Rocky,
You have raised several good points in your last post. Maybe I can address them as follows:
Sifting the flour: As a practical matter, it isn't necessary to sift flour since it has already been sifted at the miller's facilities. However, if the flour has become compacted for some reason, I don't see any harm in sifting it so long as you use a scale to weigh the flour when you are done sifting. Otherwise, the weight of the flour is likely to be too low because of all the air that is incorporated into the flour by the sifting process. I am personally intrigued about the possibility of sifting flour just to see if the flour will hydrate better and absorb more water by starting out with sifted flour.
Knead time: The time that it takes to properly knead a dough depends mainly on the amount of dough you plan to make, and the mechanism chosen to knead the dough, whether it is by a machine (stand mixer, food processor, or bread machine) or by hand. King Arthur says that you shouldn't knead high-gluten flour doughs by hand. However, unless you plan to make an awful lot of dough at one time, I have found that it is possible to hand knead a high-gluten flour dough by hand, and especially if you also use an autolyse or other rest period. In fact, I did this with Canadave's NY dough over the holidays, and reported on the results at Reply #39 at the Canadave NY thread.
Rise time in the fridge:The length of time that a dough can be cold fermented in the refrigerator is essentially programmed into the dough by how you made the dough. There are many factors that govern the "shelf life" of a dough, but the two most important factors in my experience are the amount of yeast used and the finished dough temperature, that is, the temperature of the dough as it comes off the hook (or out of your hands) and goes into the refrigerator. If too much yeast is used, the dough will ferment more and faster and, unless other measures are taken, such as using cold water and/or adding a bit of sugar to the dough to continue to feed the yeast over the desired number of days, the shelf life of the dough can be foreshortened. Dough temperature is a function of the temperature of the flour, room temperature, heat from friction (of the machine used), and water temperature. The most controllable of these factors is the water temperature. If the water is too hot, that will have the same effect as using a lot of yeast and will accelerate the fermentation process and potentially foreshorten the shelf life of the dough. Using both a lot of yeast and warm water will turbocharge the dough the most and fastest and, all else being equal, will have the shortest shelf life.
Dough warm-up time: The time that it takes a cold fermented dough to warm up before shaping it into a skin is also a function of dough temperature. To avoid bubbling problems in the dough as it bakes, it is generally advisable that the dough reach above 55 degrees F before using. If a dough docker is to be used, and the dough is docked like crazy, you should be able to get away with a lower temperature. However, a dough docker in not a surefire cure. It might only reduce the bubbling. I usually take the dough temperature and use around 60-65 degrees F as a benchmark. The length of time that it will take a dough to reach that temperature is largely a function of room temperature. A dough will warm up in summer considerably faster than in winter. Once the dough gets to the proper temperature, it is good thereafter for a few more hours, so unless it is July or August in Arizona you shouldn't panic about whether the dough will expire on you. Some members, like Les, like to let their doughs warm up for 8 hours or even longer. For me, about 1 1/2-2 hours is about right, on average.
Cake yeast vs. ADY vs. IDY: Each of the three forms of yeast has it fans who will proclaim its superiority over the other forms. And with good reason. Each form has certain attributes that the other do not possess. However, according to tests performed by Tom Lehmann and others at the American Institute of Baking (AIB), the performance of the three forms of yeast is the same. They couldn't tell the difference from the finished products. The point to keep in mind is that when substituting one form for another, the amounts have to be adjusted. For example, when substituting ADY for cake yeast, one should use about half the amount of cake yeast by weight. When substituting IDY for cake yeast, one should use about one third the amount of cake yeast, again by weight. BTW, the reason that many pizza operators use the cake yeast is because in the quantities required by such operators the cake yeast is the cheapest of the three forms. Also, the cake yeast can be crumbled and added directly to the flour rather than proofing it in water, as is required when using ADY.
Screen vs. pan: The basic Lehmann NY style dough recipe is intended to be used with deck ovens or on screens in a conveyor oven. When the pizzas are to be baked in a deck oven, Tom Lehmann advocates using no sugar in the dough because it causes the bottom crust to brown too quickly--usually before the top of the pizza has finished baking. I tried using the Lehmann dough only once on a pan, when I was looking for an entry level Lehmann pizza using all-purpose flour. When the bottom crust didn't brown up sufficiently, I didn't pursue the matter further, even though I concluded that I could have used a lot of oil in the pan to "fry" the bottom crust. I could have also removed the pizza from the pan after the dough set to allow it to finish baking the rest of the time on a shelf of the oven.
Peter
