interesting recipe i found on food tv site

[pizzanyc]

pizzanyc,

Can you explain the steps you followed from the time you put the dough into the refrigerator to where you started to shape it? And what the dough looked like along the way?

Peter

took the dough out of the zip lock bag at around 12 pm and it was very sticky, stuck to the bag and to my hands, i put it onto the marble with some flour. combined two balls into one and started shaping the pizza, but when i transferred it to the peel, it got messed up cause there were holes in the dough and i stretched it too thin. so i added more flour and tried to shape it into a ball again and re-shape the dough. in the process, i think i messed it up. oh well. so after many frustrating attempts at shaping it, i decided to use a rolling pin and shape it that way, it was easier to handle after using a rolling pin.

is waiting 1 - 4 days really necessary with caputo flour? and will a caputo pizza bake well at 600 degrees with a pizza stone?

it really does taste like its not done.

[varasano]

OK, Pete, he's all yours...

[tonymark]

There is still hope ...

Let's assume you followed the recipe and mixing procedure that Peter and Jeff discussed (if you did not, start over)


First,  NO ROLLING PIN !  Especially for Neapolitan Style pizza
Second, try placing each newly mixed dough ball in its own round plastic food container. (Glad, Rubbermaid, Tupperware, etc).  No container, use a wide bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Put in fridge.  After rising in fridge, allow closed container to sit  on counter for 1-2 hours until dough is about room temperature.
Third, remove dough from container carefully while retaining its shape!.  DON"T RESHAPE, COMBINE WITH ANOTHER BALL, or distort in any way.  Round container ---> rough dough ready for pizza.  There is no need to reshape, this will cause the dough to tighten up and make it difficult to stretch.  That is why you you had to resort to a rolling pin.  Don't do this again.

is waiting 1 - 4 days really necessary with caputo flour? and will a caputo pizza bake well at 600 degrees with a pizza stone?

4 days is not completely necessary, but you really need to try at least 2 days with that small amount of yeast.  The result will be more flavor.  It is best to get one complete process correct before changing much.  This way you know what good dough looks, feels and tastes like.  This is why Jeff suggested bread flour for your pizza.  It tends to be more forgiving than Caputo.  I think you should really try using King Arthur Bread flour(KABF) for your next pizza.  If you are purchasing your Caputo from Pennmac, your are really wasting your money at this point.  Hone your skills with less expensive ingredients until your get the process correct.  After finding Jeff's site and pizzamaking.com I spent 5 months using only KABF.   I have just recently changed to Caputo "00" flour.

A Caputo pizza will cook at 600 F, but it will take 6-8 minutes.  A KABF based pizza tends to brown more readily than a Caputo pizza and it is easier to tell when it is done from a casual glance.

TM

[Pete-zza]

pizzanyc,

It might help to give you some background on the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour and how it can be used.

The Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour can be used in many ways but it has to be compatible with the particular dough formulation and dough management method chosen. For example, you can use the Caputo 00 flour with a commercial yeast, as is typically done in Naples using fresh yeast, and be able to use the dough several hours later, typically 7-8 hours later. In that case, the dough is allowed to ferment at room temperature. The Caputo Pizzeria flour can also be used with a natural preferment, and the dough can be subjected to a much longer room temperature fermentation that can easily go over 20 hours in some cases. A third possibility is to use a preferment and a long period of cold fermentation. This is basically what Jeff does. A fourth possibility is to use a commercial yeast in lieu of the the preferment, which is the approach you chose to use. Depending on which of the four approaches someone elects to use, the formulation and management of the dough have to be compatible. We know that what Jeff does works because he has been doing it for a very long time with exceptional results.

