Discouraged.....my first attempt at Lehmann Dough

[BigMike]

I have spent the last few days reading over a number of the posts and decided to give my first crack at the Lehmann dough....unfortunately, it was a failure.   I was hoping that someone could take a look at what I did and maybe help me through this nightmare of a first try.   I am using the KitchenAid Professional 6 mixer with dough spiral.  I have a feeling that my first problem was with my measurements.  Unfortunately I dont have a scale, and was using fluid ounces as my measurement.  If my measurements were correct, I used 62% hydration. 

I started by adding 31.8 oz of 75 degree water into the mixer.  I turned on the machine with the spiral dough hook and added probably 75% of the KA Bread flour.  I had it on stir for approx. 2 minutes, before letting it sit for the 20 min. autolyse.  At the end of 20 minutes, I added 1.5 tsp of IDY (Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast- I have a feeling this was the problem.  I didnt dissolve or proof the yeast prior to adding - for some reason I thought I could just add the yeast.  Are there certain kinds that I can just add?), 4 tsp olive oil, and 4 tsp sea salt.  I turned the machine on stir for 2 mins to mix, and then up to #2 speed for 8 minutes.  Dough temperature was at 78 degrees upon completion.  The dough had a VERY wet consistancy, and was no way near the point where you could make them into balls.  I divided the dough into 4 parts and put into individual Glad plastic bowls.  I placed in the fridge for 72 hours. 

This evening, I took the dough out of the fridge and place into individual glass bowls with olive oil to rise.  After 2 hours, i went to form the dough to make the pizza.  The dough was still very wet, and could not be formed into a ball.  I needed to mix with more flour to get to a consistancy that I could work with.  I ended up getting to apoint where I could add toppings (1 with Pepperoni, Soppressetta, and Roasted Garlic, and 1 with Roasted Red Peppers, fresh Tomatoes and Goat Cheese).  Visually, the pizzas came out pretty good.  Unfortunately, during the process, I broke one of my pizza stones (I think some sauce got on it).  The dough way very tough and "flour-y" and did not give me much hope.   Any thoughts about my process would be greatly appreciated.    I take solice in the fact that this was my first ever attempt at my own dough and it can't get any worse!

[chiguy]

 Hi Bigmike,
 Unfortunatly for you there are all sorts of problems. The first is the formula you used does not sound very precise. You have stated that you used 75% of the Bread flour?? What happen to adding the rest?? What is the recipe???  The ADY is supposed to be rehydrated with warmer water to activate.  The IDY is a product that you speak of is available at Sam clubs in 1lb# packages. The IDY can be added to the dry ingrediants and can be activated with cooler water. The IDY is more commonly used in retarded/refridgerated dough.
 The refridgerated dough procedure is used more for fermentation control than anything else. It comes with a set of flexable rules in the ingrediant and formation procedures. The finished dough temperature should be between 72-84F. If trying to go out at least
 72hours you may want to be at the bottom of this range. It is very possible for the dough to be overfermented without proper measurement of ingreidiants, ie..yeast%,salt%, sugar%.I am sure this was one of your problems..
Also, after the refridgerated rise the dough is brought out up to room temperature, this is done to make stretching the skins easier. By leaving it out for 2 hours you are continuing the fermentation past the life of the retarded dough(72hours).
 Also when forming skins the dough should never be re-balled as this will alter the gluten structure making it tough to stretch. You will need 30minutes to let the gluten relax before trying to stretch again. The dough is only to be lightly flattend and stretched.I think being that you are without a scale it would be a good idea to follow a volume recipe for a Leahman dough. I know pete-zza has measured a Leahman recipe by volume on several occasions and can reccommend one. I will recommend the following, less yeast, alot less yeast, IDY instead of ADY, lower dough temperature72-75F. Also less water 60% for bread flour, the dough should not feel wet when mixed well, less fermentation24-36hours, to be on the safe side. These are targets to shoot for and are not set in stone. Do not lose hope there is plenty of information and helpful people here.   Goodluck, Chiguy

[Pete-zza]

BigMike,

I agree with chiguy that we will have to see which specific Lehmann dough formulation you used. If you used 31.8 ounces of water, by volume, that would have been close to 4 cups. If the hydration was 62%, that means you would have needed 51.3 ounces of flour. By weight, that would have been 3.2 pounds. If you used 51.3 ounces of flour in a measuring cup used for measuring liquids, your numbers would be way off because flour weighs much less than flour on a volume-for-volume basis.

Also, can you take a look at your yeast package again and tell us what it says? You mentioned both IDY and Fleischmann's active dry yeast, which are two different forms of dried yeast. Whichever form of yeast you used, we can straighten things out.

I am confident we can get you headed back in the right direction if you identify which Lehmann dough formulation you used.

Peter

[BigMike]

Thank you for your words of confidence.  After your reading your notes, there are obviously some key mistakes that prevented this dough from coming out correct (which I expected).  This is recipe that I tried to follow in making my dough. (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2859.0.html).  I did make an attempt to double the ingredients, thinking I would make 4 pizzas.  Bad idea.....in the future I will go to the smaller amounts again.

