55lbs of Supremo Italiano"00" for practice

[capamando]

Hello,

My wife and I could use some tips on how to come up with a workable dough ball that could be made into a 12" pie using Supremo Italiano "00".  We will be using a wfo in the future, but atm we want to hone our dough making skills. We are aware that Caputo is the best for our purpose but some of you have used SI "00" with good results. We will be using a KitchenAid Heavy Duty mixer.

Thanks.

[JConk007]

I have used and Like the SI flour very much. Practice? You do not have a WFO yet right? Unless your Omid    its very hard to cook this dough in a home oven with any great success. Have you looked at and understand the dough Calculator tool? Thats all I use, depending on batch size  with very little tweaking. Neapolitan dough is only flour,water, salt, yeast. Pretty simple thats what maes it so good! 
John

[capamando]

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.. you are very generous with your time. We just want to the practice up to the point of sliding it into a wfo! There is a learning curve as you well know and familiarizing ourselves with the the flour we plan to use and dough management is important to us...besides what else is there to do when the temp is 20 degrees!       R u talking about Lehman's tool? Yes, I have seen it and will be using it.

[capamando]

Hello to all..

We ripped the bag open, put the flour into our NSF container and made our first batch:

The first photo:  After 4 min mix in our KA and a 5 min rest
The second photo: After 2 min mix/one extra T of flour and one extra min of mixing
The third photo:  Right before the 30 minutes rest at room temp 72 degrees
The fourth photo: After the 30 minutes, ready for the fridge (temp 36 degrees) for at least 8 hours


Wishing all the members and their families and happy and healthy 2012

[scott123]

Capamando, what hydration are you working with?

[capamando]

Hello Scott,

100% flour
65% water
.63% IDY
1.65% salt

Thanks

[scott123]

Capamando, if you're making Neapolitan dough, then I'd suggest increasing the salt to somewhere between 2.5% and 3%.  The salt will go a long way in tightening up the gluten, but, based upon the slackness of the dough in the photos, I think you could go a bit further and drop the hydration to 63. Also, although I'm a huge fan of minimal kneading, for pizzeria 00, I think 7 minutes total knead might be a little too minimal.

You probably want to end up even lower than 63, but try 63 along with the extra salt and the extra kneading first, and then see what kind of consistency you get.

Btw, you are using a digital scale for measuring the flour and water, right?

[capamando]

Scott,

Thank you for your advice. I will do the next batch per your instructions. We have a lot of flour to work with!    Yes, we are using a digital scale.

[capamando]

Hello and Happy New Year!

Continuation of my first batch with Supremo Italiano:

First Photo:  Dough (six balls- 8 oz) just out of the fridge after 24 hrs. Dough temp 37.9
Second Photo: Ready for 3hr. at room temp 72.0

We will see how user friendly this dough is going to be soon!   

[capamando]

Hello,


Here is what my dough balls look like after 3 hours at room temp 72.   The dough temperature is 66.9.  No comments?

[capamando]

Hello,

I will keep posting my results...there is nothing that compares to learning from own's personal experience with dough. I wonder if some of our experts can tell how we struggled shaping the pie into a 10" size. Not sure how much of it is due to our lack of skills. The dough temp was around 69 degrees..is that too cold? It seemed easier to work  the dough without forming it into a ball but more difficult to achieve a round pie. I did deviate from Mr. Spacca's dough recipe posted by Bobbill last September. Mr. Spacca of Spacca Napoli Pizzeria in Chicago suggest a 8-12 hours proofing in the fridge. Unfortunately, I could not get to the dough within that range and left it in the fridge for 24hrs... Don't know if that made a difference or not. Anyway, we have 53 pounds of flour left for more practice. I am reminded that repetitive practice is not the answer.... need to improve and learn each time.  Here are a couple of photos of our "bruised" 10" pie shell.

[capamando]

Hello,

For our next batch, we decided to follow Scott's suggestion of adding more time (4min) to our kneading and less water (63% instead of 65%).

Photo1 : 4mins mixing + 5mins rest
Photo 2:  4mins mixing + 5mins rest + 6mins kneading
Photo 3:  4mins mixing + 5 mins rest + 6 mins kneading + 30 minutes rest at room temp 70

[scott123]

Capamando, I'm a little late in replying, but that 65% hydration dough didn't end up looking half bad   For some reasons, the dough in the very first pictures looked very wet, but, in the later shots, it looked quite a bit more normal.  63% should be comparable and might give you a little less spread.

The shaping difficulty was a result of too little time after balling.  Post balling, I would say, minimum 6 hours, not 3.

[capamando]

Scott,

I do appreciate your feedback. This last batch we will pull out of the fridge after 12 hours. We will follow your advice of six hours at room temp after balling.


Thanks

[scott123]

Sounds good.

While I think that these doughs you're making are really good practice and good learning tools, I think it's important to remember that the proof is in the pudding.  A dough can look right, smell right, and feel right, but you really won't know if you nailed it until you're able to bake it up in 90 seconds or less, as John alluded to earlier.

It's a little like building an engine.  We can tell you that the parts are in the right place, but, unless you take it out on the highway, you'll never really know what it can do.

It takes some work and not everyone has the right equipment, but Neapolitan can be achieved in a home oven.

[capamando]

Scott,

You are absolutely right! We are practicing while we wait for our mobile wfo to be ready.  Our friends can't wait for us to practice our pies on them!  One question... have you or anyone else here ever tried a combination of "00" and another type of flour using a wfo?


Thanks again,

[capamando]

Hello,

We left the dough in the fridge (temp 36) for 24 hours. Dough temp 40. We scooped the dough unto a lightly floured counter and shaped into a log roll, weighed to form six 8 oz balls, coated the proofing tray with olive oil and now is proofing at room temp 72 for six hours per Scott's suggestion.

Photo1: dough after 24 hrs( 40 degrees) in fridge(36 degrees)

[capamando]

Hello,

So....after 6 hours at room temp 72, we had a dough(71 degrees) that was a bit sticky with a few air pockets...maybe six hours was a bit long..don't know. We did find that if we did not form it into a ball, and flour it on both sides, that it was easier to work with, but more difficult to shape into a nice round pie. Then we tried shaping into a tight ball after flouring both sides and it bounced back a bit... it got better, if at that point we let it rest for around five minutes. Our last try we sort of shaped it a bit and that seemed to work best. Keep on doughing!  Any comments?

Photo 1: Dough after six hours at room temp.
Photo 2: Dough without forming into a ball
Photo 3: Dough lightly shaped into a ball

[scott123]

Capamando, scale back the yeast.  The dough is definitely a bit overfermented. I generally try to keep my dough balls from touching, but there are many places (Keste for one), that let the dough balls run into each other. If this happens and they end up square-ish, they'll have a tendency to form square-ish skins. Square-ish pizza is within the parameters for Neapolitan style- and some might even say Neapolitan should be a little square because of the way many bakers tug the corners pre-bake.

Never ever re-ball dough close to the form. Even if the shape ends up being completely off, re-balling will make it impossible to stretch.

[Matthew]

If I may, the thin spots on your formed skins are the result of improper dough balling.  In order to eliminate thin spots (caused by air pockets) ensure that the bottom of the panetti are tightly sealed before placing them in the dough tray.

Matt