My best guess is that your problems arose because of insufficient fermentation of the dough. You were using a very small amount of yeast for over a pound of flour, and if the yeast wasn't properly and completely dispersed within the flour, the dough may not have developed and fermented properly. If the fresh yeast was losing its freshness, which can happen easily with fresh yeast, then that could have been a factor also. You didn't specifically indicate how you incorporated the fresh yeast into the dough, but the approach most commonly used is to dissolve the yeast in the water or crumble it into the flour. If you waited until after the autolyse to add the yeast, and if the yeast wasn't properly and completely incorporated into the dough at that time, then that could have been another factor working against getting proper fermentation. And, although the dough looked fine, it may not have been.

Even if the dough was in great shape coming out of the mixer bowl, it was still possible that the dough didn't get sufficient fermentation because of insufficient time in the refrigerator. Jeff recommends 1-4 days in the refrigerator for a good reason. It is because his dough formulation was designed for that length of time and type of fermentation. When a dough is under refrigeration, it sort of goes into a state of hibernation. Both the yeast and the enzymes in flour prefer and work better in a warm temperature environment. But if sufficient time is given to the dough while in the refrigerator, the dough will still develop through biochemical development and produce a usable dough. Cutting the fermentation time to about 12-13 hours as you did may well have been too short.

From your description of the dough, particularly the wetness and stickiness, it sounds like the hydration percent may have been too high also. You didn't indicate whether you lightly oiled the dough before putting it in the zip-type storage bag, but if you didn't do that then it could have stuck to the storage bag and made it exceedingly difficult to extract from the bag without mangling it. What I do when I use a storage bag is to inflate the bag using a straw (after the dough has been oiled and placed within the bag), and then close the bag shut while it is in its inflated state. This keeps the dough from sticking to the inside top of the bag. Next time you may want to use that approach or else use a container such as Jeff recommends. Jeff is an extremely meticulous person, and whatever he does is done after much contemplation and for a good reason.

I'm sure that handling the dough under the circumstances you described was a real challenge and a frustrating experience. That is something we all experience at one time or another so you shouldn't let it get you down. However, as Tony pointed out, when you combined the two dough balls and reshaped them, that made matters worse. Trying to stretch the dough out at that point can easily lead to holes and tears forming. Adding more flour and trying to work the dough with the added flour rarely solves the problem. And when you bake a dough in that condition, it will not bake up properly. Sometimes you can recover from this situation by letting the dough relax again, for up to an hour or more, and then gently handling it as you shape it into a dough round. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, or the results are mediocre. 

In your case, you can decide to give the dough another try and follow all the steps as suggested by Jeff in his instructions at his website. Or you can try another dough formulation. Having tried several if not most of the many possible approaches, I would say that if you want to continue to use the Caputo flour the easiest approach is to use the flour with commercial yeast in a same-day room-temperature fermentation. Jeff's use of a natural preferment is better in my opinion, but requires more work and more experience. But I don't see any reason why you can't use Jeff's dough preparation techniques, including autolyse and other rest periods. If you want to use fresh yeast again, we should be able to tell you how to best incorporate it into the dough. Other changes may also be required since you do not use the high oven temperatures that Jeff uses.

Peter

[pizzanyc]

There is still hope ...

Let's assume you followed the recipe and mixing procedure that Peter and Jeff discussed (if you did not, start over)


First,  NO ROLLING PIN !  Especially for Neapolitan Style pizza
Second, try placing each newly mixed dough ball in its own round plastic food container. (Glad, Rubbermaid, Tupperware, etc).  No container, use a wide bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Put in fridge.  After rising in fridge, allow closed container to sit  on counter for 1-2 hours until dough is about room temperature.
Third, remove dough from container carefully while retaining its shape!.  DON"T RESHAPE, COMBINE WITH ANOTHER BALL, or distort in any way.  Round container ---> rough dough ready for pizza.  There is no need to reshape, this will cause the dough to tighten up and make it difficult to stretch.  That is why you you had to resort to a rolling pin.  Don't do this again.
4 days is not completely necessary, but you really need to try at least 2 days with that small amount of yeast.  The result will be more flavor.  It is best to get one complete process correct before changing much.  This way you know what good dough looks, feels and tastes like.  This is why Jeff suggested bread flour for your pizza.  It tends to be more forgiving than Caputo.  I think you should really try using King Arthur Bread flour(KABF) for your next pizza.  If you are purchasing your Caputo from Pennmac, your are really wasting your money at this point.  Hone your skills with less expensive ingredients until your get the process correct.  After finding Jeff's site and pizzamaking.com I spent 5 months using only KABF.   I have just recently changed to Caputo "00" flour.

