Where's Randy's recipe?

[dark_angel04]

Hello people, it is me, several dozen tests after..... I have tried diferent things, when I followed instructions exactly I got a hell of a pie, great flavor, crust just the way I like it, I would say it was almost a perfect pie,  I apologize I coud not take pictures of it.  The problems start when I try to to this same recipe in bigger quantities, I do not get the same results, what I did is I multiply everything by 10 and tried to do a bigger batch, but I have done three of them and I don't seem to get it right.  Is this the right way to increase ingredients to do a bigger batch or what is the right way.

For water temp, I am using a formula that I got from Roma which is that to get a 90 degree dough, multiply 90 by 3=270 then subtract the air temp., mixture temp and subtract the friction factor which I am using 30 so then.... for example.

90 X 3 = 270 minus air temp 66, minus mixture temp., 65 minus friction factor 30 equals 109 and that is my water temp.

[Pete-zza]

dark_angel04,

To be sure we are talking about the same dough recipe, can you tell us precisely which dough recipe you have been using?

Also, can you explain the nature of the differences you have been experiencing with the larger dough batches? There is a notion that in increasing dough batch size the amount of yeast should be reduced. See, for example, this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3463.msg29335.html#msg29335. Some dough recipes scale up well linearly whereas others may require lowering the yeast quantity as described in the abovereferenced thread. But there can be other factors at play. That is why I am interested in knowing what the differences were between the small and large dough batch sizes. If you can post your numbers for the large dough batch size (ingredients and quantities), that might also be helpful. If you are using volume measurements, they may be off.

My recollection is that you are starting a new pizza business in Mexico. If that is correct and you will be using a commercial stand mixer, such as a Hobart, then you may want to rework the dough preparation processes to be compatible with your mixer. In that case, I think you will also want to use a lower finished dough temperature. I would say that 75-80 degrees F is a better number to use, but that may depend on what you have been doing with the recipe.

Peter

[dark_angel04]

Ok, I used this recipe, Randy's recipe the one posted here above.  I think I may be using volume measurements and that may be it.  I also changed the water temp.  The last batch I did was as follows:

160 oz. of Luigi flour
98 oz of water
10 TBSP sugar
10 TBSP honey
10 TBSP Extra virgin olive oil
14 teaspoons of salt
15 teaspoons of Fleischmann's IDY

SOme of the problems I found was the dough was very sticky and it was taking a long time for the dough to pulls from the sides of the bowl so I added some more flour.  I also think that the dough may have been overmixed.  Dough was hard to handle once out of the mixer.  After 24 hours on the fridge the dough balls were a little bigger (yeast??? heheh) than the previous ones and the dough was elastic and hard to handle (they might have been a little cold) but they were out of the fridge on room temp for 3 hours.

The mixer that we got is a CRT, not a very known brand but it was $1,300 for a new 20 quart mixer.

We opened this past Saturday, we have been using my dad's old recipe only that we are doing the dough at night and let it sit on the fridge for 12 hours and the choice of the other ingredients (Sauce and cheese) made a tremendous improvement on our old recipe, but that's not where I want to get.  People is already loving the pizza and they started talking, so that can only get better....


In a past post I said that our oven could go to easily to 800 - 900 degrees F, pizza was done in 2 minutes, to my taste I did not like that.  I am trying to keep it between 480 to 550 degrees F and cook it a little longer, cheese melts better, pepperoni gets crunchier, green pepper cooks better.... and the crust gets that golden color that we all like and it is a little crisoy on the outside.

These are my initial thoughts, but I am looving all of this, the whole process of it and the learning experience.

Thanks again for your help.

[Pete-zza]

dark_angel04,

Thanks for the additional information.

I will play around with the dough formulation you used and convert it to baker's percents so that I can analyze it better. I noticed that you made a couple of changes. One is the Luigi flour. That is not a flour with which I am familiar. Can you tell me what kind of flour it is, its protein content if you know it, and who the supplier is (Roma maybe)? You also reduced the salt level when you scaled up the dough recipe. Was that intentional and, if so, why did you change the level?

