I used my 2nd dough ball today and let it sit out around 3-4 hrs this time. I used Norma's latest recipe (molasses/brown sugar) but decreased the yeast from .6 to .3 under the advisement of Pete since I skipped the freezing step. I used grandma's robust molasses because that is what I had in stock. One word: amazing. i turned out about 95% identical to what we've had numerous times at MM. I baked it in a 550 oven for 8 minutes and then rotated it 180 degrees and gave it an extra minute because the bottom was looking quite brown. A keeper for me. HUGE THANKS to Biz, Pete and Norma for their extreme dedication. This is a really special community. Chills
Brian,
I have been away for a few days and just catching up. I'm glad to read that you got such good results with your cold fermented version of an MM clone dough.
For your information, particularly in respect of the amount of yeast to use, the very first experiment I conducted to come up with a credible MM clone dough under this thread was to use molasses as the sole sweetener in the MM clone dough. The molasses was an older version of a Grandma's molasses (the only molasses product I had on hand at the time) that, judging from the amount of sugars for a single serving, was perhaps a second boil product. I used that molasses at 7%. The color of the molasses was about the same as the Brer Rabbit Full Flavor molasses (and possibly the same color as the Grandma's Robust molasses). As a result, the dough was much darker than a real MM dough. Since I decided to try a three-day cold fermentation of the dough, I used 0.375% IDY. The hydration was on the low side, at 54%.
After three days of cold fermentation, the dough had risen but only slightly. And, even after an approximately two hour temper time, the dough did not rise much more. The pizza made from the dough baked up fine with an excellent flavor profile--in my opinion better than later MM clones and maybe even better than the real MM pizza I had in Florida--but not with a sweetness level that I had detected in the Florida MM pizza. I concluded from the experiment that there was perhaps too much molasses in relation to the amount of yeast that I used, especially when considered with the low hydration value of the dough that caused the dough to ferment more slowly. I subsequently decided to concentrate my efforts on making frozen MM clone doughs so I didn't spend much time on how to come up with a good cold fermentation version of an MM clone dough. Had I done so, I would have used more yeast, as I suggested to you for your test (I increased the amount of yeast even for my frozen MM clone doughs but for other reasons).
In your case, if you find that your MM clone dough still does not rise fast enough, you can increase the amount of yeast even further or use a longer fermentation window and/or a longer temper time or even a higher temperature to temper the dough before opening up to form a skin. You will have to play around with the values of ingredients to achieve the desired final dough condition that works for your particular timeframe. I wouldn't worry too much about the color of the dough. You would perhaps have to find a molasses product similar to what MM uses. That product is unlikely to be available at the retail level unless Norma discovers that the samples of commercial liquid molasses products she recently requested from Malt Products and Domino Specialty Ingredients are like the Grandma's Original molasses or some other comparable first boil or Fancy molasses sold at retail.
BTW, in your photos I noticed a pizza screen. Did you bake your pizza on the screen or was that only for cooling purposes?
Peter