A Caputo pizza will cook at 600 F, but it will take 6-8 minutes.  A KABF based pizza tends to brown more readily than a Caputo pizza and it is easier to tell when it is done from a casual glance.

TM

actually, the first dough ball i tried to shape didn't end up as messed up as the one i used the rolling pin on, but that one i didn't bother taking photos of. But it had a thinner and more edible crust than the one i combined together, but tasted nothing like patsy's or nick's. that dough ball was the smallest i had. Yes, i DID BUY my caputo 00 pizza flour from pennmac.com. Is it the right kind of flour?

when i started to make the second pie, i thought i should combine 2 dough balls, since the first dough ball produced such a small pizza. so i put the dough onto the marble and started dusting it with flour and then started shaping the pizza. as i was shaping, i noticed, this dough was different from the other 00 flour dough i made pizza with, since there were a few tiny bubbles in the dough and the dough was quite easy to work with in the begginning to shaping it , but i dusted my metallic peel with semolina and when i transferred the stretched dough to the metallic pizza peel, there were several holes and i felt that i stretched it too thin, so i tried forming it into a ball and rehaping, but after many failures, i decided to just roll it out with a pin even though i heard it was not advisable from a video i watched. since i really messed up the dough this time.

----------
thanks peter also for pointing out that this dough needs longer time to ferment since it has so little yeast.  it also looked like the dough didn't grow in size at all. But when i put it in the plastic bag, i couldn't really tell cause jeff said that it was not supposed to be double in bulk. only supposed to grow 50%, so it was harder to tell.

[pizzanyc]

back of the pizza crust.

[Pete-zza]

pizzanyc,

I went back to Jeff's website and reread the section on making the dough. I don't know if using the Caputo flour you have will produce a Patsy's-like crust and flavor but Jeff does indicate that it can be used in his dough formulation, but with a lower hydration than he uses for bread or other flour. The Caputo 00 flour you have is the correct flour, however.

From rereading Jeff's dough making section I don't see any reason why you can't use the Caputo flour and fresh yeast, or any other form of yeast for that matter. But you should follow the precise steps recited and not freelance until you become more proficient with your dough making. I would use a lower hydration, however, because of the flour itself and because you will be using a home oven. I have found that I can use around 60% hydration with the Caputo 00 flour but even if you go to 58-59% I think you should be OK. It is important if you decide to use fresh yeast again to be sure that it is properly and completely dispersed within the dough. I would do this by dissolving the fresh yeast in the water, since the water will permeate everything in the dough.

When the dough is done, I would lightly oil the finished dough balls and put them in suitable containers such as Jeff uses or anything comparable. I would give the dough balls at least 24 hours of cold fermentation, and preferably longer, especially if you want to continue to use small amount of yeast. If you can't wait that long, you can use more yeast although the finished results may not be as good. You may also find that you should use a thicker dough than Jeff uses. Otherwise, the crust can become cracker-like because of the longer bake time that you will be using in a home oven. Most people using home ovens tend to bake Caputo doughs until they get good crust coloration. Often that time is so long that the crust becomes a cracker.

Peter

[varasano]

Hey,

One reason I like to feel the dough rather than strictly measure the percent hydration is that with feel you don't have to worry about the type of flour so much. A Caputo at 58 might feel the same as a bread flour at 62. It's the feel that I shoot for not the number. Then I vary that based on my heat, the wetter doughs for higher temps.

Caputo just does not brown that well ever. It can char, but you are just not going to see it browning that much  You can even see how blond it is by looking at Da Michelle's photo on my site and the one caputo photo I have up there. I guess it could brown, if you just left it in there to dry out (not good). But I think it could have been browner than your photos.

