Author Topic: Mellow Mushroom Pizza found in Atlanta and surroundin areas...Recipes? (Read 98202 times)

norma427 · « **Reply #1460 on:** February 29, 2012, 08:36:08 AM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1461 on:** February 29, 2012, 08:36:57 AM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1462 on:** February 29, 2012, 12:22:59 PM »

I decided to do two wet gluten mass tests on two bromated flours this morning. I used the ADM Gigantic flour I had used in the MM#7 clone dough pizza for yesterday and also All Trumps bromated flour that Steve gave me some to experiment with on Saturday at his home. I mixed 6 ounces of each flour and 3 ounces of water again to form the dough balls. I noticed the All Trumps flour did seem finer and also seemed more hydrated after mixing. It still interests me how long the starch and other substances in the flour take to wash out. Each 9 ounce dough ball was washed for ½ hr. I didn’t do this in my other wet gluten mass experiments, but in these I stopped washing under the running water for a little and just squeezed the wet gluten mass near the end to see if any white substance would be able to be squeezed out. I think, but don’t know that this is a good way of telling if all the starches and substances are washed out. The water was running clear, but a little of white substance could be seen when just squeezing the wet gluten mass. I then washed the wet gluten masses more until I couldn’t see any white substance coming out of the wet gluten masses.

The ADM bromated wet gluten mass weighed 76.05 grams after the washing and the All Trumps bromated wet gluten mass weighed 80.55 grams after the washing.

The All Trumps 9 ounce dough ball is on the left and the ADM Gigantic 9 ounce dough ball is on the right in the containers before the wash.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1463 on:** February 29, 2012, 12:24:17 PM »

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1464 on:** February 29, 2012, 12:44:16 PM »

Quote from: norma427 on February 29, 2012, 12:22:59 PM

The ADM bromated wet gluten mass weighed 76.05 grams after the washing and the All Trumps bromated wet gluten mass weighed 80.55 grams after the washing.

Norma,

If you look at the most recent list of gluten mass values at Reply 161 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg173398.html#msg173398, it seems to me that your gluten mass values for the ADM Gigantic (76.05 grams, or 2.68 ounces) and for the All Trumps (80.55 grams, or 2.84 ounces) are too low. Did you try to wash away the white spots using warm water, as you did before?

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #1465 on:** February 29, 2012, 01:03:52 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on February 29, 2012, 12:44:16 PM

Norma,

If you look at the most recent list of gluten mass values at Reply 161 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg173398.html#msg173398, it seems to me that your gluten mass values for the ADM Gigantic (76.05 grams, or 2.68 ounces) and for the All Trumps (80.55 grams, or 2.84 ounces) are too low. Did you try to wash away the white spots using warm water, as you did before?

Peter

Peter,

I had copied a list of the recent gluten mass values from before and had them right beside me when I did the recent wet gluten mass tests on the ADM Gigantic and the All Trumps. I also thought the values were too low. I saw I was more in line with the KABF and others. I wonder if I wasn’t getting all the flour and white substances out of the wet gluten mass tests from before. Do you think that is a possibility? I only washed the white spots out with warm water in some of those tests after you told me what they might be. Today I did use warm water at the end of the washings. I might have to do all of the wet gluten mass tests again if I didn’t do them right the first times. Maybe I didn’t have all the flour and white substances washed out on my first few wet gluten mass tests. The water ran clear on them, but then I didn’t squeezed the wet gluten masses without running water.

