Mellow Mushroom Pizza found in Atlanta and surroundin areas...Recipes?

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Thank you for conducting the recent experiment using a fresh MM clone dough ball. I have been assuming all along that MM uses the same dough balls for both fresh and frozen applications. If that assumption is correct, then I wondered how a fresh dough ball would perform in a normal room temperature setting. The approximately 6 1/2-hour room temperature fermentation you mentioned is in the ballpark of what I would have estimated for 0.60% IDY. I'm sure that you got a lot more fermentation with the recent fresh dough ball than the frozen/defrosted MM clone dough balls that you have been using.

I'm not quite sure how to explain how you ended up with a lighter crust and crumb and a sweeter crust than your frozen/defrosted versions. Most sweeteners (e.g., excluding something like lactose) are fermentable, albeit yeast favors some sweeteners over others in terms of fermentation activity and yeast will ferment different sugars at different rates as a result. In the case of the molasses (including the molasses in brown sugar), it contains simple sugars for the yeast to feed off of quite quickly while other, more complex sugars, including those locked up in the starch in the flour, need to be converted to simple sugars for the yeast to use. If you got a lighter-colored crust and crumb and added sweetness in the finished crust, that would seem to suggest that the sugars in the molasses were first used by the yeast and at least partially depleted and that the sugars that ended up as residual sugar to contribute to crust sweetness (and final crust coloration) came in good part from the sugars released by the amylase enzymes from the damaged starch in the flour. The 6 1/2-hour room temperature fermentation should have been long enough for this to happen, especially when compared with the fementation that a defrosted frozen dough ball gets as it defrosts and warms up during tempering. This is just my speculation since I have never read of that sort of thing occurring and I have never tested the idea. Also, I believe that it is the ash content and minerals in molasses that are primarily responsible for the color (and taste) of molasses, which I believe would remain after fermentation. You would have to repeat the experiment, in exactly the same way as much as possible, to see if the results are reproducible. I wouldn't think that the oven used to bake the pizza (that is, your home oven versus your deck oven at market) would make a material difference, but that is another variable that would have to be removed from the equation.

Out of curiosity, have you been selling the MM clone pizzas at market or do the rules at market prevent you from doing so?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Thank you for conducting the recent experiment using a fresh MM clone dough ball. I have been assuming all along that MM uses the same dough balls for both fresh and frozen applications. If that assumption is correct, then I wondered how a fresh dough ball would perform in a normal room temperature setting. The approximately 6 1/2-hour room temperature fermentation you mentioned is in the ballpark of what I would have estimated for 0.60% IDY. I'm sure that you got a lot more fermentation with the recent fresh dough ball than the frozen/defrosted MM clone dough balls that you have been using.

I'm not quite sure how to explain how you ended up with a lighter crust and crumb and a sweeter crust than your frozen/defrosted versions. Most sweeteners (e.g., excluding something like lactose) are fermentable, albeit yeast favors some sweeteners over others in terms of fermentation activity and yeast will ferment different sugars at different rates as a result. In the case of the molasses (including the molasses in brown sugar), it contains simple sugars for the yeast to feed off of quite quickly while other, more complex sugars, including those locked up in the starch in the flour, need to be converted to simple sugars for the yeast to use. If you got a lighter-colored crust and crumb and added sweetness in the finished crust, that would seem to suggest that the sugars in the molasses were first used by the yeast and at least partially depleted and that the sugars that ended up as residual sugar to contribute to crust sweetness (and final crust coloration) came in good part from the sugars released by the amylase enzymes from the damaged starch in the flour. The 6 1/2-hour room temperature fermentation should have been long enough for this to happen, especially when compared with the fementation that a defrosted frozen dough ball gets as it defrosts and warms up during tempering. This is just my speculation since I have never read of that sort of thing occurring and I have never tested the idea. Also, I believe that it is the ash content and minerals in molasses that are primarily responsible for the color (and taste) of molasses, which I believe would remain after fermentation. You would have to repeat the experiment, in exactly the same way as much as possible, to see if the results are reproducible. I wouldn't think that the oven used to bake the pizza (that is, your home oven versus your deck oven at market) would make a material difference, but that is another variable that would have to be removed from the equation.

