Battle Pizza: Reinhart vs. Lehmann

[Wallman]

With apologies to the Iron Chef.   

I did a comparison of Peter Reinhart’s Neo-Neapolitan-style vs. Tom Lehmann’s NY-style dough tonight.

The mix:

The Reinhart dough followed the recipe in American Pie

22.5 oz flour (I used KASL) – enough to 4 12-inch pies
1 tablespoon sugar
3.5 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon IDY
2 tablespoons olive oil
1.75 cups plus 1 tablespoon room temp. water

The Lehmann dough recipe:

12.11 oz flour (KASL) – enough to make 2 12-inch pies
0.21 oz kosher salt
0.03 oz IDY
0.12 oz olive oil
7.63 oz water

I made both types of dough in my Kitchenaide. I mixed the flour and IDY together in the bowl and then added the water, in which the salt (and sugar in the Reinhart dough) had been dissolved.  Reinhart just says to mix everything together and Pete-zza suggests adding the flour to the water. However, I found that reversing Pete’s suggestion worked better with my Kitchenaide.  Slowly adding the liquid seemed to tax the machine less and the dough came together better than when I added the flour to the water.  After mixing for a few minutes, I added the oil called for in each recipe.  Total mixing time was about 5 minutes for each type of dough.

I then let the each dough mix rest for 5 minutes, per Reinhart’s directions.  After the rest, I mixed each dough recipe on medium low for an additional 2-3 minutes.  The finished dough temperature was 72-74 F. 

I split the Reinhart dough into 4 balls and the Lehmann dough into 2 balls.  The Reinhart dough sat on the counter for 15 minutes, per Reinhart's directions and then went into the fridge. The Lehmann dough went directly to the fridge after mixing.

The Reinhart dough was a little smoother and less sticky than the Lehmann dough both after mixing and after 20 hours in the fridge and 2 hours on the counter.  The Lehmann dough seems to be more relaxed, the ball was “flatter” than the Reinhart dough.  (This has been my experience in the past with Lehmann dough)

Here’s what the dough looked like in the plastic bags they raised in the fridge overnight.  Note the Lehmann dough is a little flatter.

[Wallman]

I used 3 of the dough balls – 2 Reinhart and a Lehmann.  Both sets dough of dough were easy to work with as I shaped and tossed the skins.  I used an uncooked sauce of crushed Italian tomatoes, Penzay’s pizza spice mix, olive oil, sugar, and red wine.  All the pizzas were baked on tiles for 5-6 minutes in a 550 F oven I preheated for over an hour.  The Reinhart pies were baked only on the tiles, but I broiled the Lehmann pie for a minute at the end of the bake.

The first picture is a Reinhart pie, topped with buffalo mozzarella and a sprinkling of shredded parmesan cheese. The second picture is a Reinhart pizza with buffalo mozzarella, shredded part skim mozzarella and mushrooms.

The third picture is the Lehmann dough topped with buffalo mozzarella, a little parmesan cheese and pepperoni.

[Wallman]

I was pleased with how both types of pizza came out.  The pizzas were thin in the middle, puffy at the edge, charred nicely on the bottom and reasonably brown (although the Reinhart recipe, with sugar, browned without any time under the broiler). Both tasted very good.  Did I like one better than the other? 

Well, I’ve been making the Lehmann dough for a couple of months now and it’s been my favorite homemade pizza – to date.  However, I think I liked the slightly sweeter flavor in the Reinhart dough.  Fortunately I have 1 Lehmann and 2 Reinhart balls left, so I can continue my taste tests!

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

Is there a typo in the amount of water for the Lehmann dough?

Peter

[Wallman]

Whoops,  Pete noticed a typo in the Lehman recipe. Actually it's not the water, but the flour, should be 12.11 oz with 7.63 oz water.  I've corrected it in the post above.

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

FYI, I did my own version of the Reinhart NY style and reported on it at Reply 112 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,524.100.html. I modified the Reinhart recipe for my purposes but I wondered whether you got the same crust characteristics.

If you like some sweetness in the crust, you should try Canadave's NY style dough recipe, as presented at the Canadave NY Style thread, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2175.0.html. It is very good--closer to the Reinhart dough than the Lehmann dough.

Peter

[Wallman]

Pete,
I think the Reinhart Neo-Neapolitan crust was actually pretty similar to the Lehmann dough in terms of mouth feel, softness and chewiness but it was a little airier in the cornicione.  Even with the buffalo mozzarella, there was a little bit of crunch or snap in the center of the crust -- which is how I like it. 