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1466 on:** February 29, 2012, 01:35:56 PM »

Norma,

When I did the gluten mass test for the King Arthur bread flour (KABF), the instructions I used are the ones given at Reply 1106 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg168400/topicseen.html#msg168400. And the results were essentially the same as you got with your KABF gluten mass test. All of your other gluten mass tests for the other flours seem to be in the right pecking order. It is only the ADM Gigantic and All Trumps numbers that seem to be out of sequence.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #1467 on:** February 29, 2012, 03:25:27 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on February 29, 2012, 01:35:56 PM

Norma,

When I did the gluten mass test for the King Arthur bread flour (KABF), the instructions I used are the ones given at Reply 1106 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.msg168400/topicseen.html#msg168400. And the results were essentially the same as you got with your KABF gluten mass test. All of your other gluten mass tests for the other flours seem to be in the right pecking order. It is only the ADM Gigantic and All Trumps numbers that seem to be out of sequence.

Peter

Peter,

I wish I could explain what might have gone wrong, but I can’t. I used the ADM Gigantic bromated flour and weighed it on my bigger regular scale at home. Steve gave me a small bag (a little over 6 ounces he weighed out on his home kitchen scale at his home of the All Trumps bromated flour he had.) I still have the little bit leftover in the plastic bag. I also weighed the All Trumps bromated flour on my regular home kitchen scale before I started to mix the flour with the water. If it was only the All Trumps bromated flour that was giving wrong results, I could ask Steve again if he was sure that it was All Trumps bromated flour that he had, but since I got the wrong results for both flours in the wet gluten mass tests, I have no idea what went wrong. Steve said he purchased the All Trumps at Weaver’s I think. I saw on the bag it just said high gluten flour, but Steve said under the bags of high gluten flour it said All Trumps at Weaver’s.

After I saw the low results on the wet gluten test for the ADM Gigantic flour on my small kitchen scale, I then used my larger kitchen scale and weighed the wet gluten test on it and it weighed the same amount on that scale, except for the decimals. I also used my bigger kitchen scales to reweigh the results of the wet gluten test for the All Trumps, and those numbers were the same too.

All I know to try is do another wet gluten test on the ADM Gigantic flour and see what results I get. I don’t have enough of the All Trumps flour Steve gave me to do another wet gluten test, but I could ask him to purchase another bag for me to do another wet gluten test.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1468 on:** March 01, 2012, 11:33:28 PM »

It was bugging me that I had such low values when I did the two wet gluten mass tests on the All Trumps bromated flour and the ADM Gigantic bromated flour yesterday. I tried the wet gluten mass test on the ADM Gigantic flour this evening again to see if I would get different results using the ADM Gigantic flour. I made sure I mixed 6 ounces of flour and 3 ounces of water and then kneaded the mixture for 5 minutes. I then left the dough ball rest for 15 minutes in a plastic container with the lid on. I washed the dough ball for 16 minutes this time (or until the water ran clear.) I didn’t keep squeezing the wet gluten mass to see if I could get anymore white substance out (without any cool water running) and didn’t use warm water at the end of the squeezing and kneading. The weight of the wet gluten mass using ADM Gigantic flour was 96.89 grams in this attempt. I used a paper towel to dab the wet gluten mass and left it sit for a minute before weighing the wet gluten mass. I don’t have anymore All Trumps bleached and bromated flour right now to do another wet gluten mass test on, but might be getting some to also do the wet gluten mass test again.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1469 on:** March 02, 2012, 08:55:35 AM »

I really wonder how consistent my results were with the ADM Gigantic flour after doing the wet gluten mass test. I would think since Power flour has a lower protein than ADM Gigantic is supposed to, that my value isn’t right for the ADM Gigantic flour. I now wonder if any of my wet gluten tests are that conclusive. I don’t know if my hard water (well water) has anything to do with me doing the wet gluten mass tests or not either.

Last evening I didn’t see any white spots or substances in the ADM Gigantic wet gluten mass when it was weighed, but this morning the white spots or substances are in the degraded wet gluten mass.

Two pictures of the ADM wet gluten mass this morning with the spots or white substance. It also can be seen how much water accumulates from wet gluten mass after it sits for awhile at room temperature. Probably later today it will be altogether flat and have no gluten structure anymore. At least that is what I saw with the last two wet gluten mass tests. My guess would be since there is none or little starch or white substance and no yeast wet gluten masses degrade over time period about a day.