Out of curiosity, have you been selling the MM clone pizzas at market or do the rules at market prevent you from doing so?

Peter

Peter,

I wanted to see what would happen with a fresh MM dough, and how long it would take to ferment at room temperature.  Right now since it is cooler in our area, my kitchen isn’t the warmest.  I let the dough balls sit on the counter and a chair near a heat source for the 6 ½ hrs.  I could have put the dough balls in the oven (with the light on) to speed-up the fermentation process, but I wanted to see how long the dough balls would take to look like they were ready to be used.  I think I could have used the dough balls before I did.  I had a final dough temperature of 79.8 degrees F.  The dough balls just looked like they sat there for awhile doing nothing and then they started to ferment faster.  It could be seen in the one picture I posted how when I pressed out the rim of the skin, how gassy it looked.  The pretzels also were gassy, but just by rolling them the gas disappeared. 

If your assumption is correct that MM uses the same dough for fresh and frozen applications, how do you think they manage the dough balls for a few days, if they used the same yeast amount?  I know they could use a cooler to keep the dough balls from fermenting too fast, but would think over a few days they might ferment too much.  I don’t think there would be any problems with frozen doughs balls, like you and I have been testing.

I am not sure why I did get a lighter crust and sweeter crust, but I know when I did the one experiment in freezing the dough, and then letting it defrost, the dough and crust did become darker.  The dough getting darker is still a mystery to me.   

Your explanations on why my crust might have been lighter and sweeter are interesting.  I wonder if the molasses and brown sugar, (with molasses) are different in that the sugars in the products were first used by the yeast and then partially depleted in good part from the sugars released by amylase enzymes from the damaged starch in the flour. I still don’t understand enough about residual sugars and how they contribute to crust sweetness.  Maybe the 6 ½ hr. room temperature fermentation would have been long enough for the things you mentioned to happen.  It still wonders me about the dough ball not getting darker from not freezing it.  I might do another experiment next week, and make two dough balls at home again and see if I can get the same results.  To keep my final dough temperature exactly the same and also the method of room temperature fermentation the same, might be difficult.  I don’ t think there are enough pizza formulas that used molasses and brown sugar before to know what might happen.  At least I found out from the experiment that a MM pizza can be made in a relatively short time.  How would I remove the oven equation if I do another experiment?

To answer your question about if I am selling the MM clone pizzas at market, the answer is no.  I am still trying to find the best formula to use there.  I do want to start making the MM clone pizzas at market, but want to do some more tests.  I am allowed to sell any kind of pizzas at market, since I am the only person at market that makes fresh pizza.  I think the MM’s pizzas would sell, but I wouldn’t be sure until I try to sell them. 

BTW, about the pretzels experiments with the different dressings used, they did all taste different in some way or another.  The pretzels I had put the butter garlic butter with honey mix in, were sweeter and had a shiny appearance.  Since I didn’t taste any like that at MM, I don’t know how they are supposed to taste, but the honey added to the butter garlic mix did make the pretzels shiny. The salt added on some of the pretzels, did also make the taste of those pretzels different, because of the salty taste. I don’t know from the rolling of the dough for the pretzels, (they were denser) if that somehow affects the taste of them or not.  My pretzels all seemed to taste a little on the sweeter side, but they were good.  The pretzels I ate from MM weren’t that sweet.  That is still another mystery for me.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

