Added too much olive oil to dough. Problem???

[Pauley]

I was making some dough last night using Canadave's *NEW* and *IMPROVED* NY style pizza recipe (pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4470.0.html) only I have added 2T of honey. I went to weigh my dough balls (which I have been tracking the past 3-4 times I've made it this month) and they were suddenly about 13 g heavier!?! I know it is not much, but my recent tracking of this had only varies by a few grams.

Looking back over the recipe I realised that instead of 4 ts. of olive oil, I had used 4 TB!! I've made this recipe about a dozen times and had never made this mistake...really.

For 4 - 12" crusts

800g Flour              6 1/2 – 6 2/3 cups (75% HK; 25% Softasilk cake flour)
494g Cold Water   2 cups 1 oz
5.5g Salt                 1 tsp
4.0g IDY**ADY     1 1/3 tsp
18.5g Olive Oil      4 tsp
6.6g Sugar             1 2/3 tsp
Honey                     2 TB

Mix 400g flour + 494g water, Autolyse for 20 min.

Add remaining ingredients, mix for 5 min.

Divide into 4 balls and refrigerate.


OK. My question is "What effect might this have on the final product?" I was making this up to make for my fellow staff members at school tomorrow. I made pizzas for them about three weeks ago (as well as some Chicago deep-dish) and they raved over my pizzas, and kept asking me to make some more. I didn't know if I should trash them and make some more or what.

Any thoughts?? PLEASE!!

[canadianbacon]

Hi Pauley,

I seriously wouldn't give it much thought.  The pizza will turn out fine and I'm sure your fellow staff member will
love your pizza.

you would have to be a computer to know that your doughballs were 13 grams heavier than normal.  you won't know
the difference when you bite into a slice  - trust me.

As for oil, when you work with dough long enough, you have a feel for what the dough should feel like in your hand, and
if you add too much oil, then you will automatically compensate with a bit more flour.  Your dough will be more moist,
but who is going to argue with that 

I hope you are joking about throwing away perfectly fine pizza dough ! -- don't do it don't do it -- it's a sin 

Next time, just make sure you do the recipe right, and you know what, at least you can eat your mistakes.  I think making
mistakes sometimes, makes us more aware, and next time you'll pay more attention.

Good luck and I know your pizza will be a hit !

[chiguy]

 Hi Pauley,
 While 13 grams per dough ball and 52grams total extra weight may not seem like a problem. Although if you accidently miscalulated that amount in just salt, sugar or yeast you will definetly experience taste or even fermentation problems with the dough. An extra 6.5% of any of these ingrediants can spell disaster.
 As for myself i would not chance it, it happens once in awhile where i make mistakes weighing and I start over. I hope by the time you read this you have already started over and the dough is safely in the fridge.    Chiguy
 
 Edit: My mistake i commented on your post without throughly reading comments.
   I now see that you have identified the problem as being 4TB oil versus 4ts. This amount of oil represent an increase from 2.3% upwards of 7.0%.
  Oil is generally a tenderizer amd lubricator as well as flavor enhancer. This much oil will definetely be noticeable and maybe a bit overwhelming for some. The dough will also be extremely tender and if baked directly on a stone may experience some browning issues. I still would start over if possible because it seems like a bit too much oil for a N.Y. style.        Once again, Chiguy
         

[Pauley]

Thanks for the input so far, guys. I didn't expect such quick replies. I had already planned on making another batch anyway, so I guess I can compare the two.  I usually try shooting for making it at least 3 days in advance of  pizza making; this week became too busy though. 

I guess the late night preparation affected my concentration??? Although that hasn't been a problem before. Who knows? It will simply be used as a test of sorts!!

I better get busy now, since I also need to make a few deep dish crusts as well.

I'll check back for further opinions. Thanks again!