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1470 on:** March 02, 2012, 09:55:20 AM »

Norma,

The gluten mass value of 96.89 grams (3.42 ounces) that you got this time for the ADM Gigantic high-gluten flour looks to be a better and more accurate value, and more in line with the other values. According to the ADM pdf flour document at http://www.adm.com/en-US/Milling/Documents/ADM-Milling-Flours.pdf. the ADM Gigantic flour has a protein content of 14 +/- 0.3%. If we add the ADM Gigantic flour to the list we previously created in this thread, we get the following:

KASL (King Arthur Sir Lancelot): 4.1 ounces, or 116.235 grams (14.2 +/- 0.2% protein)
Power (Pendleton): 3.8 ounces, or 107.73 grams (13.0 +/- 0.3% protein)
ADM Gigantic: 3.42 ounces, or 96.89 grams (14.0 +/- 0.3%)
KABF (King Arthur Bread Flour, w/o vital wheat gluten): 2.68 ounces, or 75.978 grams (12.7 +/- 0.2% protein)

I do not have a Pendleton spec sheet for the Power flour so I do not know the full range of protein values for that flour and where the 13.5% figure given above falls within the range. All of the flours have +/- variations. That is just the nature of the beast.

As for your concern about the correctness of the ADM Gigantic number, there is a practical limit as to what you can get from a single sample used in the test. You would have to conduct several gluten mass tests for each flour and come up with an average gluten mass value for each flour. I recall when I was working with member November to come up with volume-to-weight flour data to use with the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator (at http://tools.foodsim.com/), I did at least ten (and, in some cases, even more) weighings for each measuring cup size that I used in the tests. I tried to use exactly the same methods to measure out the flours volumetrically before weighing them but, more than once, I was surprised to see the range of variations in the values. However, when they were averaged, the averages seemed to be in the right place and good enough to use in the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator.

For our purposes, I am personally content for now to be able to group the flours that have been tested by type, that is, high-gluten flours, bread flours, all-purpose flours, etc. For example, if you look at the above table, you will see a big drop-off for the gluten mass value for the KABF, which we know to be a bread flour. You might also recall from the gluten mass data posted in Reply 161 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg173398.html#msg173398 that there were similar drop-offs for the other bread flours and all-purpose flours tested. To get more accurate values, you would have to go through a lot of flour and a lot of rinse water to get a large enough set of values to average.

Since you have tried the three high-gluten flours in the above list in MM clone doughs, could you detect a difference and do you have a preference to date?

Peter

Edit (3/2/12): Provided the correct protein content for the Pendleton Power flour

norma427 · « **Reply #1471 on:** March 02, 2012, 10:58:15 AM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on March 02, 2012, 09:55:20 AM

Norma,

The gluten mass value of 96.89 grams (3.42 ounces) that you got this time for the ADM Gigantic high-gluten flour looks to be a better and more accurate value, and more in line with the other values. According to the ADM pdf flour document at http://www.adm.com/en-US/Milling/Documents/ADM-Milling-Flours.pdf. the ADM Gigantic flour has a protein content of 14 +/- 0.3%. If we add the ADM Gigantic flour to the list we previously created in this thread, we get the following:

KASL (King Arthur Sir Lancelot): 4.1 ounces, or 116.235 grams (14.2 +/- 0.2% protein)
Power (Pendleton): 3.8 ounces, or 107.73 grams (13.5% protein)
ADM Gigantic: 3.42 ounces, or 96.89 grams (14.0 +/- 0.3%)
KABF (King Arthur Bread Flour, w/o vital wheat gluten): 2.68 ounces, or 75.978 grams (12.7 +/- 0.2% protein)

I do not have a Pendleton spec sheet for the Power flour so I do not know the full range of protein values for that flour and where the 13.5% figure given above falls within the range. All of the flours have +/- variations. That is just the nature of the beast.

