What would you change in your dough?

[bakeshack]

I've been thinking last week about the differences in a commercial and a home setup for making Neapolitan-style dough and I wanted to get your take on this matter and how you would adapt your current workflow in a commercial environment to better results.  Of course, having a fork mixer will help a lot but assuming you don't have one, is it that much different as how we would do it at home except for the larger volume?  Is the difference just merely based on some factors such as having a limited room in a commercial setup, etc. and you just adapt your workflow to accomodate the volume that you need to make on a daily basis?

I guess I want to find out how you would approach such a task.  Will you shorten the fermentation time considerably?  Increase the % of yeast/culture?   Use refrigeration to "hold" the dough balls?  Or don't change anything - long fermentation at RT, etc?  I always hear people talk about "secrets" in a commercial setting and I am not sure if that is really true or if that was just meant to confuse you or not tell you that they make an inferior product except that they use a commercial oven which, I believe, is more than half the battle anyway.  Take the case of Omid, who baked his homemade dough in a SF oven and got a result which, IMO, is much better than many Neapolitan-style pizzerias in the US (maybe even rivaled the pizzas made at Pizzeria Bruno on their good day). 


Marlon

[dellavecchia]

Marlon - If I were to still use room temp fermentation, I would adjust the yeast and hydration to suit the temperature on any given day, same as a home setup. But that would be assuming I still used sourdough. I might want to switch to CY for consistency and ease. Then I might consider refrigeration for consistency as well.

In regards to mixing, Anthony Mangieri, when he was in NYC, used to mix all the dough by hand. Day in day out. I think it got to be taxing to say the least, and he relented towards the end of his stint there. Most definitely I would get a fork mixer.

I guess it all boils down to how artisanal you want your dough to be.

John

[BurntFingers]

We are always looking for new and better ways to make our doughs.  The only way we will make significant changes are if they truly improve the results.  As it stands right now we think it is close to as good as we can get it.  Depending upon the situation we can change from overnight refrig proofing to quicker proofing at room temp when time is short.  Getting the bigga, aka poolish ready takes a few days if we are going to do it right.  If we are in a hurry we can always spike it with commercial yeast.  So the short answer is it depends on the situation.
Bill

[bakeshack]

Thanks John and Bill for the insights.  I guess it boils down to how much skill and mastery one has over his own dough so you can adjust based on whatever circumstance you have. 

Marlon