Round Table Pizza dough recipe - Part One

[Lydia]

I have a hard time believing that the technique is going to add the same amount of blistering/bubbling to the dough as the real deal. For this, I think there is still something missing in the recipe.

Hey there Dan

I agree somewhat with your statement. There are a few things I've had on my mind while playing with Peter's latest formula RT III (specifically bolded items).

I've been a quite and internal focused lately, so I guess the dam just broke 

Sheet-processing requires the dough pass through an extruder to a set of rollers to achieve a pre-determined thickness. The sheet is then docked, or punched with a pattern of holes, to prevent blistering due to water loss. The sheet is then die-cut to the appropriate diameter.


"The trend to use of impingement ovens allows greater flexibility," Lehmann says. "In these ovens, heat and humidity can be controlled within zones. The entry temperature is lowest and the middle stage has the highest temperature. Moisture can be recycled to the first-stage oven, where it condenses on the cheese. The moisture helps prevent scorching of the cheese in the second-stage heat, and dries off in the final stage of the oven."

Dough conditioners comprise a number of different compounds including: protease enzymes, emulsifiers, L-cysteine, pentosenases, stearoyl lactylates, and deactivated yeast cultures. In addition, shortening at levels of 3% to 6% (flour basis) increases volume due to interaction with starch and gluten. As dough temperature rises to between 140° to 158°F, starch granules gelatinize. Between 176° to 194°F, protein denaturization sets the crust. The shortening delays the onset of the reactions and expands volume approximately 15% to 25%.

http://www.foodproductdesign.com/articles/462/462_0298DE.html

Whey protein is another option for bakers to make a healthful pizza crust. This ingredient is one of the most nutritious proteins because it contains all the essential amino acids that the body requires. A manufacturer suggests using an 80% whey protein concentrate or a whey protein isolate, which has more than 90% protein. This ingredient can replace some of the flour in a 1:1 ratio, but the formula should not exceed 10% protein, the manufacturer says. Whey protein can be added to any crust, but the manufacturer says it works best in thick crusts because whey protein binds water.
http://bakingmanagement.bakery-net.com/article/7995

Shortening, whether it is lard, butter, animal or vegetable shortening or vegetable oil, is used in bread dough to lubricate the gluten strands. This eases dough expansion contributing the crumb structure and the texture of the finished product. This lubrication effect also eases slicing. Shortening also contributes to moisture retention and improves shelf life. By adding shortening late in the mixing process, total mixing time can be reduced.

Tenbergen, Klaus. 2004May. The Workbench. Modern Baking 18 (5): 26.

What I have understood about shortening (solid fats) in baked goods is that it gives the textural “perception” of a moister baked product.

I also believe that more conscious consideration should be given to "actual" moisture loss and retention in both the formula and in the dough management process.

Beyond that, I am having issue with the layers as well. Sometimes they adhere and other times they refuse to fuse, no-matter-what. I haven't been able to pinpoint whether it's formula changes or amounts of bench flour 

***

The ingredients including food colorings and chemical preservatives
must be listed in descending order of predominance by weight or volume. If less than 2% by weight, the ingredient can be listed at the end with a statement that states "contains 2% or less of___".

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:e__4RY_m2wUJ:www.mda.state.mn.us/dairyfood/labeling.pdf+food+labeling+ingredients+2%25+or+less&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us&lr=lang_en

The two per cent rule plays a role in the following: all ingredients must be labeled in order of predominance, by weight. The heaviest is first, and so on. All ingredients that are less than two percent of the weight of the product are freed from being placed in a specific order – that is, order of predominance by weight. As long as the ingredients label writes: “the following ingredients are present at less than 2%” or “1.5%” or so on, the ingredients can be in any order that the manufacturer chooses.7
As a result, many states have no means of guaranteeing compliance. At least one state has a program educating manufacturers, but few states have inspectors. One exception is California, which apparently funds its own policing by fining companies found in violation of ingredients label laws.

So even though an enzyme may have to be identified, it is a good bet that if the enzyme is a trade secret, or if a company is not aware of the niceties of the regulations, or for some other good or not so good reason, there is basis for doubting whether a company really would declare it.

http://www.kashrut.com/articles/LabelingLaw/

The age of the RT flour bag may need to be considered in addition to current labeling laws.