[Pete-zza]

Pauley,

I ran your numbers through the new Expanded Dough Calculator at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html to see exactly what you did and came up with the following:

Flour (100%): Water (61.75%): IDY (0.50%): Salt (0.6875%): Olive Oil (6.804%): Sugar (0.825%): Honey (5.297%): Total (175.8635%):

800 g  |  28.22 oz | 1.76 lbs 494 g  |  17.43 oz | 1.09 lbs 4 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.33 tsp | 0.44 tbsp 5.5 g | 0.19 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.99 tsp | 0.33 tbsp 54.43 g | 1.92 oz | 0.12 lbs | 4.03 tbsp | 0.25 cups 6.6 g | 0.23 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.66 tsp | 0.55 tbsp 42.38 g | 1.49 oz | 0.09 lbs | 6.06 tsp | 2.02 tbsp 1406.91 g | 49.63 oz | 3.1 lbs | TF = N/A

Assuming those numbers are correct, I think your dough may still be OK, especially if you used the same amount of yeast, sugar and honey as you used before. If you did not use the honey before, the total sugar comes to around 6.1%. Usually, when you increase the total sugar levels, you should also increase the amount of yeast, since sugar at high levels can reduce the performance of yeast and affect the fermentation. You might be OK if you bring the dough balls out early enough to warm up sufficiently before using them. Based on your past efforts, you should be able to tell whether the dough is performing properly.

With the amount of oil you used, the most likely effect is that the crumb will be more tender, especially with all the table sugar and honey. As chiguy noted, you may also experience premature browning of the bottom of the crust because of the high total sugar levels. To minimize this possibility, you could bake the pizzas on pizza screens right on the stone. You can always “deck” the pizzas by sliding them off of the screens onto the stone in case you don’t experience excessive browning.

Peter

[Pauley]

Thank, Pete.

I like using the honey for flavoring reasons. I wasn't thinking about having to add more yeast because of the added sugar (honey). How much more ADY would you recommend? So far I haven't seen much of a problem in fermentation. Although with my last batch, I still had one ball left after 7 days that was still active. 

I don't plan on always using extra EVOO  , though, so do you think I'll be okay keeping everything else as is?

ETA: I also haven't seen/noticed any excessive brownig, and I don't have any screen...yet. 

[Pete-zza]

Pauley,

I have found very little in my research in terms of an optimum ratio of sugar to yeast. However, as you will note in this King Arthur piece, http://www.kingarthurflour.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/15ec5c94af1251cdac2d7a25848f0e27/miscdocs/yeast.pdf, once you get above 8% sugar you can expect a reduced rate of fermentation. I think that number shouldn't be considered in isolation because excessive salt can have a similar effect. So, when increasing either sugar or salt by a material amount, I would increase the amount of yeast also. I don't have any specific amount to recommend based on what I have read, but I would think that a 10% increase might be a good place to start, and make other adjustments as experience dictates. I assume in your last post that you meant to say IDY rather than ADY, but if you meant ADY then you could increase the IDY quantity by about 25%, by weight, to get the proper equivalency.

As for your formulation, it seems to me that your salt, at around 0.7%, is on the low side. Unless you are on a salt-restricted diet, or you simply don't like salt, I would go with around 1.5-1.75%. Your honey is a bit on the high side, but it is within range of values I have seen for pizza doughs, especially the American style. I personally use honey in small quantities because I am not as big a fan as others of the sweetness that honey provides. However, I think honey is a good ingredient to use in pizza doughs because it appears to help the extensibility and other handling qualities of the doughs and provide good crust coloration as well.

Peter

EDIT (3/15/13): For the Wayback Machine link to the King Arthur article on yeast, see http://web.archive.org/web/20080705144146/http://www.kingarthurflour.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/15ec5c94af1251cdac2d7a25848f0e27/miscdocs/yeast.pdf

[Pauley]

Okay guys. I've made my new batch and tried increasing the salt to 1 1/2 ts. and the ADY (yes Pete-zza, that is what I should have had in the 1st post - note added there) also to 1 ts. + a slightly rounded 1/2 ts. (an additional 25% took it 1.66 ts.).

