically in conjunction with a roller or sheeter, as Don noted. For other styles, it is usually a crutch and as a way of using cold or underfermented or insufficiently tempered dough.

Peter