******

There are 2 types of scrap dough to consider.
The first being the immediate remnants cut from the sheeted dough. Which I believe that we don’t have any information as to how this scrap is reused.
The second scrap is the leftover skins from the end of the day.
***
What I've been upto is creating "intentional scrap" for experientation purposes. Kinda like a "biga" but breaking some of the rules. This is just Elsegundo's Shakey's no yeast dough with an increse to the shortening, fermented for 24 hours, using my microwave (constant temperature 100-102 F)  as a proof box.

Intentional Scrap

16 oz. Harvest King Flour
7.5 oz water 90F
1 T plus 1 tsp Crisco shortening
.25 to .55 g fine popcorn salt (something I'm still playing with)

In an of itself, it makes a descent but not impressive cracker crust with nice bubbling.
What has me a bit boggled is when I combine the remnants from RT III and the Intentional scrap, ferment room temp. 24 hours is how impressively it bakes up. When combining the remants, it's not a homogenous mixture. as a matter of fact it's visually obvious where the varying scraps are. But It's the closest thing I've produced to resemble the internal RT thin crust.--- All doughs were single fold.

[elsegundo]

Dan,

To answer your question about my sheeting technique and how many times I fold ,the process usually goes like this.

Cold dough that has been dusted in passed through the Atlas on settings #1, 2 and 4.  I again dust and do a business letter fold (thirds).

Now I have three layers. I repeat and have therefore 9 layers. You can repeat once more, but you run the risk on compressing everything too much.  I refrigerate for half an hour before topping and baking

This is my technique for an individual thin crust pizza, with large bubbles. I don't dock. The bubbles can be two inches high.

I am positive someone could improve on my pasta roller technique. It works for me. If you compare with the Round Table part 2 and 3 you will find a similar technique.

Good luck

[DNA Dan]

My last round using the pasta roller wasn't so successfull. I lsheeted it twice with the tri-fold, quite similar to what you describe but I ended up with a damn hockey puck. On the second pizza I just made several thin sheets and literally just layered them. I took a rolling pin and gently pushed them together, then die cut them. This method came close, but there was more of a gummy layer. I am wondering just how much the sauce thickness affects the cooking of the top. I think the ovens in the store use radiant heat above and below the pizza. This still however points to a dough issue because RT never used to use those radiant conveyor ovens. It used to be a stone rotary, just like a regular oven.

Welcome back Lydia!!! I think you are on to something with the fat content. My thinking is the bag is wrong, misleading or purposely hiding something. Reason being is even if I cook my pizzas at the RT temp 475-500, the bottom is crispy, but the crumb is quite tender. It softens very easily after you cut it. RT stay crispy a long time. Also, RT has a lot more browning on the bottom than I always observe with my attempts. Now don't go telling me that I need a black pan! The RT crust literally seems like it's fried in the pan. I mean cook some biscuits on high fire and you get a nice crispy bottom with a tender interior. It needs more fat or oil or SOMETHING. Perhaps Crisco isn't the same as what they list on the bag? I mean if it's pure form, the crisco we measure as a solid isn't quite the same right? In the bag the ingredients are all dry.

Texture aside, the damn sheeting is a pain in the rear. Even using a pasta roller the results are quite dismal. I can only get the right texture by making several sheets and just laying them on each other. This seems to be a far cry from what goes on in the restaurant. Certainly this much care isn't taken to sheet the dough. It's not rocket science!That's why I feel the proper dough will exhibit the properties we seek even if it isn't sheeted properly.

[scott r]

I just had round table yesterday and there was a SERIOUS gummy layer.   Maybe you aren't so far off!

[scott r]

Also, the layered effect was completely absent.


Still good pizza,  though.


Are you guys sure the oven temp isn't higher than 500.  The pie  seemed like it was cooked at more like 575.

[DNA Dan]

Are you guys sure the oven temp isn't higher than 500.  The pie  seemed like it was cooked at more like 575.

Elsegundo stated the temperature as "495 degrees" on the first page of this thread. I don't know if that is C or F but that could be difference. I assume he had good reason to post this. I also think Lydia or someone else confirmed that too.

I too thought the pizza is cooked at much higher temps. I think something like you say, close to 600. Perhaps part of the difference here is they use radiant heat ovens without doors, so effectively I suppose it could be 495 degrees inside the oven but 500+ directly under the element. ?? The toppings totally get crisped to hell and the bottom also seems fried in the pan.