I really think that Caputo is for 800F+ pies. If I were making pies at 600F I would definitely use bread or even AP, not Hi Gluten or 00. But to be honest, I have not tested at that temp much.

Regarding the fermentation time: The whole point of using 1/8 tspn yeast, rather than 2 tspns of yeast in many recipes, is that idea that it's going to ferment long and slow.  You can dump 1/4 cup of yeast in there and it would rise if 15 minutes. But it would taste terrible.  This is a true fermentation process, like making wine. After doing a cold rise for 5 days using my sourdough culture, I can open the container and it smells like wine.  Wine is slow.

If you do this again, give it 1-4 days, plus several hours of counter time. pizzanyc, you cut the cold rise to 12 hours and didn't even mention what happened to the warm rise which was part of our instructions. So the dough was not ready by a long shot. You asked if the long rise was needed for caputo. The type of flour is not a factor.

I highly recommend using a container and not a zip loc. Also, oil the container and not the dough.  A drop or two of oil can be spread to cover a whole container.  You can kind of polish it with oil using a paper towel. But it takes a teaspoon to oil the dough. because you can't spread it so thin. Since you want to minimize the amount of oil, oil the container.

When the dough is ready, spread the dough gently. Never man handle it or remix it or combine it with other doughs or knead it or use a rolling pin to flatten it. You literally just popping the bubbles when you do any of these. At that point, it's pretty much game over.  At the least, as pete said, it has to relax for an hour plus before it can be spread again. If the dough is not spreading super easily, there was a problem during mixing.  You can't solve it during spreading. Go back and change the mixing procedure.

Pete is right. The higher the temp, the thicker the dough.

Jeff

[scott r]

Every time I see someone on this forum buying a big bag of Caputo for use in a normal home oven it hurts. I think it's like buying a 70whatever inch plasma jumbotron TV and then sitting one foot in front of it.  It's just not the right fit for a 550 degree oven.

[Pete-zza]

scott,

That's one of the reasons why I often suggest that our members try out a small bag or two of the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour from PennMac (the only place I know of that sells the Caputo Pizzeria flour in small bags) before deciding on a big bag. You might even recall some of our earliest PM exchanges in which I suggested that you use the Bel Aria 00 flour in the small bags. At that time, the only Caputo Pizzeria flour that existed was in the 25-kilo bag size and I didn't want you to take on the big bag without first knowing that it would work for your purposes. Of course, I didn't know that you were going to modify the clean cycle feature of your home oven to get much higher oven temperatures.

However, the above said, I think there are some Caputo dough formulations on the forum that produce good results in a standard home oven, although it may take some playing around with multiple stones, tiled mini-ovens, broilers, etc. to get the best results. Using natural preferments will be a big improvement over commercial yeasts, but will require a greater commitment on the part of the user. But even with commercial yeast, reasonably decent results can be achieved and, as you know, sometimes the Caputo flour can be combined with other flours, such as the KASL, to produce a quality pizza (along the lines of a DiFara clone). They won't be as good as yours or Jeff's because, as you point out, the Caputo flour is best adapted for very high oven temperature applications.

I think where most people go wrong with 00 flours is thinking that they can take an authentic Neapolitan dough formulation using Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour, or just any old 00 dough formulation, and just use it in a regular home oven. As you know, most new users, especially those who just jump in without first doing any homework, make that mistake, which is why there are perhaps more posts on the forum on failure than success with the 00 flours. In my experience, you will usually have to modify the dough formulation and the oven along the lines noted above. My advice to serious new users of the 00 flour, Caputo or otherwise, is to read the following threads in their entirety before deciding whether they really want to take on the challenges of using and mastering 00 flours in a standard home oven environment. I suspect reading the posts will cure most prospective users of the notion. But those who are serious enough and survive the ordeal should find some of the most successful formulations.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1298.msg11672.html#msg11672;
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2088.msg18383.html#msg18383;
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2951.msg25282.html#msg25282;
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,986.msg8806.html#msg8806.

