the progress of the regular Lehmann dough for market

[norma427]

These are only a few pies I made with the extra frozen dough balls added to the one day Lehmann dough.  I didn’t find time to take too many pictures.  The pies did get good oven spring, but I didn’t even have time to try a slice to see if they tasted any better.  I have 4 leftover dough balls this week, so maybe I will try the experiment again.  Does anyone know if even adding frozen dough balls might work to make a better pizza?

Bill from Trenton did really like the one day Lehmann dough pies from yesterday, but I am not even sure if he tried the ones with the added frozen dough balls or not.  He was impressed that the dough had so many bubbles in the dough skin in one day.  He wants me to figure out on the dough calculation tools on how to scale down what I used in the one day Lehmann dough down to a 13” pizza. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Does anyone know if even adding frozen dough balls might work to make a better pizza?

Norma,

Can you tell us at what stage you froze the original dough balls that you later defrosted and combined with new dough to make pizzas this past Tuesday? In other words, we're the dough balls frozen right after you made them or did you decide to freeze them after they fermented but you had no need to use them on Tuesday? If they were fermented, what was the duration of the fermentation?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Can you tell us at what stage you froze the original dough balls that you later defrosted and combined with new dough to make pizzas this past Tuesday? In other words, we're the dough balls frozen right after you made them or did you decide to freeze them after they fermented but you had no need to use them on Tuesday? If they were fermented, what was the duration of the fermentation?

Peter

Peter,

Any frozen Lehmann dough balls are leftover from a Tuesday, so they were fermented for over a day before they are frozen.  Usually if I have leftover dough balls they are frozen right after market, then I use them to make pizza pinwheels, garlic knots, or cheesy breadsticks for the following Tuesday, but decided to try them incorporated into a one day Lehmann dough.  I would think the amount of time they had fermenting in my pizza prep fridge would give some advantage to the taste of the crust of adding them, but don’t know.

Norma

[Tscarborough]

It is no fair that you get to play with pizza experiments so much.

[norma427]

It is no fair that you get to play with pizza experiments so much.

Tom,

Lol, you made me chuckle! 

I consider myself fortunate in that I do have a deck oven, have taste testers and do also have my friend Steve that I get to play around in his WFO.  If I didn’t have my small pizza stand at market, I probably wouldn’t experiment so much because I sure don’t know he would eat all of the pizzas I have experimented with so far.    I know I have done a fair amount of experiments on the Lehmann dough, but there always is something that might need experimenting with.  At least all the experimenting does keep me occupied and I find what happens with different pizza doughs interesting.

You can come play around with me experimenting anytime. 

Norma 

[Pete-zza]

Peter,

Any frozen Lehmann dough balls are leftover from a Tuesday, so they were fermented for over a day before they are frozen.  Usually if I have leftover dough balls they are frozen right after market, then I use them to make pizza pinwheels, garlic knots, or cheesy breadsticks for the following Tuesday, but decided to try them incorporated into a one day Lehmann dough.  I would think the amount of time they had fermenting in my pizza prep fridge would give some advantage to the taste of the crust of adding them, but don’t know.

Norma,

In your case, I think it is safe for you to treat the defrosted dough balls as you would scrap except that in your case the scrap is in defrosted form rather than dough that is left over at the end of the day.

As you know, scrap can take several forms. For example, it might be scrap left over after punching out skins from a sheet and used intra-day (as by running the scrap through the sheeter/roller with fresh dough) or accumulated in a container (and maybe held in the cooler to slow down the aging process) for incorporation into a new dough batch at the end of the day. Or it might simply be dough balls that are left over at the end of the day and, if in good condition, either be incorporated into a new dough batch or used for other purposes, such as to make breadsticks, garlic knots, focaccia, etc.

Tom Lehmann has written on the subject of scrap many times over the years. You can read his "rules" on the use of scrap (which some refer to as "old dough") at the PMQ Think Tank forum, at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=23592#p23592 and at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=52259#p52259.

Reusing scrap has two fairly obvious benefits. You save money, and provided that the dough isn't on its last legs and overfermented you get a lot of byproducts of fermentation that contribute to final crust flavor and other desirable crust characteristics. However, unless you use the same scrap reuse regimen all the time, the final product might be inconsistent and customers might detect such inconsistencies in the finished product. That is one reason why some pizza operators throw away all unused dough at the end of the day rather than reusing it.