Looking back at the comments from page 1 from ThatOneGuy (the guy claiming to be an ex employee) He states the following in his notes at the bottom. I will note some curious comments he made in Red

Posted by ThatOneGuy****************************
The area in which we work with the dough is well air conditioned.
The cool air keeps the dough from rising much while we are working with it, but it does still rise some.

 Often we will bring more than one bag of dough out of the cooler at a time.
 We will work on one bag while the other bag sits on a counter waiting for it's turn.
 While the other bag is sitting, the dough will rise inside the bag quite a bit.
 The rising of the dough in the other bag has little, or no, affect on the finished product .. the pizzas come out about the same.
 Recently it was decided that the dough in the other bag is easier to work with and can produce slightly better crust.
 We started putting the other bag near the oven so that the warmth will cause the dough to rise even more.

Can't remember the brand of cooking spray they used .. it was in a blue can.

When applying toppings, meat always goes on last.

End of comments.***********************

Now to me it's curious that he says a bag sits out on the counter and actually rises "quite a bit". I mean how long does it take to sheet the big roll of dough he talks about? 30 minutes? 1 hour? Even if it takes them an hour to work with one batch of dough, I have never seen MY dough rise "quite a bit" at room temperature for 1 hour. The only recipe I have seen with this amount of activity is Randys, and that's a whole different story altogether.

Also he mentions the use of cooking spray. previously I was unaware that this was used on the pan while cooking. I have never seen it in the store.
 

[Lydia]

Throughout the years I have seen varying temps on the conveyor ovens. The most recent I've seen is 475F and 495F in older RTs. But I not familair enough with the Lincoln impingers to identify the models or age of the ovens. Also I don’t know whether impingement ovens are susceptible to an overall decrease in temperature when they are dirty the way that the deck ovens are.  I do know that dirty screens/disk interfere with the quality of the bottom crust. Black flakes on the bottom crust is the tale-tale sign of dirty screens.

Most recent temperature post from elsegundo.

With some conveyer systems, RT first hits the dough with about 600 degrees of hot air, then down to about 500 degrees.

A quick note about Impingement conveyor ovens (considered to be high-tech versions of a convection oven).

Air impingement uses many small nozzles to force high velocity heated air directly at the food product surfaces. This form of convection is especially effective at scrubbing or stripping away the cool air barrier around a food product, allowing quick browning and cooking. Many operators say the air impingement actually improves the texture of the finished product due to the rapid cooking. Surfaces are uniformly browned and naturally crisp without drying due to shorter cook times. There are generally higher yields because of less evaporation and greater moisture retention. Almost all foods are cooked at one-half the time required in a traditional oven and many foods are cooked faster than that.

 
So even though RT can use a colder dough I'm not too sure that even if we had the actual RT dough to bake at home that we could use a cold dough and get the same results. We will have to make acommodations for our home ovens.

I've been using Longer room temp fermentation and Long oven preheats 2 hrs or more, and have been incorporating scrap. It has improved the over-all quality and fully developed the RT flavor and seems to have obliterated the gummy layer. I'm also getting some light surface blisters.

I like 500F and believe 550F would be better. Also I feel that the direct contact from the pizza stone is sufficient direct heat for the bottom crust.




In my home oven I have the option of a convection cycle. Most often, the convection cycle has been the enemy of any pizza I've tried to bake (other than my semolina dough which has an extremely high ability to bake quickly and evenly while maintaining it's internal moisture.) Otherwise on all the others, toppings get fried to a crisp and the stone (standard and fibrament) just dosen't absorb enough heat so the bottom crust dosen't begin to crisp, let alone brown. I have had excellent results from turning the convection cycle on toward the end of the baking time to crisp up toppings (pepperoni with natural casings).

While I was tweaking RT III formula and trying out difference forms of dough management. I stumbled into a pretty decent Mountain Mike’s clone. I find this very encouraging since I see Mountain Mike’s as California Cracker Crust similar to the RT crust. I have tried turning on the convection towards the end of the baking time and the voids blow up like bubblegum, but I believe that it will work much better at the beginning of the bake cycle. But I should also mention that the voids are decent without the convection cycle. 

I’m not ready to post the new formula. My scale is acting up and it not responding correctly, so I don’t trust my formula, yet. All of my electronic equipment decided to DIE on me. I just ordered a beautiful new scale, IR thermometer and digital camera.

Also he mentions the use of cooking spray. previously I was unaware that this was used on the pan while cooking. I have never seen it in the store.