From your post, it appears you made the Reinhart NY-Style (p.114) which has a bit more sugar, yeast and oil than the Neo-Neapolitan dough (p.112) and a lot more than the Lehmann recipe.  It seems to me the Neo-Neapolitan is actually closer to the Lehmann dough so that's why I tried a comparison between those two.  In the book, Reinhart calls the dough New Haven-style, but also refers to classic NY pizza places like Lombardi's, Totonno's and John's, this seems to confuse the issue a bit in my mind.

I'll have to try Canadave's recipe again. I made it once and enjoyed it, but not as much as the Lehmann dough.

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

You are correct. It is somewhat confusing. The two Reinhart recipes are quite similar but the Neo-Neapolitan recipe looks closer to the Lehmann formulation. But if you read Reinhart's description of the two styles, you would say that the description of the NY style is closer to the Lehmann. I have no idea who out there is actually using the Lehmann formulation, but from my reading, most of the people who ask Tom about the formulation tend to be mom and pop indies trying to make a street type NY pie. Ultimately, none of this matters much for us home pizza makers. It's what tastes best that matters.

Peter

[Wallman]

This weekend I refought the Reinhart vs. Lehmann dough battle, using dough balls (to make 12 inch pies) I made the week before and froze (recipes and details above).   

Each type of dough was in the fridge for aproximately 36 hours after mixing before I put them into my freezer for 5 days.  The dough defrosted over night in the fridge before resting in the freezer bag for about 2 hours at room temp.  The Lehmann dough was a little bit harder to shape than the Reinhart -- it did not stretch quite as easily and wasn't quite as smooth as the Reinhart dough.  To the experts, could the additional oil or sugar help with this? 

All in all, the pizza's were good, but not great and neither got much puff in the crust. There is much discussion about the merits of frozen dough, mostly coming down to the point that you can make pizza, but it won't be as good as fresh dough.  I would agree with that.  However, if I you want to make dough in advance and freeze, give the Reinhart recipe a try, it seems to hold up pretty well.

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

I have experimented before with frozen dough versions of the basic Lehmann formulation. The "trick" to making frozen doughs is to make the dough following a specific set of operations tailored specifically for freezing, and immediately freeze the dough right after it comes off of the hook. I described how to do this, using the basic approach recommended by Tom Lehmann himself, at Reply 272, at page 14, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.260.html.

I suspect that the Reinhart dough had an advantage because of the considerably greater amount of oil, which enhances the extensibility of the dough. For a 36-hour cold fermentation before freezing, I don't think the sugar played much of a role in the extensibility of the doughs.

As you will note from reading the above post, the frozen Lehmann dough prepared in accordance with Tom Lehmann's methodology works quite well. I still like a fresh dough better but there are times where it may be useful to make a frozen version, and to that end the Lehmann approach has merit.

Peter

[damselfish]

Question: I'm a newbie but ended up here because it seemed to have exactly the answer I was looking for. Hope that's okay.

I made my first Reinhart neo-Neopolitan pizza last night after letting the dough rest in the fridge for two days. But my dough came out of the fridge looking nothing like Wally's. Mine was almost completely flat. The crust tasted great to my newbie tastebuds, but looking at Wally's photos I seem to have done something wrong. I followed Reinhart's instructions to the letter. The dough was very sticky, as he said it would be, but manageable, both when it came out of the KitchenAid and when it came out of the baggie two days later. Any guesses? Should I have added a bit more flour (KASL, by the way), or is something else going on here. TIA.

[Pete-zza]

damselfish,

It's hard to say based on the limited amount of information you provided. Did you weigh out the flour in the Reinhart recipe or did you use volume measurements? If you did the latter, then it is quite possible that your measurements resulted in a different hydration level than what Wally used. If your dough was flatter than Wally's, then it sounds like your hydration may have been too high. That could cause the dough to ferment faster and become more extensible and spread out. The protease enzymes in the dough will also work more to soften the gluten and cause it to relax more.

Peter

[damselfish]

Thanks for such a quick response. I did weigh the flour, but my scale is perhaps not as accurate as it needs to be. Guess I'll just have to keep trying until I get the feel of what it should be like. I have plenty of experience with bread and pastry doughs, but pizza is a very recent avocation. This board has been tremendously helpful and inspiring.

[Wallman]

Damsel,
One thing I do is hand knead the dough a bit after mixing in the Kitchenaide. This helps get it into a ball shape. I do have a pretty accurate scale which I used to weigh the flour, but I used volumetric measurements for the water.  I've been meaning to try and convert the Reinhart recipe to all weight measurements, but I haven't had time.  I did make a batch of Reinhart dough last weekend and instead of making 4 12 inch balls, I made 2 16.  The dough was very extensible and tossed easily after 2 days in the fridge.

I used honey instead of sugar, but otherwise followed the recipe outlined above.