One of the things that I have not seen in my reading on this subject over the years is whether it ever becomes necessary to add more yeast as part of the final mix to compensate for any material loss of leavening power in the scrap dough. I think for such a loss in leavening power to occur the dough would have to be long in the fermentation cycle. Apparently pizza operators do not let their unused dough reach that point, but if one wanted to use scrap dough that is long in the tooth but still usable, I suppose some extra yeast can be added as part of the final mix. I would imagine that the final crust would have plenty of flavor. Some experimentation might be needed to see if those flavors are the "right" flavors you want in your finished crusts.

In your case, given the age and condition of your defrosted dough, I think you should be fine although some basic math may be required to fine tune the process if you want to do things by Tom's "book". Who know? Maybe you can end up recycling your epoxy Lehmann doughs, preferably in the semi-geriatric state, and add yet another layer of flavor complexity .

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

In your case, I think it is safe for you to treat the defrosted dough balls as you would scrap except that in your case the scrap is in defrosted form rather than dough that is left over at the end of the day.

As you know, scrap can take several forms. For example, it might be scrap left over after punching out skins from a sheet and used intra-day (as by running the scrap through the sheeter/roller with fresh dough) or accumulated in a container (and maybe held in the cooler to slow down the aging process) for incorporation into a new dough batch at the end of the day. Or it might simply be dough balls that are left over at the end of the day and, if in good condition, either be incorporated into a new dough batch or used for other purposes, such as to make breadsticks, garlic knots, focaccia, etc.

Tom Lehmann has written on the subject of scrap many times over the years. You can read his "rules" on the use of scrap (which some refer to as "old dough") at the PMQ Think Tank forum, at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=23592#p23592 and at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=52259#p52259.

Reusing scrap has two fairly obvious benefits. You save money, and provided that the dough isn't on its last legs and overfermented you get a lot of byproducts of fermentation that contribute to final crust flavor and other desirable crust characteristics. However, unless you use the same scrap reuse regimen all the time, the final product might be inconsistent and customers might detect such inconsistencies in the finished product. That is one reason why some pizza operators throw away all unused dough at the end of the day rather than reusing it.

One of the things that I have not seen in my reading on this subject over the years is whether it ever becomes necessary to add more yeast as part of the final mix to compensate for any material loss of leavening power in the scrap dough. I think for such a loss in leavening power to occur the dough would have to be long in the fermentation cycle. Apparently pizza operators do not let their unused dough reach that point, but if one wanted to use scrap dough that is long in the tooth but still usable, I suppose some extra yeast can be added as part of the final mix. I would imagine that the final crust would have plenty of flavor. Some experimentation might be needed to see if those flavors are the "right" flavors you want in your finished crusts.

In your case, given the age and condition of your defrosted dough, I think you should be fine although some basic math may be required to fine tune the process if you want to do things by Tom's "book". Who know? Maybe you can end up recycling your epoxy Lehmann doughs, preferably in the semi-geriatric state, and add yet another layer of flavor complexity .

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the links about adding old dough to a new batch posted by Otis Gunn and Tom Lehmann.  That Otis sure was a tinker too!   I see Tom does recommend only adding 15% of the old dough, but also mentions in some commercial operations up to 45% to 60% is the dough is still okay.  I didn’t seem to have any problems with adding 3 dough balls to a 15 lb. batch and the dough felt nice the next day.  I just wish I would have taken time to taste a slice, because I don’t know if those slices had a different taste in the crust or not. I did look on PMQTT last evening and only could find the one post and that wasn’t the ones you linked to.  Finding stuff on PMQTT is hard, at least in my opinion.

Yes, I do recall how other pizzerias incorporate scrap into their doughs.

I didn’t take any pictures of the pies I made without the added dough, but they looked the same.  The dough balls even fermented the same, the skins looked the same, they both opened up the same, and all had about the same crust browning.  I didn’t see any loss of leavening power in the dough balls with the added defrosted dough balls.  I would guess the dough would have to be pretty much overfermented to have to add more yeast.  