I have a difficult time believe this is done for the thin crust pizzas, because I personally haven’t seen it done. But am more inclined to accept that is “may” be used for the deep-dish. Especially since they are getting a longer rise at room temp. in the pans. I also noticed that a recently used deep-dish pan with the disk in it had the typical high sheen from cooking spray.

Can't remember the brand of cooking spray they used .. it was in a blue can.

I believe the brand I saw recently in the Milpitas RT was Crisco Professional. I can’t recall for sure but I believe this is a product referred to as “pan release” which will usually contains some amount flour, I’ll double check the next time I’m in Cash N carry.

Perhaps Crisco isn't the same as what they list on the bag? I mean if it's pure form, the crisco we measure as a solid isn't quite the same right? In the bag the ingredients are all dry.

I've make homemade pancake mix with Crisco and the ingredients are still quite dry with some mild clumping. Just like Bisquick or Krustez. You can use a fairly high ratio of shortening and still have a "dry mix".

But professional shortening isn't always what the consumer knows as shortening. Example frying shortening can be a pourable emulsion and some professional baking shortenings (solid fats) have other emulsifiers and surfactants that Crisco brand doesn't contain. Another type of professional shortening comes as dry hard flakes (They are, in fact, a solidified form of palm oil. More often used in chocolate coatings and in frozen products (i.e. frozen pizzas). At this time, I believe that the original Blue Label Crisco shortening will work fine, it maches exactly what is labeled on the RT bag. But, I'm not convinced that the new Zero-transfat Blue Label will work. The new formula is entirely different and tastes "off". I'm still testing them in various side by side comparisons.

[Bryan S]

If feel that the recreation of this style has just hit another major snag.

Crisco has official changed it's original formulation and it's already on the shelves. All my testing of this new formula, in other applications, has failed to produce the same results and find it quite inferior in performance and taste.

Thought y'all might appreciate the warning.The label may not indicate it is the new formula, mine did not.
The new Crisco shows 0 trans-fat on the nutrition label vs. 1.5g of the original formula.


I can't believe that I have to trash all my crust formulas that contain shortening and start all over again! 

Lydia, I was looking to stock up on some of the reg Crisco, Blue Label cans and found a good supply at BJ's Warehouse ($5.50 for a 6lb can)  and a Super Wal Mart ($6.50 for a 6lb. can) just a heads up for you or anybody else trying to find some. 

[Lydia]

Thanks Brian 

I look in every store I go in.  I've had some good luck.

Cashiers always want to know what I'm baking  I don't have the heart to tell them about the Crisco and then inform them that I just bought all they had left.

I've found a superior replacement for deep frying ("crisp foods" not so good for doughnuts), so I can save the original Crisco for baking until I can find a permanant replacement.

[pizzafoundry]

Hi, all,

I've been following this for months now... though I have my own related pursuit.  RT is pretty decent but Gino's (a small local chain here in Oregon, now down to the last surviving store in Coos Bay on the coast) made the most incredible crust ever.  Crisp and flavorful, flaky-crisp inside, it truly is to die for.  Quite similar to RT though.

In the past few years I've ended up doing much of what you all are working up - i.e. adding a little fat to the dough, experimenting with various sheeting methods, but I've settled on basically a fairly low-moisture (about 62% hyd.) dough using the new HK flour, just a bit of olive oil (shortening works but it's really hard on your arteries), the usual salt/a little yeast, overnight fermentation in the fridge, then rolled out, folded over, rolled, folded, and final roll out.  The BIGGEST discovery of all, however, was simply to par bake the skins first.  I use 550 degrees, preheat an hour, decent baking stone, then par bake the skin for 3 minutes, convection off.  Remove the now-firm crust, allow to cool at least 15 minutes, then assemble the pizza and bake no more than 10 minutes or until edges start getting really dark to your liking.  Sometimes I still experiment with a blast of convection for the last couple minutes but you really have to watch it then as things really happen fast at that point and it can go from *Perfect* to *Ruined* in about 30 seconds.

On bubbles: I've taken to a light "docking" amounting to no more than poking holes across the dough in maybe 5 or 6 rows across using a salad fork.  The dough still bubbles up a fair amount during the par bake and you want to poke the big ones down with your fork as it's parbaking.  Getting the top layer of dough up in the air a bit helps quite a bit to crisp up that interior area though so don't go too wild with that fork.

2 sets of pix: one is of an actual Gino's specimen, where the cross section of the dough can be viewed and admired, particularly the curls of flakiness in there.  This pie was only pre-baked such that we could "legally" take it home; so it's not truly finish-baked yet.

