Yeast Amount/Rise Time

[evermore25]

Hi folks! Been reading this board and working on my cracker crust for many months now and I have a couple of questions.  I'm having trouble getting a consistent flavor (yeasty) in my crust. Sometimes I get great flavor and other times it seems almost absent. I've been documenting my recipes and techniques each time so I'm relatively certain that I'm doing the same things from pizza to pizza. I've experimented with cold fermentation (24 and 48 hr) and am currently using counter top rise of around 24 hours.  There have been times when my toppings, espcially the sauce, have overpowered my crust so I've dealt with that. Anyway, I'll include my recipe and hope some of you guys can help. Thanks.

200g Water
1lb Bread Flour
1/2 tsp Yeast
18g Olive Oil
5g Salt
7g Sugar

Mix with Kitchenaid mixer, dough hook, for 2 minutes, add oil mix an additional 2 minutes.

Thanks again for any help!!

[Pete-zza]

evermore25,

Since you mixed metric with U.S. standard, I have rearranged your recipe and determined the baker's percents to allow me to better see what the recipe really looks like. In so doing, I assumed that the yeast you used was instant dry yeast (IDY). This is what I get:

100%, Flour, 16 oz. (453.6 g.)
44.1%, Water, 7.06 oz. (200 g.)
0.33%, Instant dry yeast (IDY), 0.05 oz. (1.51 g.), 1/2 t.
1.1%, Salt, 0.18 oz. (5 g.), a bit more than 7/8 t.
1.5%, Sugar, 0.25 oz. (7 g.), 1 3/4 t.
4%, Oil, 0.64 oz. (18 g.), a bit under 4 t.

To get a more "yeasty" taste, I think you can safely double or even triple the amount of yeast. Tripling the amount of yeast would put you at the 1% level for IDY that is often considered to be the max to use for a pizza dough. Increasing the IDY by double or triple will affect the fermentation rate, so you might use cooler water to slow that rate down. To be on the safe side, you might start with doubling the amount of yeast (IDY) and see if that helps.

You will also get better crust flavor with a long fermentation time, whether at room temperature or in the refrigerator. That flavor is not a "yeasty" flavor as such, although some people consider it to be. If you also increased the amount of yeast (IDY), that will affect the rate and extent of fermentation which, to an extent, may work against the creation of flavor compounds by the fermentation process itself. This is something you will have to experiment with to get the proper balance between the amount of yeast used and the fermentation time.

Your salt level is normal, but if you increase it by about 50% (to about 1 1/3 t.), you will get more flavor in the crust, even if is isn't a "yeasty" flavor.

Good luck. I hope you will let us know if the changes help, if you decide to try them. This is how we all learn. If you used active dry yeast (ADY) instead of IDY and need help converting to ADY, let me know.

Peter

[evermore25]

Pete,

Thanks for the reply. I am using ADY, forgot to include that part. I've decreased the salt level to try and keep the finished crust a little "softer". The crust I'm shooting for is a crackery type but layered similiar to a pastry dough. Therfore I'm rolling out the dough thin and then folding it on top of itself twice and then rolling back out thin. Lots of work but well worth it for me. I had come to the conclusion that more yeast equaled a more bread like crumb so I have been backing off the yeast level. Is this true? If so, I'm fighting the balance battle between taste and texture. I'm going to mix a batch tonite with a higher yeast level. I'll let you know how it turns out. If I can get my camera working I'll try to snap a few pictures. Thanks Again

[Pete-zza]

evermore25,

I modified the information I posted to reflect the ADY instead of IDY, as follows:

100%, Flour, 16 oz. (453.6 g.)
44.1%, Water, 7.06 oz. (200 g.)
0.41%, Active dry yeast (ADY), 0.07 oz. (1.89 g.), 1/2 t.
1.1%, Salt, 0.18 oz. (5 g.), a bit more than 7/8 t.
1.5%, Sugar, 0.25 oz. (7 g.), 1 3/4 t.
4%, Oil, 0.64 oz. (18 g.), a bit under 4 t.

I see the point you are making about the quantity of yeast. I suppose that rolling and re-rolling the dough as you are doing forces the gases out of the dough, but I don't know what happens during baking, i.e., whether the dough will resist that action and rise nonetheless. Most of the time when a lot of yeast is used, the purpose is to get a greater rise and, along these lines, the dough is handled as gently as possible so as not to lose the retained gases. You didn't indicate, but are you docking and pre-baking the skins?

As for the salt, increasing it will slow down the rate of fermentation but I don't know if it will be enough in your case to offset the effects of the increased yeast levels.

I'll be interested in your results.

Peter

[evermore25]

Yes, I dock the dough prior to placing in the cutter pan. I do not prebake the skins, just top them and throw  between two fibrament "stones".  I did increase the yeast level to 1 tsp ,with a fridge rise tonite. Dough was about 88F after mixing. I'm going to try a new docking technique this time. I'm looking for more bubbles in the crown, so I'm going to put the dough in the cutter pan un-docked and then dock in the pan. Hopefully this will leave the edges to bubble. I just don't like a straight edge. I'll let you know how it works. 

[Lydia]

I was wondering if a short warm oven ferment or a bit of a room temp rise; after the folding, forming and cutting, would improve the crust flavor and allow for renewed bubble formation?