You raise some good questions as to how MM's commissary and many of their stores in the area manage fresh dough balls. Since our attention has been dedicated mainly to the MM dough formulation and frozen dough balls, I hadn't really delved into how the MM commissary process might be designed and implemented to make both fresh and frozen dough balls. I have simply been assuming, perhaps erroneously, that the same dough is used to make fresh and frozen dough balls. However, it is possible that MM has separate production lines in its commissary for the two types of dough balls. MM has 43 of its approximately 122 stores in Georgia alone, and maybe some other stores in other states within reach of the commissary, so it is possible that there is a separate production line for the fresh dough balls. We don't know the store delivery cycle that MM uses but other companies with commissaries that deliver dough balls to their stores, such as Papa John's, Domino's and Papa Gino's, make twice a week deliveries to most of their stores. That would allow MM to use less yeast in their fresh dough and allow the stores to hold the dough balls in their coolers for a few days until ready to be used. I might add, however, that when I made my first MM dough clone, I used 0.375% IDY and a three-day cold ferment (I also used liquid molasses at 7%). While the pizza tasted very good, the dough did not rise much and had a rather flat rim when baked. It was on this basis that I decided to increase the amount of yeast in later experiments for the frozen dough balls. On the assumption that freezing the dough would impair some of the yeast, I increased the amount of IDY to 0.60%. That seemed to work pretty well but I also used 0.50% and 0.55% IDY in some of my experiments. Those values seemed to work pretty well but I settled on 0.60% for insurance purposes.

With respect to the change in the color of dough balls between fresh and frozen, my experience with the MM clone dough balls has always been that they look lighter after freezing than before freezing. And the color always returns to the original color when defrosted. If freezing molasses in the process does something to the color of the molasses, given that molasses contains about 22% water, I don't think that it is a permanent change. It might be like how olive oil when refrigerated can become cloudy but the cloudiness disappears when the oil is brought back to room temperature for a while.

To conduct another test to see if a fresh MM clone dough experiences a color change and increased sweetness as you reported with your last MM clone dough ball, you could simply repeat the last experiment as closely as possible and see if you get the same results as with the last dough ball. I would use your home oven so that you don't introduce another variable, such as using your oven at market. You could also make two identical MM clone dough balls and use one fresh and freeze the other for later use, in both cases using your home oven to bake the pizzas. That might not be a perfect experiment, because there is no easy way to equate the two fermentation periods for the two dough balls and the pizzas would be baked with a time shift, but it might be close enough to demonstrate whether using a fresh dough ball yields a lighter and sweeter crust than a defrosted frozen one. Maybe you could use the fresh dough ball after one day of cold fermentation and defrost the frozen dough ball over two days in your refrigerator. The results you get might tell you whether there is any point in doing any similar experiments but where you use your deck oven at market to bake the pizzas.

I wondered whether you were selling any of your MM clone pizzas at market because I couldn't recall whether you were making and freezing the dough balls at home rather than at market. I also couldn't recall if you had freezer capacity at market to allow you to both make and freeze the dough balls at market if the market rules prohibit making the dough balls off premises. Of course, those rules wouldn't apply to fresh dough balls made and used entirely on site.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

You raise some good questions as to how MM's commissary and many of their stores in the area manage fresh dough balls. Since our attention has been dedicated mainly to the MM dough formulation and frozen dough balls, I hadn't really delved into how the MM commissary process might be designed and implemented to make both fresh and frozen dough balls. I have simply been assuming, perhaps erroneously, that the same dough is used to make fresh and frozen dough balls. However, it is possible that MM has separate production lines in its commissary for the two types of dough balls. MM has 43 of its approximately 122 stores in Georgia alone, and maybe some other stores in other states within reach of the commissary, so it is possible that there is a separate production line for the fresh dough balls. We don't know the store delivery cycle that MM uses but other companies with commissaries that deliver dough balls to their stores, such as Papa John's, Domino's and Papa Gino's, make twice a week deliveries to most of their stores. That would allow MM to use less yeast in their fresh dough and allow the stores to hold the dough balls in their coolers for a few days until ready to be used. I might add, however, that when I made my first MM dough clone, I used 0.375% IDY and a three-day cold ferment (I also used liquid molasses at 7%). While the pizza tasted very good, the dough did not rise much and had a rather flat rim when baked. It was on this basis that I decided to increase the amount of yeast in later experiments for the frozen dough balls. On the assumption that freezing the dough would impair some of the yeast, I increased the amount of IDY to 0.60%. That seemed to work pretty well but I also used 0.50% and 0.55% IDY in some of my experiments. Those values seemed to work pretty well but I settled on 0.60% for insurance purposes.

