the progress of the regular Lehmann dough for market

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

If anyone is interested, I used a regular Lehmann dough from this thread and put it into a small steel pan to make a Sicilian pizza.

I posted those results at:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21198.new.html

Norma

[eiram21]

If anyone is interested, I used a regular Lehmann dough from this thread and put it into a small steel pan to make a Sicilian pizza.

I posted those results at:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21198.new.html

Norma

Oh, looks good, Norma! My husband likes the thicker stuff sometimes, so I'll try this in the winter. Thanks for sharing

Marie

[norma427]

Oh, looks good, Norma! My husband likes the thicker stuff sometimes, so I'll try this in the winter. Thanks for sharing

Marie

Marie,

I am glad your husband likes the thicker pies sometimes.  I am going to try and make a little thinner pizza this coming Tuesday.  The pizza was a little too thick, at least for me.

Norma

[norma427]

I sure don’t know what happened to my different batches of regular Lehmann dough today at market today.  I measured all the ingredients out on the scale and then mixed.  I could tell my dough was way too sticky.  I had to add a lot of extra flour to my first batch and then it was even sticky.  I scaled, balled and oiled the dough balls anyway and put them into the fridge.  I then mixed another dough batch, but a smaller one.  The same thing happened to that batch, but it wasn’t as bad as the first batch.  I then mixed another smaller batch, because I couldn’t figure out what I might be doing wrong.  The third batch came out like the second batch.  The second and third batches also needed extra flour.  I sure hope the dough balls are useable tomorrow, because if they aren’t, I am in trouble.    I thought after mixing the first batch I had made a measuring error, either with the water or flour, but after making two more batches, don’t really think I did.  I didn’t have time to mix another batch to see what would happen.   

The only thing I know is I opened a new bag of flour.  I sure wouldn’t think that would make that much of a difference. 

Norma

[norma427]

At least my dough did work out okay even though I still don’t know what went wrong and I sure have no idea how much extra flour I added to the batches of dough.  The dough was super soft and opened very easily. These are a few pictures of the flour.  It sure feels very fine in texture.  Steve even said the Kyrol  flour felt like Caputo flour.  I gave Steve some of the Kyrol flour to take home and test.  Steve and I tasted slices and they were good.  Thank goodness the pies were okay today.

Norma 

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Chicago Bob]

Norma,
Do the people at Kyrol sell/bag different types of flour at their plant? Maybe you got a misbagged ? Your pies sure look good though(as always).
Are those cherry tomato's from your garden...nice pie!

[norma427]

Norma,
Do the people at Kyrol sell/bag different types of flour at their plant? Maybe you got a misbagged ? Your pies sure look good though(as always).
Are those cherry tomato's from your garden...nice pie!

Bob,

ConAgra Mills does sell different kinds of flours that can be seen at this link, and the many different kinds on the left side if you click on them.  http://www.conagramills.com/our_products/our_products.jsp   I sure have no idea if they might have miss bagged my bag of Kyrol flour or not.  If I have time, maybe this weekend, I might do a wet gluten mass test on some flour that is left in the same bag I used.  I sure don’t want to go though the same thing next week.

I had a few leftover frozen dough balls from last week and those doughs sure didn’t open like the one I mixed yesterday. 

The grape tomatoes I purchased at market, but the peppers were from my garden.  Thanks for saying the pies looked good. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

From what you recently posted, it sounds to me that you either got a bad bag of flour or it required that you adjust your dough formulation to adapt to the variations in the flour. In this respect, you might recall how John Fazzari frequently discussed how he had to constantly adjust his dough formulation from bag to bag of flour.

As you noted! ConAgra mills many different flours in its plants. However, I have never read of any instance where a particular flour milled by one of the majors in the industry ended up in the wrong bag.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

From what you recently posted, it sounds to me that you either got a bad bag of flour or it required that you adjust your dough formulation to adapt to the variations in the flour. In this respect, you might recall how John Fazzari frequently discussed how he had to constantly adjust his dough formulation from bag to bag of flour.

Peter

Peter,

I didn’t recall John posting about getting bad bags of flour and how he had to constantly adjust his dough formulation from bag to bag of flour.  I guess I could have gotten a bad bag of flour.  I had purchased two bags at the same time, but didn’t open the second one yet.  I sure don’t want to adjust my dough formulation each time to adapt to the variations in the flour.  I think I was lucky that the dough worked out as well as it did with me just throwing in extra flour.  I was also concerned I was going to overmix the dough, but I guess that didn’t happen. 

What do you suggest I do?  I don’t want that mess again next week and not being sure I will have dough I can use the next day.

Norma 

[Chicago Bob]

Norma,

From what you recently posted, it sounds to me that you either got a bad bag of flour or it required that you adjust your dough formulation to adapt to the variations in the flour. In this respect, you might recall how John Fazzari frequently discussed how he had to constantly adjust his dough formulation from bag to bag of flour.

As you noted! ConAgra mills many different flours in its plants. However, I have never read of any instance where a particular flour milled by one of the majors in the industry ended up in the wrong bag.

Peter

Peter,
What would constitute a "bad bag of flour" ?
Norma said that EV felt the grind was similar to Caputo.
I remember John stating that he has to stay on top of his flour almost on a daily basis...what is this detail subject to exactly..hydration/absorption rate? Are these variances easily noticed by feel/sight? Thanks.

[Pete-zza]

I didn’t recall John posting about getting bad bags of flour and how he had to constantly adjust his dough formulation from bag to bag of flour.  I guess I could have gotten a bad bag of flour.  I had purchased two bags at the same time, but didn’t open the second one yet.  I sure don’t want to adjust my dough formulation each time to adapt to the variations in the flour.  I think I was lucky that the dough worked out as well as it did with me just throwing in extra flour.  I was also concerned I was going to overmix the dough, but I guess that didn’t happen. 