Peter

[varasano]

That's all true. Let me make is easier pizzanyc: if you want to make Patsy's, know that they don't use 00. They use Hi Gluten. But you will do better to try out King Arthur Bread (available in many supermarkets), than Hi Gluten. Almost all of my photos are using KA Bread or a blend of KA Bread and others.

[Pete-zza]

Jeff,

I'm kind of glad the subject of flours has come up again because I think it is timely in light of pizzanyc's recent trials and tribulations with the Caputo 00 flour. I know from what you have written at your website that you acknowledge differences in flours but place process over types of flour based on your personal experience with the Patsy's style. But, what I have often wondered, and it came up again when I recently reread the material on flours at your website, is whether the reason why the flour differences are not as pronounced in your Patsy's crusts is because the crusts are so much thinner than other types of crusts. For example, when I make say, a Lehmann crust using different flours, I can tell the differences quite easily. They aren't as noticeable between high-gluten and bread flour, but certainly so when all-purpose flour is used. The differences are both flavor and texture. I have never made the Lehmann dough using 00 flour but I know that I would be able to tell the difference, again because of flavor and texture and also because of my long experience with 00 flours. Without doing a lot of tests using lot thinner crusts I can't say that the differences would be less pronounced, but it seems to me that the differences would be more subtle with much thinner crusts. Even then, I suspect that I would have a favorite flour, maybe based on flavor rather than texture, just as you seem to prefer the KA bread flour or KA bread flour blends for your Patsy's crusts.

It also occurs to me that when very thin crusts are used, the sauce, cheeses and toppings are more likely to come to the fore, and especially so when they are of the extraordinarily high level of quality that you work so hard to achieve. In a way, it is somewhat like what Dom DeMarco does with his pizzas except that I know that your crusts will be superior to his crusts, which are based on only1-2 hours of dough fermentation. Your sauces and cheeses may even be better than his and take attention away from the crusts. Not entirely, of course.

I might add that, for me, cost and availability are not issues in flour selection because I can get the KASL or All Trumps cheaply from a local distributor, and for not much more than the cost of all-purpose flour. I normally use the high-gluten flours because that is what many operators use to make a standard NY street style, and that was the flour that was selected for use in the original Lehmann dough formulation which I have spent so much time with, just as you have with the Patsy's dough formulation.

Do you have any thoughts on my "thesis"?

Peter

[varasano]

Let me take a stab at it. First, let me say (again) that my emphasis on technique is not to say that there are no flour differences, just that these differences are not going to make or break you, because any good brand can be turned into a very good pie and conversly bad technique cannot be overcome with good flour. I think the flour game is for the highly experienced.  It's funny, because I've gotten slammed for repeating this over and over with many arguing about the differences (as if I EVER said that they are identical) and yet you see the problem repeated when pizzanyc asks "is waiting 1 - 4 days really necessary with caputo flour?" There's this pervasive thought that you just get the right ingredients and that's going to solve it.

I don't really know much about making thick doughs. I've been making my grandmother's sicilian pizza since I was a kid, but I never did it as good as she did. I used to buy dough around the corner where I grew up in the Bronx and then make her pie.  I never even thought about making my own dough back then. My mother and I would wonder why sometimes the dough spread easily and othertimes it fought us and we could never spread it. The bottom of the pan had so much oil, that if the dough wanted to pull back, it would just shrink to half a pan and you could fight it all day and get nowhere. We thought it was how we let the dough rise, or something we did. Now I realize that it was how it was mixed and we had no chance to fix it - it was pot luck. I tried once or twice in the past 3 years to try to make her pie from scratch but I had limited success. I will someday put in the effort. I'm 90% sure that she used regular AP, probably whatever brand they had in the supermarket, regular yeast, hand knead with a short warm rise, just a few hours. But that pie was incredible.  She had that Grandma knowledge. Another triumph of technique over ingredients. She was born and raised in Naples. She's 95 years old now, and she can't really teach me anymore, unfortunately.