Anyway, to answer a few questions.  I forgot to mention that I didnt just use 75% of the flour.  In following the recipe, I added 75% prior to autolyse, but added the rest along with the yeast, oil and salt.  I apologize for forgetting to write that.  Also, the yeast was indeed a problem.   As you guys mention, I did use Fleighmann's ACTIVE dry yeast (which needs to be activated in warm water), as opposed to IDY.  Is there one that is preferred in pizza making?  The recipe used doesnt activate the yeast in warm water, so I am guessing I should try and find IDY.

With regard to measurements, as Pete-zza mentioned, I made that mistake.   I was using a measuring cup with oz (used for liquids).  I used 50.6 oz (in the liquid measuring cup) of flour and 31.8 fl. oz of water.   I could really use some help in getting my measurements right.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts.  I will take another crack at it after you guys comment on my recipe used (and maybe give me some help with my measurements- I must have missed the conversions somewhere).  Thanks again for all of your help.

[Boy Hits Car]

BigMike,

There's no reason to get discouraged; all you have to do is pay attention to the advice on this forum and it will be a breeze.  I've only started making pizzas about six weeks ago, and every single one of them has been pretty good.  The reason:  I was very careful to follow all the advice given.  Also, having a scale has eliminated the guess work in the ingredients.   Although it is not needed to make pizza, I think it can go a long way in helping someone who is new to it.  Here's a link of the scale I bought, and like very much:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4452633577&sspagename=ADME:L:AAQ:US:1

If you can get one you will see it is well worth the investment, especially if you are serious about making pizzas.

As for the IDY.  If you can't find it at your local grocery store, you can get it here:

http://www.pennmac.com/items/3242

[Pete-zza]

BigMike,

I haven’t personally tried the dough formulation you referenced, but it is a variation of the basic Lehmann dough formulation, with which I am quite familiar. I took the dough formulation you referenced and converted it to baker’s percents, along with calculating the thickness factor, 0.105. This is what that conversion looks like:

Flour (100%):          717.38 g  |  25.3 oz | 1.58 lbs, 5 3/4 c. plus 3 T. (stir, scoop and level method)
Water (62.9%):       451.23 g  |  15.92 oz | 0.99 lbs, just under 2 c.
Oil (1.3%):               9.33 g | 0.33 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2 tsp | 0.67 tbsp
Salt (1.34%):           9.61 g | 0.34 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2 tsp | 0.67 tbsp
IDY (0.32%):            2.3 g | 0.08 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.76 tsp | 0.25 tbsp
Honey (1%):            7.17 g | 0.25 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1 tsp | 0.33 tbsp
Total (166.86%):     1197.02 g | 42.22 oz | 2.64 lbs | TF = 0.105
Single Ball:              598.51 g | 21.11 oz | 1.32 lbs

Instant dry yeast (IDY) is a popular dried yeast among our members because of its convenience (it can be added directly to the flour) but it is possible to use active dry yeast (ADY) instead. If you’d like, I can provide a similar baker’s percent table as above but using ADY. With ADY, my suggestion is that it be rehydrated in just a small amount of warm water (e.g., about 1/4 cup) and that the rest of the water be kept on the cool side. Otherwise, the dough can be too warm and start to ferment (rise) too fast.

If you plan to make a lot of pizzas, you may want to invest in a digital scale. However, I have taken the liberty of converting the flour and water in the above formulation to volume measurements so that you can take another stab at the recipe if you would like. I used King Arthur bread flour to do the flour conversion since I don’t have any Better for Bread flour. If you decide to try again using volume measurements, I suggest that you use the following method to measure out the flour. You will need measuring cups and spoons that are used to measure dry ingredients. Such cups typically have no lips like cups used to measure liquids.

To measure out the flour, you should first stir the flour in the flour bag with a tablespoon. Then spoon the flour into a 1-cup measuring cup to overflowing. Don’t shake the measuring cup or tamp it on a hard surface. Level the top of the measuring cup with the flat edge of a knife. Keep doing this until you have to switch to smaller measuring cups and, finally, a one-tablespoon measuring spoon. When I did the conversions, I used the 1-cup measuring cup five times, the 1/2-cup measuring cup once, the 1/4-cup measuring cup once, and the 1-T. measuring spoon 3 times. You may not come out with exactly the same measurements but you should be fairly close. And you may still have to tweak the flour and/or water to get the proper dough consistency.

You should feel free to follow the instructions you have been using although, as I previously noted at Reply 3 in the thread you referenced, that 10 minutes knead time is probably too long for a small dough batch size.

Good luck.

Peter

[enchant]

I think that if someone sees a great deal on a digital scale, they should post it here, since it's such a standard tool that we all need.  I found a fairly good deal, but ground shipping cost about as much as the scale.

BigMike - my 2cents...  Before mass-producing your pizzas, you might want to try experimenting in single-pizza batches.

[BigMike]

Thank you all for your tips.  Given that I make pizzas quite frequently, i will get a digital scale to help in perfecting the dough.  I also appreciate the links to purchase the IDY.  I just ordered some.  I most certainly will make a small batch next time and work to get it right.  Thank you all for your input.  I will give it another shot and try and post some pictures. 

[gschwim]

enchant,

I have been very happy with the Polder 933-90 digital scale, which I bought at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Polder-933-90-Digital-11-Pound-Kitchen/dp/B0002EXVJG/sr=1-10/qid=1158113578/ref=sr_1_10/102-0988725-3397765?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen

The scale costs $30.00 and qualifies for Amazon's "Super Saver" free shipping.

Gene