The other pix are of a recent experiment where I was able to come up with a fair amount of lamination in the dough, probably too much actually, but the layers are clearly there and working.  I'd back off on that last fold, I suspect, as if you really closely look at the 'real article', in one shot you can very clearly see very fine lines of quite a few layers in there.

Forgive me if you believe I'm in the wrong area here... my post is only because the RT effect is actually sort of a 'poor man's Gino's' crust... they just never took it to the next level.  So I suspect many of the Gino's techniques are quite applicable to the RT product as well.

See pdxconnect dot com slash Pizza for pix.

Hope this helps someone!

Oh, on oven temp:  A recent trip to a fabulous wood-fired oven pizza spot showed their digital metered temp at 515; I asked the fellow there about temp, he says they never run it up over about 530-535.  The pies cook in 3 minutes or less.  This is the effect of having a genuine slab of thermal mass working for you... that 515 in there is basically triple the 'heat effect' of our lowly little home ovens, as the energy is just blasting from all surfaces, not just the floor as is generally the case in your stone-equipped oven.  So when you jack it up to 555 or whatever you can get at home, you're maybe starting to approximate the effect, but you really need more thermal mass.  I use a few stacks of tiles on the top shelf which I believe helps a bit along with the stone on the bottom.

PF

[westridge99]

Hi.  Long time lurker, first time poster.

Visited a local RTP for lunch today and thought I would share a few things that I recall (correct or not) as issues on the RTP process.
This location used a Hobart planetary mixer, such as hobartcorp dot com/products/food-preparation/mixers/floor
This location used a Rondo Dough Sheeter, such as rondodoge dot com/index.php?id=93.
(Sorry, not allowed to have hyperlinks/web addresses).  I did not see either machine in action.

By the way, a friend swears by ordering RTP's standard crusts pizzas "extra crispy", which translates to sliding the pizza back into the conveyor oven about half way when it first emerges.  It does produce a more crispy, cracker-like crust, but I still prefer the standard oven-bake time (whatever that is).

A recent post suggested RTP uses a cooking spray in a blue can.  Cash and Carry carries such an item made by Crisco (no surprise I assume).  I did not see a can in use at RTP though.

On a separate thought, I think the red sauce is what makes an RTP pizza so great!  Yes, the dough is much better than that of the rest of the American-style chains (IMHO), but I really think its the sauce that makes it special (IMHO).  On that note, still looking for a RTP clone red sauce recipe.

Thanks for the great work here.

[Lydia]

I've been working on the RT sauce, it's actually quite complex.

RT site states 11 herbs and spices.

Round Table sauce
Our zesty red sauce is made from scratch with eleven herbs and spices

From peter in a previous post:

BTW, I did some Google searches on the ingredient list provided by elsegundo and found the following ingredients list for the RT pizza sauce: Tomato paste, water, spices, salt, garlic powder, dextrose, hydrolyzed corn protein. Not much to go on, but it's a start.

I have identified nearly half of them with considerable confidence but still have a few that are giving me some trouble.

I also do not have amounts fine tuned.
brand used are McCormick, both consummer gourmet and food service varieties
keep in mind that brand storage and age will affect the outcome.

If anyone cares join in on the project, it is most helpful to have a cold, room temp and slightly heated samples. Most of these spices have varying characteristics: some need to mellow, some need heat to reach full potency, and some flavors are minimized when cold which assists in identifying some of the background flavors such as fennel.

Confident list:
Mexican oregano
Malabar black pepper
ground fennel
cumin
granulated garlic
salt (technically not an herb or spice)

Still working on these:
sweetener (technically not an herb or spice) (looking for a more common substitute or equivalent level sweetness for dextrose, dextrose is less sweet than granulated sugar.)
ground chili (type(s) not yet identified) pasilla is completely ruled out. New Mexico and California (both red Anaheim chili's with similar yet distinct flavor characteristics) as good candidates.
cayenne
paprika (type not yet identified)
cardmom (cardmon) is a candidate but it's a bit pricey. Could be justification for the higher priced pizzas.

I have been trying various tomato products. so far Escalon’s Cristoforo pizza sauce is top of the list because it has the appropriate bitter edge (cook time, acidity and amount of peel in product) and it the correct consistency (not too smooth and not too coarse).

Oscar Meyer pepperoni is the closest consummer brand I have found to RT pepperoni.