With respect to the change in the color of dough balls between fresh and frozen, my experience with the MM clone dough balls has always been that they look lighter after freezing than before freezing. And the color always returns to the original color when defrosted. If freezing molasses in the process does something to the color of the molasses, given that molasses contains about 22% water, I don't think that it is a permanent change. It might be like how olive oil when refrigerated can become cloudy but the cloudiness disappears when the oil is brought back to room temperature for a while.

To conduct another test to see if a fresh MM clone dough experiences a color change and increased sweetness as you reported with your last MM clone dough ball, you could simply repeat the last experiment as closely as possible and see if you get the same results as with the last dough ball. I would use your home oven so that you don't introduce another variable, such as using your oven at market. You could also make two identical MM clone dough balls and use one fresh and freeze the other for later use, in both cases using your home oven to bake the pizzas. That might not be a perfect experiment, because there is no easy way to equate the two fermentation periods for the two dough balls and the pizzas would be baked with a time shift, but it might be close enough to demonstrate whether using a fresh dough ball yields a lighter and sweeter crust than a defrosted frozen one. Maybe you could use the fresh dough ball after one day of cold fermentation and defrost the frozen dough ball over two days in your refrigerator. The results you get might tell you whether there is any point in doing any similar experiments but where you use your deck oven at market to bake the pizzas.

I wondered whether you were selling any of your MM clone pizzas at market because I couldn't recall whether you were making and freezing the dough balls at home rather than at market. I also couldn't recall if you had freezer capacity at market to allow you to both make and freeze the dough balls at market if the market rules prohibit making the dough balls off premises. Of course, those rules wouldn't apply to fresh dough balls made and used entirely on site.

Peter

Peter,

I don’t believe we will ever find out if MM does have separate production lines for fresh and frozen dough balls.  I didn’t recall that your first experiment used 0.375% IDY and a three-day cold ferment. The 0.60% IDY does seem to be working well in the formula now.

When I find time, I will mix two identical MM dough balls with the same formula I used yesterday, and use one fresh, and freeze the other for later use to see if there are any color or sweetness changes.  I will bake both in my home oven. 

I have been mixing and freezing my experimental dough balls at home to be baked at market.  If the dough balls would be used to make pizzas for customers at market, I would need to mix the dough at market.

Norma

[norma427]

Wayback Machine in 1999
http://web.archive.org/web/19991012225712/http://mellowmushroom.com/You_are_what/whatyoueat.shtml  The ingredients have changed for the dough since then.

This is on Spring Street looking toward the southeast.  In the background is the original location of the Mellow Mushroom which had an address of 1193 Spring Street.  One Atlantic Center now stands on this piece of property.
Date:  1979
http://atlantatimemachine.com/dukes/08.htm

I don’t think this video at Fort Worth, Texas was posted before.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/the-scene/food-drink/Perfect-Pies-From-Fort-Worth-Guys.html

I know this has been mentioned before by Peter but, In this article Brasch does say that MM locations around Georgia do receive fresh dough deliveries.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_41_40/ai_n26707254/

The team at MM with their names, pictures, CEO and President and more. What their jobs are, from Senior Field coach, Senior Graphic Designer, Driver, Commissary Manager, and more.
http://ja-jp.facebook.com/media/set/comments/?set=a.38963691183.60442.38954621183

Article about MM at Slice yesterday by Todd Brock.
http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/11/daily-slice-mellow-mushroom-pizza-bakers-marietta-ga.html
The rim on the slices of MM pizza on Slice look darker than they normally look, and the rim doesn’t look as pronounced.