Tom should know by now that I don’t always follow his rules or go by the book.  I appreciate all the information he has provided for me though.  

Yep, you never know I might end up recycling some of those epoxy Lehmann doughs into a new dough.  Why would they have to be incorporated in a semi-geriatric state?  

I am still undecided today if I want to try just a soaker, or use the full epoxy method for an attempt for this coming week.  I reheated an epoxy slice last evening and that slice really had a great taste in the crust.  It was still crisp and somewhat reminded me of a good baguette.  I don’t know if the baguette pizza taste is okay though.  At least when making any dough for market it sure isn’t hard to make extra dough balls to freeze if it adds something good to the taste of the crust.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Whenever I want to find something at the PMQTT that Tom has written--which is usually dough related for me for the most part--I use the name Lehmann as part of my keyword search string. I do that because Tom always uses his name in his posts. That usually reduces the number of hits although I have often found that the PMQTT search engine will for some reason ignore some terms in the search string such that you end up with hundreds of hits. I also use Lehmann as part of the search string on our forum when I am looking for his posts since Tom uses his name in all of his posts on our forum too. And that is also why I use other members' names in my posts and also my name. So, if I am looking for something that I previously wrote or wrote to you, I use Peter or Norma as part of the search string. I also sometimes intentionally use certain words or expressions in my posts, or I remember odd or unusual wording in my posts or of other members, just to make it easier to find them later in my searches by using those words. I also remember members' misspellings (especially those of Marco) and use such misspellings in my search string. Sometimes a word is so unusual, that the search string may only include that one word. However, one of the problems in using one word is that our search engine can't function properly with one word or it turns up fewer hits than it should. For example, if I use the term FDA, I will get only one hit when I know that there are a lot more. I also use pdf or .org when I am looking for a pdf or government document. As you can see, you have to become creative in your search skills.

I mentioned semi-geriatric dough because it has a large amount of fermentation byproducts, which usually translate into more crust flavors. That is why I mentioned doing some experimentation. Some fermentation byproducts might produce "off" flavors that you don't want.

Your mentioning of baguette flavors reminded me of times where I got such flavors as a result of using bread-making techniques. As I mentioned at Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10160.msg88866/topicseen.html#msg88866, and at other places on the forum, I am not particularly enamored of baguette crust flavors in pizza, although I like if for breads. Of course, others may feel otherwise.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Whenever I want to find something at the PMQTT that Tom has written--which is usually dough related for me for the most part--I use the name Lehmann as part of my keyword search string. I do that because Tom always uses his name in his posts. That usually reduces the number of hits although I have often found that the PMQTT search engine will for some reason ignore some terms in the search string such that you end up with hundreds of hits. I also use Lehmann as part of the search string on our forum when I am looking for his posts since Tom uses his name in all of his posts on our forum too. And that is also why I use other members' names in my posts and also my name. So, if I am looking for something that I previously wrote or wrote to you, I use Peter or Norma as part of the search string. I also sometimes intentionally use certain words or expressions in my posts, or I remember odd or unusual wording in my posts or of other members, just to make it easier to find them later in my searches by using those words. I also remember members' misspellings (especially those of Marco) and use such misspellings in my search string. Sometimes a word is so unusual, that the search string may only include that one word. However, one of the problems in using one word is that our search engine can't function properly with one word or it turns up fewer hits than it should. For example, if I use the term FDA, I will get only one hit when I know that there are a lot more. I also use pdf or .org when I am looking for a pdf or government document. As you can see, you have to become creative in your search skills.

I mentioned semi-geriatric dough because it has a large amount of fermentation byproducts, which usually translate into more crust flavors. That is why I mentioned doing some experimentation. Some fermentation byproducts might produce "off" flavors that you don't want.