As for your concern about the correctness of the ADM Gigantic number, there is a practical limit as to what you can get from a single sample used in the test. You would have to conduct several gluten mass tests for each flour and come up with an average gluten mass value for each flour. I recall when I was working with member November to come up with volume-to-weight flour data to use with the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator (at http://tools.foodsim.com/), I did at least ten (and, in some cases, even more) weighings for each measuring cup size that I used in the tests. I tried to use exactly the same methods to measure out the flours volumetrically before weighing them but, more than once, I was surprised to see the range of variations in the values. However, when they were averaged, the averages seemed to be in the right place and good enough to use in the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator.

For our purposes, I am personally content for now to be able to group the flours that have been tested by type, that is, high-gluten flours, bread flours, all-purpose flours, etc. For example, if you look at the above table, you will see a big drop-off for the gluten mass value for the KABF, which we know to be a bread flour. You might also recall from the gluten mass data posted in Reply 161 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg173398.html#msg173398 that there were similar drop-offs for the other bread flours and all-purpose flours tested. To get more accurate values, you would have to go through a lot of flour and a lot of rinse water to get a large enough set of values to average.

Since you have tried the three high-gluten flours in the above list in MM clone doughs, could you detect a difference and do you have a preference to date?

Peter

Peter,

Maybe the gluten mass value of 96.89 grams that I got this time using the ADM Gigantic high-gluten flour might be better, but I thought it would be a higher value than the PDM Power flour.

I don’t have a spec sheet for the Pendleton Power flour either, but did use the contact page at PFM and asked for the specs for the Power flour and Mondako flour. http://www.pfmills.com/contact-pages-8.php

I can understand to be more accurate in the tests on all the flours I would have to conduct several gluten mass tests for each flour and then come up with an average gluten mass value for each flour. At least it is some consolation for me that you recalled when working with Novembers that you did at least ten or more weightings to come up with the volume-to weight flour data to be used with the Mass-Volume Conversion Calculator. I don’t want to have to go though that many wet gluten tests for each flour and am glad you are content with the values so far by type of flour. I saw in the table you made that there were similar drop-offs for other bread flours and all-purpose flours.

I really can’t tell yet if I prefer a bromated or nonbromated high-gluten flour in the MM#7 formulation. I really liked the texture and crumb using the ADM Gigantic flour, but then that was only one test. What difference would you think there would be with using a bromated or no bromated high-gluten flour in a MM clone dough in the texture and oven spring, or don‘t you think it would matter?

I am going to try the ADM Gigantic flour again for this coming week with Grandma’s Original Molasses in the MM#7 formulation.

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1472 on:** March 02, 2012, 11:43:44 AM »

Quote from: norma427 on March 02, 2012, 10:58:15 AM

I really can’t tell yet if I prefer a bromated or nonbromated high-gluten flour in the MM#7 formulation. I really liked the texture and crumb using the ADM Gigantic flour, but then that was only one test. What difference would you think there would be with using a bromated or no bromated high-gluten flour in a MM clone dough in the texture and oven spring, or don‘t you think it would matter?

Norma,

I have had very little experience using bromated flours so I am not the best one to comment on their possible effects in an MM clone dough. However, you can read about some of the effects of bromates in this Q&A by Tom Lehmann: http://www.pizzatoday.com/Magazines/Year/2011/December2011/dec26DoughDoc.html. Other members have commented on other aspects of the use of bromated flours, like shortening the mix times. No doubt, there are other effects that members have noted from using bromated flours. But, looking back, when I has the one and only MM pizza in Florida some time ago (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.40.html), it seemed to me that the crumb had more height to it than the MM clones I have made, suggesting the possibility of the flour being bromated although at the time the notion of using bromated and/or bleached flour did not even cross my mind given the impression that MM created in its promotional materials that their pizza was a wholesome and healthful one (you will recall the spring water, the wheat germ and Vitamin-E enrichment, no refined white sugars in their dough or sauce, etc.). However, I was using KABF with vital wheat gluten, not high-gluten flour, and that might help explain the more compact crumb structure. Also, I was using a standard electric home oven, not a deck oven.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #1473 on:** March 02, 2012, 12:25:09 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on March 02, 2012, 11:43:44 AM