What do you suggest I do?  I don’t want that mess again next week and not being sure I will have dough I can use the next day.

Norma,

My comments on John's experiences with flour variations was intended to apply only to normal flour variations that can occur from lot to lot. A good example of John's discussion on this point can be found in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5867.msg50238.html#msg50238.

From what I have read, some variations in flours from lot to lot are to be expected. Some of these variations, and also some of their effects on dough made using such flours, are mentioned in the thread referenced above. It is hard to say that your bag of flour is bad but recently members tscaife and Larry (thezaman) apparently got bad bags of flour, as was discussed in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21139.msg212577.html#msg212577, and a while back member bakerboy (Barry) experienced a problem with his flour, as he noted in Reply 71 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18075.msg188283.html#msg188283.

In your case, you might check with your supplier to see if he has been getting complaints or inquiries from other users about the flours that they have been receiving recently from that supplier. Or you might simply say that your flour is not performing properly and ask for replacement flour.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

What would constitute a "bad bag of flour" ?

Bob,

Some examples of bad flour that I can recall off the top of my head include flours that have excessive moisture content, flours that are old and stale, flours that have excessive starch damage, flours that have excessive pest content/damage, and flours that are "green". Flours that are materially out of spec might also be considered to be bad to the extent they adversely affect dough performance.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

My comments on John's experiences with flour variations was intended to apply only to normal flour variations that can occur from lot to lot. A good example of John's discussion on this point can be found in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5867.msg50238.html#msg50238.

From what I have read, some variations in flours from lot to lot are to be expected. Some of these variations, and also some of their effects on dough made using such flours, are mentioned in the thread referenced above. It is hard to say that your bag of flour is bad but recently members tscaife and Larry (thezaman) apparently got bad bags of flour, as was discussed in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21139.msg212577.html#msg212577, and a while back member bakerboy (Barry) experienced a problem with his flour, as he noted in Reply 71 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18075.msg188283.html#msg188283.

In your case, you might check with your supplier to see if he has been getting complaints or inquiries from other users about the flours that they have been receiving recently from that supplier. Or you might simply say that your flour is not performing properly and ask for replacement flour.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the links about the different flour problems from John, tscaife, Larry, and Bakerboy.  I recall some of those posts.  I know the Power flour also was clumpy, but that flour didn’t seem to give me any problems, but then I wasn’t mixing in larger batches.

Your idea is good to check with my supplier to see if there are any other complaints with Kyrol recently.

Norma

[norma427]

I called my local supplier of Kyrol flour today and she told me no one else complained about the Kyrol flour being different.  She said the one customers does mix the Kyrol in with other flours for pretzels, so that maybe is why he didn’t notice any differences.  He purchases Kyrol flour in pallets.  She also said another customer purchases Kryol flour in pallets for buns and he gets a pallet of Kyrol flour every week.  She said he isn’t in any more today, but she would check with him if he is having any problems with the Kyrol flour.  I have no idea of how the dough formulation would be for buns.  I will wait and see if I get a call back.

I told the lady at my local supplier that I do use baker’s percents in my formulation for my pizzas.  I also told the lady I had purchased the 2 bags of Kyrol flour last Friday.

Norma

[norma427]

I sure don’t know what the heck is going on, but I call my supplier of Kyrol flour again this morning.  Another customer service lady helped me and said no one had reported any problems with the Kyrol flour.  She even talked to the other lady that I spoke to last week. 

Steve had made 3 dough balls with the Kyrol flour for his brew club and pizza party on Saturday, but no one had time to bake them, or they didn’t pick them to be baked, so I don’t know what would have happened with them.  I don’t know if Steve did anything with those dough balls or not.  Steve did say he had to use a lower hydration when using the Kyrol flour though and also said the Kyrol flour did feel like Caputo flour to him too.

I was about half afraid to go though this same drill this week and not have my doughs right.  I always measure out my flour, water, IDY, salt, sugar, and olive oil on my digital scales.  I know how high the water is supposed to be in the plastic container I use to measure water and also how high the flour should be in the Cambro container.  I wondered what I should do this week.  For the first big batch I did use less water initially, but had to add all the water to make the dough feel right before I added the olive oil.  The flour felt a lot more clumpy this week than last and I sure don’t know what caused that change, but that is how it usually feels.  I always measure out each ingredient in containers like they are shown in the pictures below.  I then add the water, then the flour and next the IDY, salt, sugar in 3 places on the flour.  After the dough is mixed to take up the water, then I add the olive oil.  All this only takes about 5-6 minutes to mix my regular doughs in the Hobart on speed one.  Everything went well today and I sure can’t understand why I had problems last week, but I sure am happy everything went well today.  My dough balls are always scaled to 1.124 lbs., then balled and oiled, before going into the plastic bags.  My TF on my print out sheet and what I usually use to weigh out my dough balls aren’t the same.  I get 18 dough balls out of this size batch with a little extra dough leftover.

These are pictures of two doughs I mixed and the formulation I use for 18 dough balls, if anyone is interested.  If there are any questions, just ask.  I thought I would take pictures of the process in case something went wrong again, so maybe someone could help me with what went wrong.  Pictures of the flour this week too and how it has the clumps now like always.  The second batch I just mixed the whole amount of water in the beginning of the mix.  I only took pictures of the two batches. 

Does anyone have any explanations about what could have happened last week?  That is still a mystery to me and has me stumped.   

It was a lot cooler at market today (50 degrees F) and I had to turn on the little disc heater.

There is also a picture of the new disc shedder that I purchased a few weeks ago for the Pelican head.  It is the same size shedder that I had before, but it is a lot sharper so it grates the cheese better and finer.

Norma