Your mentioning of baguette flavors reminded me of times where I got such flavors as a result of using bread-making techniques. As I mentioned at Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10160.msg88866/topicseen.html#msg88866, and at other places on the forum, I am not particularly enamored of baguette crust flavors in pizza, although I like if for breads. Of course, others may feel otherwise.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for your help if I try to search for something on PMQTT.  I will try your ideas out the next time I am searching for something at PMQTT.  I don’t have a lot of problems searching for something here on the forum, but sometimes it does take me awhile to find what I want.  I know if I go to a certain thread and want to find something that is posted on that thread, I can just type in certain words (above in the search function in that thread) that might have been in that thread.  That method helps me if the thread is really long.  Usually that can bring up what I was hunting for.  I know I have used your name Pete-zza many times in the advanced search for something you might have posted about and also other members names if I can recall certain words they used.  I will try to be creative in searching in the future.

I understand what you mean about semi-geriatric dough now since you explained it to me.

Thanks for your link where you posted about the baguette crust flavors in a pizza.  I sure didn’t notice the baguette crust flavor until there was a reheat.  I see you did achieve almost a baguette crust flavor at Reply 362 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg23239.html#msg23239 using a biga. 

I see you also experimented with the “old dough” method, which you posted about how to do that at Reply 1 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4764.msg40475.html#msg40475 then from your post saw Marco’s post at Reply 10 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,861.msg8679.html#msg8679  I really don’t understand about using the “old dough” method and then posting about using the “mother dough” method.  I really don’t understand the “mother dough” method either, but might play around with those methods someday.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

In the "old dough" discussion, I was essentially paraphrasing what I read from Didier Rosada's article at http://web.archive.org/web/20040814193817/cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food3_apr2004.htm that I had printed out some time ago. Normally, I would have cited the article but for a time the Rosada articles disappeared. Thanks to Toby (of Nearlypolitan fame), I found the articles using the Wayback Machine.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

In the "old dough" discussion, I was essentially paraphrasing what I read from Didier Rosada's article at http://web.archive.org/web/20040814193817/cafemeetingplace.com/archives/food3_apr2004.htm that I had printed out some time ago. Normally, I would have cited the article but for a time the Rosada articles disappeared. Thanks to Toby (of Nearlypolitan fame), I found the articles using the Wayback Machine.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the link to where Didier Rosada talks about pre-fermented dough or an old dough.  I guess I could not use that method because Didier Rosada says:

“The storage of the pre-fermented dough at low temperature (35 - 40°) could last up to 48 hours”.

That wouldn’t work for me because I would need 3 days of pre-fermented dough at a lower temperature, unless I would like to try fermenting the regular dough (made with white flour, water, yeast, and salt) for 3 hrs., before incorporating it into the final dough.  That would make my Mondays too long at market and I might also have some problems with temperature fluctuations.

It is good your found the articles thanks to Toby using the Wayback Machine.  I do recall Toby fondly.   

Norma

[norma427]

There were two batches made today with unfrozen dough balls.  The first batch I added two unfrozen dough balls and the second batch had 3 unfrozen dough balls added.  The second picture is of the 3 unfrozen dough balls used for the second batch.  I don’t know why my batches of dough felt sticker than last week when adding the unfrozen dough balls.  It could have been that last week was a lot cooler at market and there was a lot less humidity.  I am not sure of that though.  The temperature today at market was 87 degrees F and the humidity was 80%.   

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

These are a few pictures of some of the pizzas that were made yesterday with the unfrozen dough balls mixed in.  These sure were not the best looking pizzas made yesterday.

I think the added unfrozen dough balls did up the flavor a little.  The only problem of doing this experiment again next week is I only had one leftover dough ball at the end of the day from all the dough balls that were made on Monday.  It was raining heavily most of yesterday and that brought a lot more people inside market and then that made us really busy.  If Randy wouldn’t have stopped by and done the dishes for us, I don’t know how we would have gotten them done.

Norma

[norma427]

This is how one dough ball looks (in the plastic bag) in the second picture about mid-afternoon that was ready to be made into a pizza.

Norma

[norma427]

I posted somewhat about this on the “epoxy thread”, but I am starting to believe that humidity does play more into how a final pizza turns out in preparing the dough.  I have talked to Steve about this many times, but find it interesting even when using different flours (straight Kyrol and a mix of Kyrol and KASL) all my pizzas yesterday were easier to open the doughs balls and seemed to have better browning on the rims.  The pizzas even looked the same using either Kyrol or the blend of Kryol and KASL.  These two pictures really don’t show what happened yesterday, (and I didn’t think to take more pictures) but Steve and I did notice most of all the pizzas from yesterday had dough balls that were easier to open and the final pizzas browned better.  Just from these pictures it really can’t be seen by the naked eye what the pizzas really looked like in person, because my cheaper camera doesn’t do the best job in capturing how they look.

