Reinhart Neapolitan Style

[Wallman]

I just tried Peter Reinhart's Neapolitana Pizza Dough recipe from his book American Pie.  I was very pleased with the way the pizzas turned out.  The recipes is as follows for 6 6-oz. dough balls each will make a 9 inch pizza. (I made a half batch)

5 cups (22.5 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
3.25 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1.75 cups plus 2 teaspoons cool water (65 F)

I mixed the water and salt together in my Kitchenaide and then slowly added the flour and yeast.  After the mixture came together, about 4 minutes on low,  I let the dough sit for 5 minutes.  I then mixed the dough for another 2-3 minutes on medium-low.  The dough was then scraped out onto a floured surface and hand kneeded into a ball. The dough ball was placed in a covered bowl and lightly coated with olive oil for 30 minutes.  I then divided the ball into 3 smaller balls (remember I'm making a 1/2 batch so if you follow the recipe above make 6 balls).  The dough then was retarded in my fridge for about 20 hours.  The dough was allowed to warm at room temp. for about 2-2.5 hours before baking.

The dough balls were a little sticky but very pliable and reasonably easy to form into 9-10 inch skins.  I topped the pizza with a crushed tomato sauce (1 can of San Marzano tomatoes from Trader Joes, 1 teaspoon basil, 1 teaspoon oregano, 2 teaspoons wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon olive oil, and a bit of cracked pepper) and a 2:1 mix of mozz and provalone cheese plus some prosciutto di parma.  After baking, I topped the pizza with a bit of Parmigiano-Regianno cheese.

The pizza was baked on tiles that had been preheated to 550 F for about an hour.

The result... Pretty darn good.  The cornicione wasn't too bad, and the dough had a nice flavor considering it only retarded over night.  All in all I was pretty pleased, I'm now convinced to try some Caputo flour and see what I can do with it.  Here are some photos of one of the pies.

[rscox62]

Prepare to be challenge with the Caputo flour.

You should study this forum before you start working with Caputo.

Don't get me wrong. I love Caputo because is produces light and flavorful crust but to me I think it is a difficult flour to work with. I had a 10 lb bag of Caputo Pizzeria and I did my homework on the subject and experimented with making a Neapolitan  Style Pizza but always had problems handling the dough, especially if I refridgerated it for a day or more. Some days the dough came out fine and other days it couldn't be handled despite the fact that I use the factory recommended hydration for Caputo which is in the neighborhood of 53-56 percent. I have decide to go back to my old friend KASL\Lehman\Pete-zza formulation where I could actually enjoy making and eating a pizza without the hassles of the behavior of the Molina Caputo flour.


RSCOX62


RSCOX62

[Wallman]

rscox62,
I've noticed the passions seem a little hotter on the Neapolitan thread than the NY, with a good bit of discussion on technique and what truly constitutes a Neapolitan pizza.  I've been busy and haven't tried using the Caputo flour yet.  Any suggestions on a recipe? I plan to try Pete-zza's same day rise recipe in this forum.

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

The problem with the Caputo 00 flour is that it is not especially well adapted to the standard (unmodified) home oven, and the best you can hope for is a compromise. From my experience, if you want to make a same-day, room-temperature fermented Caputo dough, you perhaps want to keep the hydration on the low side (say, around 55-57%) and use some oil in the dough. Otherwise, you can end up with a cracker-like crust by the time the crust develops some browning (which can take 6 or more minutes) and the toppings are properly cooked. You might also use a thicker dough to help reduce the risk of getting a cracker-like crust. Using the broiler element might also be a good idea to help develop more color in the top crust. In some respects, I think you end up with a better product if you don't try to force too much browning of the crust by the use of an extended bake time. Ideally, you want a soft crust, even if it isn't as brown as you'd really like. This isn't an issue with a wood-fired oven at around 800-900 degrees F (or thereabouts) because a pizza can be out of the oven in a minute or two--long before the crust can become crispy or crunchy. Even then, the browning of the crust will be different--with a mottled effect rather than uniform browning as is achieved in a standard home oven.

A significant step up from the same-day Caputo dough, even for a standard unmodified home oven, is to use a natural preferment and a room-temperature fermentation, which can easily go over a day depending on the amount and strength of the preferment (as well as the fermentation temperature and other factors). When using the natural preferment, my experience is that I can use higher hydration (around 62%) and dispense with the oil altogether. To be on the safe side, I also use a thicker dough to allow for a longer bake time to get some crust coloration. The basic bake protocol (stone plus broiler) remains the same as with the other Caputo versions. Where the Caputo pizzas with the natural preferment stand out is in the flavor of the crust and the texture of the crust and crumb. The crust and cornicione can be chewy and soft without being bread-like.