Norma,

I have had very little experience using bromated flours so I am not the best one to comment on their possible effects in an MM clone dough. However, you can read about some of the effects of bromates in this Q&A by Tom Lehmann: http://www.pizzatoday.com/Magazines/Year/2011/December2011/dec26DoughDoc.html. Other members have commented on other aspects of the use of bromated flours, like shortening the mix times. No doubt, there are other effects that members have noted from using bromated flours. But, looking back, when I has the one and only MM pizza in Florida some time ago (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3940.40.html), it seemed to me that the crumb had more height to it than the MM clones I have made, suggesting the possibility of the flour being bromated although at the time the notion of using bromated and/or bleached flour did not even cross my mind given the impression that MM created in its promotional materials that their pizza was a wholesome and healthful one (you will recall the spring water, the wheat germ and Vitamin-E enrichment, no refined white sugars in their dough or sauce, etc.). However, I was using KABF with vital wheat gluten, not high-gluten flour, and that might help explain the more compact crumb structure. Also, I was using a standard electric home oven, not a deck oven.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the link on Pizza Today and what Tom Lehmann had to say about bromated flour.

I have done experiments with bromated and nonbromated flours and can’t really see any big difference, but maybe I haven’t done enough experiments or followed what Tom had to say about mixing.

I also thought my attempt with the ADM Gigantic bromated flour did give a little more oven spring to my MM clone pizza on Tuesday, but don’t have any idea if it was from the bromated flour or from my mix time.

I know MM does give the promotional materials that say their pizzas are wholesome and a healthful. We already found out that molasses in the amounts that we had to use for the sweetness in the crust to be noticed really aren’t all that healthy, so I would think, but can’t be sure, that MM also has to use a lot of molasses in their pizza dough.

I can understand you really can’t compare bromated flours because you have been using KABF with vital wheat gluten and using your home oven, but find you comment interesting that your crumb at MM might have had more height to it than some of the MM clone pizzas you made at home.

I wonder if other members that have tried MM pies have noticed what the rims look like and if they seem puffy. I know in some of the photos that are posted on the web some of the rims don’t look like they have a lot of oven spring.

I wouldn’t put it past MM to be using a bromated flour though. MM has changed ingredients different times without informing their customers.

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1474 on:** March 02, 2012, 01:14:45 PM »

Quote from: norma427 on March 02, 2012, 12:25:09 PM

I wonder if other members that have tried MM pies have noticed what the rims look like and if they seem puffy. I know in some of the photos that are posted on the web some of the rims don’t look like they have a lot of oven spring.

Norma,

Yesterday, I did a Google Images search and a Flickr photo search for Mellow Mushroom pizzas. I did the search to see if the bulk of the MM pizzas as represented by photos have large rims with sunken centers, much as I experienced at the MM in Florida (and as shown in the official MM photos used on their websites), or they are just plain puffy, without an overly large and distinct rim. Representative examples of MM pizzas with "sunken" centers would be the ones shown at http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2010/11/26/8847909/0_KosmicKarma.jpg and at http://www.relylocal.com/uploads/pictures/13930/normal_mellow_mushroom_asheville_pizza.jpg. By contrast, a just plain puffy MM pizza would be like the ones shown at http://www.vividideas.net/vopix/mellow5.jpg and at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bossworth/3685461426/. Of course, there are some MM pizzas that fall between the two styles, with an example being shown at http://www.flickr.com/photos/53685043@N07/5513139124/. I suppose these variations are to be expected for a chain with many stores across the country and different workers with different levels of experience and skill and maybe with different ovens. But, what I concluded is that most of the MM pizzas shown in the photos seem to fall in the large, puffy category or maybe the middle category. I could not find many photos of MM pizzas that look like the official MM pizza photos.