[elsegundo]

Dextrose is essentially Karo syrup (corn syrup). Commercially it is available in powdered form at beer making suppliers.

[DNA Dan]

Thanks for the detailed information Lydia. My floundering RT clone has taken a backseat since the twins were born, but alas I am back!

Certainly with the burn rate of RT employees I can't believe there wouldn't be any remotely interested in making their pizza. Not asking directly for trade secrets or anything, but a pointer in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. So far regarding this clone I have concluded for myself:

1) The dough formulation isn't quite right yet.
2) A typical Home oven does a decent job, but doesn't singe the pizza like a conveyor does.
3) Elsegundo's method for the "poor man's sheeter" is the best thing out there for reproducing the dough technique
4) The sauce is hot, spicey and all so complicated! DAMN YOU 11 HERBS AND SPICES..!!!!!!

[Randy]

Thanks for the detailed information Lydia. My floundering RT clone has taken a backseat since the twins were born, but alas I am back!

Certainly with the burn rate of RT employees I can't believe there wouldn't be any remotely interested in making their pizza. Not asking directly for trade secrets or anything, but a pointer in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. So far regarding this clone I have concluded for myself:

1) The dough formulation isn't quite right yet.
2) A typical Home oven does a decent job, but doesn't singe the pizza like a conveyor does.
3) Elsegundo's method for the "poor man's sheeter" is the best thing out there for reproducing the dough technique
4) The sauce is hot, spicey and all so complicated! DAMN YOU 11 HERBS AND SPICES..!!!!!!

Okay. what is a poor man's sheeter?

[Lydia]

Randy

Looks like Dan stepped out.....I think Dan was simply referring to elsegundo's use of the pasta roller. Then kinda pulling it into a round shape. But I'm not sure. Elsegundo has given a couple of different techniques.

*****************************

[Lydia]

If anyone is interest I've come up with a "cheater's recipe". But I'm pretty happy with it. Internal structure, tooth, crust are all "pretty close", ahh yah "bubbles" too. There are plenty of techniques I haven't bothered with sheeting/layering ect.

12 oz harvest king
4 oz Quaker Harina preparada flour tortilla mix
.25 instant yeast

8.40 oz water approx. 90F

process in food processor until just combined.
Some yeast will not be dissolved.
Proof at the very least 3-4  hours room temp
Proof overnight in fridge for criper crust.

Makes 2, 14 inch pizza
Or roll 16” and it will be flakier

Can divide dough and make 2, 12’s but it’s a bit heavy and the crust doesn’t crisp as well.( Sameday)
But with the overnight ferment it ‘s more like the current Shakey’s.

I love pizza bubbles! So I sauce completely to the edge and allow for a good 1 1/2 inch or more border (No cheese on the edge. light toppings, OK) oh... and light an minimal rolling on the edge.

Believe it or not....This dough is pliable enough to stretch.Dough rolls easy, just dont fold and knead it after. It gets too tough.
 
I’m baking them at 500F, until they look done. (Sorry, I keep forgetting to set the stop watch.)

I've been thinking about preheating to 500F but dropping the temp just prior to putting the pizza in the oven for the same day dough.


The tortillas mix has most of the key ingredients, whey, L-cystine, shortening and salt with a few additional ones likes corn syrup solids and chemical leveners: sodium alum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate and monocalcium phosphate (I believe this would be fleishman’s food service grade baking powder). Note that I'm currently using a bag that I purchased prior to the transfat "thing".

so, I dont know if this is going to make any difference.
*******************

Oh yeah!

The Private label cheese "First Street" from Smart & Final and Cash & Carry IS the Golden California brand, guess that explains why they've been working out alright. I haven't found the right provelone yet.

[Randy]

Lydia, that is one good looking pizza.  I tried doing a search on the sheeter and came up with nothing so thanks for the information.

Randy

[Lydia]

Thanks Randy 

Elsegundo has a technique posted further on this page http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1911.msg41220.html#msg41220
otherwise if you're still looking I would search elsegundos posts. I'm pretty sure he has posted the most on the subject.

[Lydia]

Dextrose is essentially Karo syrup (corn syrup). Commercially it is available in powdered form at beer making suppliers.

Thanks elsegundo

I gave-up on cornsyrup, it's a bit too ketchup like, but I probably could have reduced it further. I'm just not keen on the texture. I'm funny that way. So i may be visiting the brewer supply.