Dough calculator

[BigSausagePizza]

I normally use a preferment in my pizza dough. I ordered some malt and sour buttermilk powder I'm trying to incorporate into it. The problem is that the extended dough calculator does not have a preferment option in it and I can't properly enter the new percentages into it. Would it be possible to come up with an extended preferment calculator? or simply add a preferment option into the existing one?

[Pete-zza]

Doron,

There is a preferment dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/preferment_calculator.html but it is intended mainly to be used with natural preferments, such as are frequently used to make Neapolitan and other doughs that are based on using starters. At the time that the various dough calculating tools were being designed, we (me and member Boy Hits Car) gave considerable thought to coming up with a more traditional preferment calculating tool. However, because there are so many different types of preferments (e.g., poolish, biga, sponge, old dough, etc.), with so many variations in terms of ingredients and procedures, we concluded that it would have been a nightmare to design and program to embrace all of the possibilities. Moreover, all of the dough calculating tools are no longer alterable since Boy Hits Car left his place of employment where he had access to the programming and other tools he needed to do the software design.

When I help others with dough formulations calling for traditional preferments, I do so the old fashioned way, by hand and calculator and a pad of paper. 

Peter

[BigSausagePizza]

I understand. What I mean wast to simply add a preferment option to the existing expanded calculation tool. So that you can enter all those extra ingredients available there into your formula. Say, my formula usually calls for:

623g Caputo  |  100%
415g Starter  |   50%
291g Water   |   60%
17g  K. Salt   |    2%
8g  Molasses |     1%
4g  Evoo       |    0.5%
1/2 tsp IDY   |    0.2%

I simply want to add malt powder and/or buttermilk powder to this recipe. I can't because the preferment option is not available on the expanded calculation tool. If I do this by hand ans calculator i'll have to figure out how much weight from the total recipe the new ingredients hold and recalculate all the other ingredients which is a pain the ass. I'm not saying create a whole new calculation with different preferment options. This one is just fine. You specify how much starter you want and the starter's hydration level. Perfect. Nothing else needs to be added. The only thing that would be helpful is to have it available on the expanded calculation tool so that you can calculate all those exotic ingredients into your dough should  you wish to. However, since access to editing softwares is not longer available it doesn't matter. Anyway, thanks for the response.

[Pete-zza]

Doron,

I don't know if this will help you but what I will sometimes do is to use an unused entry block in the expanded dough calculating tool for an item that is not in the list. For example, if I want to add malt powder and dried buttermilk to a dough formulation, neither of which is among the items listed in the expanded dough calculating tool, I will use, say, the barley malt syrup and fresh buttermilk blocks as proxies. Doing that will give the weights of the malt powder and dried buttermilk correctly, but the volume numbers will not be correct. So, I just delete the volume measurements in the final presentation or else I calculate the weight-to-volume conversions for those ingredients and then use those volume numbers. Usually, I correct the text of the output presentation to reflect the added ingredients.

Peter

[BigSausagePizza]

I'm pretty sure malt powder and dried buttermilk are the bottom left entries in the list. diagnostic malt powder and buttermilk, dried respectively. That's a good idea, however. It still doesn't really fix my problem of my trying to accurately incorporate those ingredients into my preferment formula. What I can do is like you said, get off my arse and get a pen and paper. I'm making dough the old fashioned way (with a few twists) so why no calculate it the old fashioned way? Powders are very light and used sparingly. I don't think adding a few grams without considering the % of the total weight will hurt me that much. I simply will calculate the % of the flour weight myself. Maybe I'll post my results in the pizza making thread and you or someone else can help me from there.

[Pete-zza]

Doron,

I assumed that you would be using nondiastatic malt powder rather than diastatic malt but I completely missed the dried buttermilk powder. I remember studying recipes all over the place to come up with a comprehensive list of ingredients for the expanded dough calculating tool that our members were likely to use (as opposed to the chemical types of ingredients that many professionals use). Even then, we missed some.

You are correct that your dilemma is not solved by my suggestion. You will have to use the brute force method.

Peter

[parallei]

.

[Pete-zza]

Paul,

Nice job.

I sometimes use the method you described, along with some math and calculations, so that I can use the expanded dough calculating tool to improve the formatting of the data. An example can be seen at Reply 95 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11994.msg124161.html#msg124161. In that case, it was Brian Spangler's now famous dough recipe that he uses at Apizza Scholls.

Peter

[BigSausagePizza]

Good call parallei. It's much easier than it seems once you break it down.

My formula according to the expanded calculator calls for:

Flour (100%):    809.86 g  |  28.57 oz | 1.79 lbs
Water (60%):    485.91 g  |  17.14 oz | 1.07 lbs
IDY (0.2%):    1.62 g | 0.06 oz | 0 lbs | 0.54 tsp | 0.18 tbsp
Salt (2%):    16.2 g | 0.57 oz | 0.04 lbs | 3.37 tsp | 1.12 tbsp
Olive Oil (0.5%):    4.05 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.9 tsp | 0.3 tbsp
Molasses (1%):    8.1 g | 0.29 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.17 tsp | 0.39 tbsp
Diastatic Malt Powder (0.33%):    2.67 g | 0.09 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.11 tsp | 0.04 tbsp
Buttermilk, dry (4%):    32.39 g | 1.14 oz | 0.07 lbs | 5.4 tbsp | 0.34 cups
Total (168.03%):   1360.8 g | 48 oz | 3 lbs | TF = N/A
Single Ball:   453.6 g | 16 oz | 1 lb

50% preferment = 809.86 x .5 = 404.93
50% hydration = 404.93 x .5 = 202.5
new flour weight = 809.86 - 202.5 = 607.36
new water weight = 485.91 - 202.5 = 283.41

So if I'm not mistaken my complete preferment formula would be:

Flour (100%):                        607g
Water (60%):                        283g
Starter (50%):                      405g
Buttermilk, dry (4%):               32g
Salt (2%):                             16g
Molasses (1%):                        8g
Olive Oil (0.5%):                      4g
Diastatic Malt Powder (0.33%):  3g
IDY (o.2%):                          1/2 tsp

Yield: 3 @ 16 oz

Thanks a bunch guys!

[parallei]

So if I'm not mistaken my complete preferment formula would be:

Flour (100%):                        607g
Water (60%):                        283g
Starter (50%):                      405g
Buttermilk, dry (4%):               32g
Salt (2%):                             16g
Molasses (1%):                        8g
Olive Oil (0.5%):                      4g
Diastatic Malt Powder (0.33%):  3g
IDY (o.2%):                          1/2 tsp

Yield: 3 @ 16 oz

Yes Sir, that would be it!  You now have the overall dough you want made with a stater amount that it 50% of the total weight of the flour......and the stater you will use is 50/50 water/flour by weight.  Nice....a final check would be to add the total weight of your completed preferment formula (the one I copied) and make sure it adds up to the expanded dough calculator total weights.  And it does......

[BigSausagePizza]

Didn't think about that one either. Good to know. The powder and buttermilk should be in the mail today. Results coming soon.