Ok, I'm babbling. I guess I'm not really sure of the answer pete. I can taste a difference with an all Caputo pie, even a thin one. I don't love it. But I like it a lot better when Anthonly at UPN uses it. Let me go a step further. I think that Caputo is not only for 800F, but also for wood or coal ovens. I think this is one of those areas where my 800F electric falls short of a brick oven.

[Pete-zza]

Jeff,

Thanks. Even with the NY style, Evelyne Slomon has mentioned using all-purpose flour. When I first tried it for the Lehmann NY style, I was looking for an entry level dough that a beginner could use or if bread flour or high-gluten flour wasn't available for any reason. I found that I didn't like the results. After some experimentation, I found that if I added vital wheat gluten and dried dairy whey to the all-purpose flour, I could get results that I liked much better than all-purpose flour alone, and closer to the higher-gluten versions. Maybe it is just that I had a different benchmark. From the beginning, and for most of the subsequent versions, I used high-gluten flour for the Lehmann doughs. When Evelyne's pizza book was published in 1984, she used all-purpose flour in her basic dough recipes, including for the NY style. Back then, the higher gluten flours were not as readily available as they are now, and maybe not at all at the retail level for the highest-gluten flours. Even apart from that, Evelyne may have just liked the results from using all-purpose doughs better. We all end up with favorites for all kinds of reasons.

Interestingly, even back then, Evelyne talked about cold fermentation, using hand shaping and the other traditional techniques for making pizza dough--essentially the same ones that you and most of our members use.  As you have pointed out at your website, most published recipes for pizza dough look alike and call for lots of yeast, one or two room-temperature rises and punchdowns, and then shaping, dressing and baking. Cold fermentation is only occasionally mentioned and even then it is usually for fairly short periods. It doesn't seem like we have made a great deal of progress in perfecting our doughs since Evelyne published her book almost 22 years ago.

Peter

[varasano]

Wasn't Evelyne saying that the old guys used 12-12.5% flour. This would equate to KA Bread.  Then their descendents moved to Hi Gluten, sugar, oil, etc. later.  As probably the only real Bread flour advocate here, I found that interesting.

I think if you tried AP now, using a longer mix to more fully develop the gluten, plus all the knowledge you have now, you'd be happier with it. It think that a lot of people start out with AP, because they don't know about the other flours, then switch as they learn more and as their technique improves, they credit the improvement to the flour.  But a lot of the improvement is the new technique.

Jeff

[Pete-zza]

Jeff,

You are correct. I also stand corrected on the bread flour as far as Evelyne's dough recipes in her book are concerned. They call for either bread flour or all-purpose flour. Evelyne indicates in her book that bread flour was the choice of commercial pizzerias. Her personal choice now is 12% certified organic flour.

BTW, scott r is also a big proponent of the KA bread flour although, of course, he also likes the Caputo flour.

Peter.

[scott r]

Jeff, peter is right.  I even prefer the KA bread or the general mills full strength flour for normal 550 degree pizzas.

[varasano]

What about for 800F pies?

[scott r]

Jeff, It is hard for me to say that I really achieve 800.  Most of my pies are 2 minutes exactly.  Is that your speed?   I have always had a sneaking suspicion that your oven is a bit hotter than mine, and I know that could effect my choice of flours.

In my oven, for 2 minute pies  I usually prefer to go with a blend of Caputo and KASL flour.  I use more KASL than you use bread.  Roughly 20%.   Lately I have been working with straight San Filece flour, and that is excellent as well.  I think that those two choices, plus your 50/50 blend of Caputo and bread all produce pies that are top notch.

Like you, I am a huge fan of KA bread flour.  I think it is the ultimate universal flour for making killer pies at all temps.  As a bonus, I can find it anywhere.  I am planning on getting to know the organic Guisto bread flour soon as well. 

[Pete-zza]

Jeff,

Do you recommend the same duration for autolyse/rest periods no matter how many dough balls are to be made?

Peter