I am not sure which of these pictures was the first MM pizza business.  

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I believe that the MM employee I spoke with about the MM dough is Melody (Mel). That may not be her real name since, as you know, there is an MM cartoon character by the name of Melody Mushroom. You might get a kick out of this cartoon featuring some of the MM cartoon characters, including Melody: http://mellowmushroom.com/public/old_site1/toons/sundried.html. If Melody is the one I spoke with and is a Product Innovation Manager, I think she would, or should, know what goes into the MM dough.

The number of MM stores mentioned in the Slice article is wrong. There are currently 132 MM units, including those that are in the process of opening. As of 2010, there were 122 units.

I read a review article recently where the writer complained about the slow service (40 minutes for a small specialty pizza) and the high prices at one of the recently opened MM stores (as much as $27.95 for some of the 16" specialty pizzas). There are actually quite a few MM 16" specialty pizzas above $25.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

I believe that the MM employee I spoke with about the MM dough is Melody (Mel). That may not be her real name since, as you know, there is an MM cartoon character by the name of Melody Mushroom. You might get a kick out of this cartoon featuring some of the MM cartoon characters, including Melody: http://mellowmushroom.com/public/old_site1/toons/sundried.html. If Melody is the one I spoke with and is a Product Innovation Manager, I think she would, or should, know what goes into the MM dough.

The number of MM stores mentioned in the Slice article is wrong. There are currently 132 MM units, including those that are in the process of opening. As of 2010, there were 122 units.

I read a review article recently where the writer complained about the slow service (40 minutes for a small specialty pizza) and the high prices at one of the recently opened MM stores (as much as $27.95 for some of the 16" specialty pizzas). There are actually quite a few MM 16" specialty pizzas above $25.

Peter

Peter.

I think you could be right that the MM employee that you spoke to was Melody (Mel).  I did remember the MM cartoon character by the name of Melody Mushroom.  Thanks for the link to the cartoon with Melody, The Wizard, Mel, and Dude. I didn’t see that cartoon before. It sure had me chuckling.  If it was Melody the Product Innovation Manager you spoke to, I also think she would, or should, know what goes into the MM dough.  Either you could call again, using your favorite falsetto voice like you didn’t want to use with Maria, at Reply 2 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13687.msg137295.html#msg137295  or if you don’t want to use your favorite falsetto voice, I can call this coming week and see if I can speak to Melody and find out any information.  If you don’t decide to call, what do you want me to ask?  Should I just pretend I am a vegan and ask about honey?

I am glad you are up on how many MM units there are now.  I sure couldn’t keep count of all of them.   

I have also seen some reviews of how slow the service is at some MM locations.  Some of those prices for MM specialty pizzas are expensive. 

Norma

[norma427]

Dave Kieffer might also know something about MM dough, since he worked on and off at the second MM store that was franchised for 11 years.  Dave then went on to open his own store in 2001.  
http://next-stop-decatur-ga.blogspot.com/2008/07/five-questions-with-dave-kieffer-owner.html

The Atlanta MM pizza posse was in force 1/22/2009.  These pizza posses had spreadsheets and blind taste testers in the booth. Lol   This was their report.
http://www.eatitatlanta.com/2009/01/22/atlanta-pizza-days-2-mellow-mushroom/

Jimmy also posted on Atlanta Pizza Days #4 Harry’s also tasted like MM pizza.
http://www.eatitatlanta.com/2009/01/26/atlanta-pizza-days-4-harrys-pizza-subs/

I Get Mellow Blog.
http://www.igetmellow.com/post/12522582955/do-you-know-tony-boselli-well-if-you-dont-he

I Get Mellow archive
http://www.igetmellow.com/archive

Mellow get MAD with Chris McAlister
http://www.igetmellow.com/post/6740679376/mellow-gets-mad-with-chris-mcalister

A letter, or email to MM about their chicken.  
http://www.igetmellow.com/post/3880862427/dear-mellow-my-boys-love-mellow-mushroom-we-are

This video was taken at the MM location I visited, and was an interview for Fox 5 TV.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/mornings/holly_live/holly-morris-favorite-dc-pizza-110211
One of the co-owners talks about what is in the pizza dough at MM.  He says the dough is basically molasses, and that is what makes it so special.