Where would you place your MM clone pizzas?

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #1475 on:** March 02, 2012, 07:02:52 PM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on March 02, 2012, 01:14:45 PM

Norma,

Yesterday, I did a Google Images search and a Flickr photo search for Mellow Mushroom pizzas. I did the search to see if the bulk of the MM pizzas as represented by photos have large rims with sunken centers, much as I experienced at the MM in Florida (and as shown in the official MM photos used on their websites), or they are just plain puffy, without an overly large and distinct rim. Representative examples of MM pizzas with "sunken" centers would be the ones shown at http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2010/11/26/8847909/0_KosmicKarma.jpg and at http://www.relylocal.com/uploads/pictures/13930/normal_mellow_mushroom_asheville_pizza.jpg. By contrast, a just plain puffy MM pizza would be like the ones shown at http://www.vividideas.net/vopix/mellow5.jpg and at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bossworth/3685461426/. Of course, there are some MM pizzas that fall between the two styles, with an example being shown at http://www.flickr.com/photos/53685043@N07/5513139124/. I suppose these variations are to be expected for a chain with many stores across the country and different workers with different levels of experience and skill and maybe with different ovens. But, what I concluded is that most of the MM pizzas shown in the photos seem to fall in the large, puffy category or maybe the middle category. I could not find many photos of MM pizzas that look like the official MM pizza photos.

Where would you place your MM clone pizzas?

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for all the links to compare what different MM pizzas look like. I also think the variations of different rim sizes and being puffy or not are from different skill levels and how much time is spent on opening the MM dough. The pizza makers I saw at DC did form distinct rims first and none of them that I saw could really throw the pies into the air right. Of course, they were fairly new pie makers. It also might come from how well the dough is fermented and how many days the dough is left to thaw. I thought the pizza I ate at MM in DC had a fairly puffy rim.

To answer your questions about my MM clone pizzas I would place most of them with fairly puffy rims and being sunken in the middle of the pies. I don’t know, but think that is because I try to form the rim like I saw the MM workers at DC and also on some videos. Where would you place my MM clones when you have looked at them, especially the ones using the MM#7 formulation?

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1476 on:** March 02, 2012, 07:24:49 PM »

I receive an answer from PFM today and they said the protein content for the Power flour is 13.0+/-0.3%

Norma

CDNpielover · « **Reply #1477 on:** March 02, 2012, 07:43:19 PM »

Pete and Norma - for what it's worth...

when I've made MM pies, I always seem to the the puffy rim with a more sunken center (like the first 2 photos that Pete linked), as opposed to the entire puffy pie like the ones shown in Pete's last 2 links. I think this might have to do with the shaping method I used (based on youtube videos), where I made a fairly large rim that further expanded in the oven. However, I did get a puffy rim even when I tried to avoid it one time (although it was smaller).

Also, I plan to start making MM pies again soon. I've just been out of the country, and the last couple of pies have been chicago thin, since I was starting to miss that style. I am gone again next weekend, but next time I make pizza here I will make a MM pie. I'll try to get to it sooner than later.

norma427 · « **Reply #1478 on:** March 02, 2012, 07:52:21 PM »

CDNpielover,

Thanks for posting how you always seem to get a puffy rim with a sunken center. Glad to hear you will join us on this thread again!

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1479 on:** March 02, 2012, 08:22:26 PM »

Quote from: norma427 on March 02, 2012, 07:02:52 PM

To answer your questions about my MM clone pizzas I would place most of them with fairly puffy rims and being sunken in the middle of the pies. I don’t know, but think that is because I try to form the rim like I saw the MM workers at DC and also on some videos. Where would you place my MM clones when you have looked at them, especially the ones using the MM#7 formulation?