I think it is the challenge of trying to achieve a credible Caputo pizza in a home oven that is behind the passion that exists when working with the Caputo flour. The NY style is well adapted to the home oven and, once you get a good dough formulation and master the oven techniques, there is not much more to do and you will get fairly consistent results. With the Caputo 00 flour you have to understand that you can't force it to behave like other flours and their dough management. It's like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Peter

[Wallman]

Pete,
Thanks for the advice. I have your same day recipe and plan to try it. How long do you think I can go with a room temp. rise? I see in the thread you started you went around 15 hours. Is it feasible to use commercial yeast and go closer to 20-24 hours?  Ideally, I'd like to mix the dough the night before, say around 9 PM and make the pizza around 6 PM the following day. I can also move this to the Basic Caputo 00 Same-Day Dough Recipe Using Commerical Yeast thread if you'd like.

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

I believe you can get to the roughly 20+ hours you have in mind. However, the tricky part is to determine how much yeast to use relative to the temperature of the room where the dough is to be fermented. Using small amounts of yeast and cool water will help overcome a high room temperature during fermentation. The ideal room temperature is around 64-68 degrees F (18-20 degrees C) but that range may not be easily attained where you are if you happen to live where it is warm at the moment. For example, my kitchen is around 77 degrees F at the moment, which would require that I reduce the amount of yeast used by, say, a third or a quarter, if I had to guess. I could also use a lower hydration, which would also have the effect of slowing down the fermentation process a bit. As you can see, there is a fair amount of art involved in addition to the basic science.

What I have said above is not new, so there is no need to move your post. However, if you decide to make the same-day Caputo pizza and wish to post the results, feel free to do so at the same-day thread.

Peter

[PizzaBrasil]

Wallman:

In a party carried on the last month, I tried the Tom Lehmann´s same day recipe from Pete-zza.
I could not inform you about the flour type, as in my country we only have different brands of the same type (may be bread flour?). It is low in protein, like 10% the better.
I use exactly the Baker´s percentages given in the recipe, with 20% of Carl´s preferment in it. This preferment is an old one and it was refreshed a couple of times the day before, and in the morning of the baking day, been alive and strong when incorporated to the dough.
The dough was handled as specified, and as all Tom Lehmann´s, ending in a nice one (the temperature of the handled dough going to the counter was to 26°C 78,8°F).
The dough was left on a wood table in the counter, covered by a plastic sheet.
The ambient temperature was around the 24/26°C 75/79°F.
The dough grows not so slowly as you comment, and duplicates in about 9, 10 hours. The dough was handled around 10AM and was ready to shape around 7/8 PM.
I am thinking that, for this flour type and with a strong preferment, next time could be better to decrease the preferment percent to a 15% or refrigerate the dough a little.
I hope this help.

Luis

[Wallman]

Thanks for the advice from both of you all. If I have time tonight, I may try a Caputo dough, I'm going out of town on Thursday, so I might have to eat left overs rather than fresh pizza tomorrow, depending on my packing! 

[Wallman]

I tried following the Reinhart recipe above using Caputo 00 flour.  I did add about 1/2 teaspoon olive oil to the recipe.  The dough retarded for about 18 hours in the fridge and sat for about 2 hours at room temp. before shaping.  The dough was a little tough to work with, it ripped while shaping.   I made 2 12-inch skins using the equivalent of 3 9-inch ball specified in the recipe above.  Because it was stretched pretty thin, one of the pies stuck on my tiles (big mess).  I used a screen for the second pie and got out the fan to air out the kitchen 

The pizzas tasted pretty good, but didn't get that brown, I only preheated my tiles for about 30-40 minutes.

I also made a room temp. same day Caputo dough detailed at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2088.0.html and that actually turned out a little better.  The dough easily doubled in size after about 18 hours rising on my counter.  Because my tiles weren't that hot, the pizza had to bake a while longer than it should have and the crust was a bit craker like.  The dough was very sticky, but was a little easier to shape than the cold retarded Reinhart dough. I have a couple of pounds of Caputo left in my bag, so I think I'll keep experimenting.  But, as other's have posted above, this flour is tougher to work with than the KASL I'm using for my NY style pies. Again, it tasted good, but not true Neapolitan pizza.  I'm going to SFO in 2 weeks and hope to go to A16 to give there pizza a try.  Even better in November I'm going to Italy and will try real pizza in Naples!

[scott r]

Wallman, from what I have seen Pizzaiolo should get you even closer to the real Neapolitan pizza (and a better pizza) than a16 can.  It is right in Oakland CA just outside of San Fran.

If you could try both places and report back I would love to read about it.

http://www.pizzaiolo.us/

[Wallman]

Scott,
I have a reservation at A16, I'm not sure I can get to Pizzaiolo in Oakland, but I'll try. I'll definitely report back on A16. I read recently that Hille has left, but a couple of reviews say the food is still quite good under the new chef.  Of course, the reviews didn't really focus on pizza!