Peter,

You probably already checked out Melody, but in case you haven’t, her name is Melody Weinstien.  I wonder if Melody is related to Marc Weinstien.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/melody-weinstein/5/3b1/590
http://delray.mellowmushroom.com/media/gallery/show/photo/420434306183
http://www.theweekly.com/news/2011/June/30/film_project.html
http://twitter.com/#!/MELOFILMS Edit:  If you put Melody Weinstein Mellow Mushroom Twitter, in your browser, it should come up with Melody's tweets.

Norma

[norma427]

In addition to my last post, in this video is Josh Weinstein, and he tells about taking MM mobile, and he has worked for MM for years. 

http://clclt.com/cltv/archives/2009/09/28/free-mellow-mushroom-pizza-uptown

On Josh Weinstein’s facebook page he does have pictures of Melody Weinstein and Josh Weinstein also works for MM.  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/josh-weinstein/B/976/553

Norma

[Pete-zza]

If it was Melody the Product Innovation Manager you spoke to, I also think she would, or should, know what goes into the MM dough.  Either you could call again, using your favorite falsetto voice like you didn’t want to use with Maria, at Reply 2 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13687.msg137295.html#msg137295  or if you don’t want to use your favorite falsetto voice, I can call this coming week and see if I can speak to Melody and find out any information.  If you don’t decide to call, what do you want me to ask?  Should I just pretend I am a vegan and ask about honey?

Norma,

I think it would be better if someone else called Melody, or someone else at MM, on the honey/vegan issue. In cases like this, you sometimes only get one bite at the apple. For me, that was getting resolution on the matters of the use of high-gluten flour (yes), wheat germ (no), Vitamin E enrichment (no), molasses (yes), spring water (yes) and no white refined sugars. Had I known at the time I spoke with Melody that honey and its relatiionship to a vegan diet was an issue, that would have been the time to ask Melody about the honey. If I were to call her again, I think the vegan issue would raise a red flag and make her suspicious, particullarly since she told me that they had vegan pizzas (and gluten-free as well) and I remained silent on that matter. If I use a falsetto voice, she will perhaps know from my telephone number or Caller ID where I am calling from. Then I would have to "invent" a female member of my household.

So, whether you or Biz decide to call MM, I would limit the next phone call to possibly two issues. One would be the honey/vegan issue. The second would have to do with the use of organic ingredients. In my research, I read a few times about the flour for the MM dough being organic. MM has never said that it uses organic flour to the best of my knowledge, only reviewers who perhaps don't have a clue about what they are talking about. I also saw occasional references to organic toppings. I don't really care about those. But it would be interesting to know if the MM high-gluten flour is organic. I tend to doubt it because when I spoke with Melody on one of our calls she read off some of the ingredients in their flour, including B vitamins. Most organic flours tend to be just plain wheat flour without the vitamin or iron enrichment, although they can include barley malt. The lead in to the organic flour question might be a comment that you read somewhere on the Internet that MM uses organic flour and that you are always on the lookout for organic products as much as possible as part of a healthy diet. It is not an allergy, vegan/vegetarian or gluten-free issue.

Peter

[buceriasdon]

Peter, I'm having a bit of a hard time, having heard your actual voice, thinking about it with a falsetto timber.  Moreover I find it impossible to think of you using a subterfuge to garner information. Now that really would not sound like you.
Don