The basic dough recipe can be used to make a single 16"-18" pizza or two 12" pizzas. What size are you using?

Can you tell me how you managed the dough once it came off of the hook, that is, how you divided and scaled the dough, and whether you cross-stacked and down-stacked the trays of dough balls while in the cooler/refrigerator?

Peter

[Randy]

Peter, the latest version I posted yesterday will work better than the old recipe.  If he isn't using high gluten then the amount of flour should be added to get the pull away.  Another important point is my recipe I expect to pick up a bit flour during the initial shaping after kneading.  This will yield a dough that has a hard time standing up under its own weight.
Hope this helps.

Randy

[dark_angel04]

Ok, my bad I used 20 teaspoons of salt, 14 was en earlier batch that I made a little bit smaller.

Luigi is indeed from Roma and it is a High Gluten flour I am not sure what the protein content on it is, but I will ask Roma tomorrow.

I am using it to do dough balls, I cut and then form into a ball, I put them on a individual containers sailed or on a tray and then cover them with a plastic bag.  For a 12" pizza I cut into 11oz and for a 16" I cut a 18.5 oz.

Individual containers yes, I stack them only one on top of another and the tray had nothing on top.

[Pete-zza]

dark_angel04,

I will deal first with the dough recipe posted in this thread and with Randy’s latest recipe in a separate post.

If my math and calculations were correct, I scaled up the dough recipe in this thread by a factor of 10 and got the following:

Bread Flour (100%):              4536.01 g  |  160 oz | 10 lbs
Water (61.25%):                   2778.3 g  |  98 oz | 6.13 lbs
Salt (2.46%):                        111.59 g | 3.94 oz | 0.25 lbs | 6.66 tbsp
IDY (0.996%):                      45.18 g | 1.59 oz | 0.1 lbs | 5 tbsp
Oil (3.09%):                         140.16 g | 4.94 oz | 0.31 lbs | 10.0 tbsp
Sugar (2.64%):                   119.8 g | 4.22 oz | 0.26 lbs | 10 tbsp
Honey (4.62%):                   210.0 g | 7.41 oz | 0.46 lbs | 10 tbsp
Total (175.056%):               7940.55 g | 280.10 oz | 17.51 lbs | TF = N/A

Since you indicated that you have tried on several occasions to make the larger amount of dough without complete success, I will assume that you properly scaled up all of the ingredients. However, now you have weights if you would like to try them in a future dough batch.

Based on what you have said, I think the first thing I would do is to temperature adjust the formula water to achieve a finished dough temperature of around 70-75 degrees F. Next, I would check the instructions for your new mixer and see if there are instructions that tell you how much dough can be mixed in the machine at one time and also if there are instructions that tell you how to combine the ingredients and for how long to mix and knead them and at what speeds. I am not familiar with your brand of mixer but some 20 qt. mixers cannot handle almost 18 pounds of dough. At around 61% hydration, you might be right on the cusp for a high-gluten dough, so I would double check the instructions for your particular machine. You don’t want to overknead the dough and you don’t want the heat of friction to increase the finished dough temperature above the range recommended above. I would also get the dough balls into their containers and into the cooler/refrigerator as soon as possible once they have been shaped and rounded. You should wipe the dough balls with a bit of oil before putting them into the containers.

If the above general instructions do not solve the problem, then I would consider reducing the amount of yeast and possibly doing likewise with the sugar and honey and the salt. To the best of my knowledge, Randy’s recipe was not designed for commercial applications and, at almost 1% IDY, the yeast is just about at the max for IDY for a standard dough formulation. You will note when you see Randy’s latest dough formulation that he has already reduced the amount of yeast substantially. You should also keep in mind that honey contains about 17% water. So, the dough may feel on the wet side, although the increase in total hydration is less than 1%, to around 62%, which is a proper hydration value for a high-gluten flour.

Good luck.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

darkangel_04,

In case you are interested, Randy's latest American style dough recipe is posted here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4284.msg35778.html#msg35778 (Reply 2).