I wonder just how much humidity does come into play when mixing dough and then how the final pizza will turn out if everything else is almost constant (like final dough temperature, same formulation, same amount of time mixing, etc).  I have been wondering about this for a long while.  I know other members report that in  higher elevations they need higher hydrations for their dough, but wonder how important humidity is too just when mixing the same formulation.  I am going to watch more and maybe even record what the humidity is when I make some regular Lehmann dough batches.  

Norma  

[norma427]

I sure had problems with my regular Lehmann dough pizzas yesterday, and after thinking it over for a little while yesterday, contribute it to the high heat at market (about 90 to 94 degrees F), the low humidity, and the fans blowing to keep Steve and myself a little cooler.   I never had skins that dried out so fast as yesterday.  The dough balls felt exactly the same when they were taken out of the plastic bags, but while even attempting to open them, they became so dried, that until they were finished being opened the edges and the middle of the skin had small cracks in the skin.  The resulting pizzas then didn’t bake the same, as they seemed to have smaller rims or not as much oven spring.  I commented to Steve so many times about this and got him to feel the skins.  After a little while I decided to open the dough balls cold right out of the pizza fridge to see what would happen.  Much to my delight they opened without the skin becoming too dry.  I sure really don’t know what was going on with the dough balls and the skins being dry, but had tried dough balls from 3 batches of doughs I had made and the all acted the same.  The rest of the day the dough balls were opened right from the cold state. 

I know it probably can’t be told from these pictures, but the first pizza was with a dry skin and the second two pizzas were made with the cold dough balls.  The one last picture was of a skin that got dry when I tried to let it warm-up a little and had a few customers to wait on. It also quickly dried out, even when it was opened cold.  It probably isn’t the best picture to show how dry the skin was, but it was really dry.

I guess there is always something new to learn about the same dough and working in different temperatures with different humidity’s. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

This post is just to express that I still think humidity does play some kind of role in how pizzas turn out when using the same formulation.  I had wondered, and was very curious, of why my preferment Lehmann dough pizzas and doughs weren’t anyways the same week to week though out the year.  Since I have no been playing around with a basic Lehmann dough for a little while, I also see the same thing.

Last week it was hot and there was a much lower humidity at market.  The dough balls when trying to open them dried out so fast, which had never happened for me before.  I ended up opening the dough ball right out of the deli case without a warm-up  This week it also was fairly hot, (but not as hot, around 90 degrees inside at my stand) and the humidity was much higher and there was no kind of problems with dry skins when opening the dough balls, even with the fans blowing the same as last week.  My thermometer with humidity isn’t exactly correct, so I don’t want to post the humidity from yesterday inside my stand, but I know it was higher than last week.  The dough balls could sit out for up to 2 hrs. for warm-up and they worked fine.  

The resulting pizzas also turned out different even using the same formulation.  

I still have not figured out what role humidity does play in how dough balls behave when opening them, or the final pizzas do differ, but just wanted to post if someone else has problems with their dough balls and final pizzas maybe humidity does play a role.  I believe most members that make pizzas at home would not see these differences, but since I work in so many different kinds of temperatures and humidity’s at market, I think I might see more changes then other members.  I still have no conclusions, or really can’t do anything about what temperature or humidity it is at market, so I just watch and try to learn what might happen.  Maybe, it wasn’t even the preferment Lehmann dough that seemed to give me problems sometimes, but might have been the humidity.

I also used the same formulation for the Lehmann dough and replaced the oil with MFB.  For some reason (I think Steve said there was some sauce on the end of the peel), but there was a loading error when he went to slide the pizza into the oven.  The pizza almost ended up heart shaped.   I am not posting the results of that test, but will try to do the test again next week.  I want to see what MFB will do as a replacement for the olive oil I am using in the final pizza.  

These pictures weren’t of the best looking pizzas made yesterday, but just some to show how some of the pizzas turned out yesterday.  

Norma