I calculated the baker's percents for that recipe as follows:

!00%, Flour (22 oz.)
61.8%, Water (13.6 oz.)
5.13%, Raw sugar (8 t.)
4.49%, Honey (4 t.)
2.99%, Oil (4 t.)
2.01%, Salt (2 1/4 t.)
0.604%, Yeast ( 1 1/4 t.)

Many of the comments and suggestions in my last post will apply to this dough formulation also.

Peter

[dark_angel04]

ok, thanks a lot for your help, I will try all your advice and post results later today.  I also got a digital camera and I will take pictures of everything I can.

[dark_angel04]

Hello people, back with some results.  I was wayyyyy off with flour measurement.  I wasn't putting enough flour on it.  It came out of the mixer at about 95 degrees F, air temp and flour temp were kinda hot air=85.5 and flour temp=85.6.  But it came out of the mixer very easy to handle, let's see after 24 hours how does it look. 

I had to do only one speed on the mixer, I did everything on speed 1, once I switched to 2 it seemed like the mixer was getting forced and making strange noises.  I contacted the mixer distributor, but the idiots now nothing about it.  I sent an e-mail to the manufacturer, have not gotten an answer yet.

Anyway, I think we will be ok, with this dough, I felt very comfortable with it.    Question, why does it matter how hot it comes out of the mixer if I am going to put it right away on the fridge?

i will post some pictures tomorrow, it is kinda late here and I got to open tomorrow.... fun to have your own business ahhhh.... hehehe

[Pete-zza]

darkangel_04,

If I were you, I would invest in an instant read thermometer if you don’t have one, and temperature adjust your water to achieve the desired finished dough temperature. To do this most accurately, you will want to determine the friction factor for your particular mixer. The way to calculate the required water temperature and also to determine the friction factor for your mixer are discussed in this article: http://www.pmq.com/mag/2003spring/tom_lehmann.shtml. Once you learn how to control the temperature of the finished dough, you will find that your doughs will behave in a more consistent manner.

As to your question, when you are making only a few dough balls, whether in a home environment or a commercial environment, they will cool down fairly quickly in the cooler/refrigerator. But if you are making a large number of dough balls, they will take longer to cool down. If the finished dough temperature is high, and especially if a lot of yeast was used, the dough balls start to ferment fairly quickly and can become gassy as they expand. As a result, they behave like insulators and can take much longer to cool down. At some point down the line, usually sooner than you’d like, the dough balls can overferment (overrise) and lead to problems with dough management. That is why it is important to master the process of achieving the desired finished dough temperature. It will make your life easier. As you will note from the article referenced above, you don’t have to become overly scientific about the process. There are less technical ways of accomplishing the same results for those who may not be handy with working with numbers.

I might add that the instructions for some mixers do not recommend higher speeds for bread/pizza doughs. So you may want to see if those instructions apply to your particular mixer.

Good luck with your opening. I look forward to the photos.

Peter

[dark_angel04]

You were right, the dough became huge even in the fridge, when I came in the next morning it was twice as big.  I made one yesterday and it was beautiful, I put some ice in the water, so the water was at 38°F, the dough came out of the mixer at 71°F, very easy to handle.  This morning it was a little bigger than last night but not that much... oh by the way I did not do dough balls this time, I put the whole batch in a plastic bag and left some room for expanding.  My friction factor came out about 11.  I will get you the pictures tomorrow, I forgot the USB cable at home 

[dark_angel04]

ok guys, sorry about the hugeee delay, but I have been loaded, plus my digital camera broke, so I had to buy a new one.  Anyway, here are some pictures...

The pizza shown here is half (Pepperoni, ham, bacon, franks and ground beef) and the other half is my Bianca pizza which has Ranch instead of tomato sauce, chicken breast, bacon, green pepper)

[Pete-zza]

I realize that this thread has not been active in some while but, for those who have stumbled onto this thread or are otherwise interested, the original Randy Papa John's dough clone recipe can be found at this thread: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5721.0.html.

Peter