I'll try to take some pics with the school camera tomorrow to show the comparisons/results.

TGIF!!!

[Pete-zza]

it seems like a bit too much oil for a N.Y. style

chiguy,

It's a bit difficult to generalize on these matters, but in my experience from analyzing NY style dough recipes, I have concluded that there are about three differerent "NY styles". The first is the classic NY style dough formulation that includes no oil or sugar but modest amounts of yeast to permit same-day, room-temperature fermentation. The NY "elite" styles tend to fall in this category. Next on the scale is the Lehmann NY style with low yeast quantities to accommodate cold fermentation, no sugar and little oil. Finally, there is the NY style that includes a fair amount of yeast, sugar and oil. Canadave's original NY dough formulation falls into this group, as does the Reinhart NY style and the Morgan-Gemignani NY style. As far as oil quantity is concerned, it is not unusual to see above 3%. The Reinhart NY style dough formulation, for example, calls for about 6.4% oil. So, Pauley's dough formulation is not all that unusual in terms of the amount of oil, even if it was by accident. I agree with you that some may not like such high levels of oil, especially if it is all olive oil with a pronounced flavor profile, but that is another story. Most pizzerias don't use any olive oil or only in small quantities, and often blended with other oils.

Peter

[chiguy]

 Peter,
  Well this may seem like a general statement, at 6.8% oil it still is above what is recommended for Canadaves recipe or the others that you mentioned.
 Also i noticed in reply #5 Pauley is using EVOO which has a stonger more pronounced flavor than regular blended olive oil or other oils.
 The oil does add some browning to the crust, more so than most think. This combined with the relativly high sugar amounts may produce a overly brown crust. Although the fementation temp and age of dough will also play a role.
 
 I am sure the pizza may turn out just fine but the ExVirgin Olive Oil will not go unnoticed.           Chiguy

[Pauley]

Here are some pics from today's "Pizza Fest" (8 pies, one of which came home   )

Pics #1 & 2 are from the extra EVOO batch
Pic #3 shows 1 slice from each batch (1st batch on left - extra browning??)
Pic #4 & 5 is a pepperoni from 2nd batch
Pic #6 shows 2 in the fridge to fix after school (for two teachers coming back late from a field trip)
Pic #7 is a cheese only from 2nd batch (blurry; not sure why all the bubbles  )

I didn't get to taste any from the 1st batch (they went almost as soon as I was pulling them out of the ovens), so I can't comment on any taste difference. 

I was surpised at the extensibility of the 2nd batch, since it was made last night. It might help that lately, since it is usually late at night when I make it, I will leave it out, covered over night, and get up early to punch it down, divide, weigh, and drop in the fridge.    It streched out so easily!!

It's a small elementary school (only one class per grade), but all seemed to enjoy them. Between a collection they took for me, and the payments I got from the 2-3 that took one home, I made $38!! 

Not bad for havin' fun!! 

[Pauley]

Sorry about posting the pics without comments first. 

I just realized about an half hour had passed before I resubmitted my comments. 

[Bryan S]

Pauley, Great looking pies. Pic #5 great crumb going on there. Pic #6 man you got some rise going on in them there bowls  Pic #7 with them bubbles, that's a classic N.Y. Style pie. Great pics and great job. 

[Pete-zza]

Pauley,

Very nice job. You should be proud of your accomplishment.

I went back and recalculated your yeast (ADY) percent for the second dough batch, and I got just under 0.80%. That amount, coupled with an overnight rise at room temperature, could well have been responsible for the bubbling you experienced with the cheese pizza. The bubbling could also have occurred if you didn't let the dough warm up before opening it up to make the pizza. If the dough was warm, it is possible that it was a bit overfermented by the time you decided to use it, which can also lead to bubbling. It doesn't take much for a dough at room temperature for several hours with the amount of yeast you used to experience rapid expansion. Moreover, because of the amount of gases in the dough, the dough starts to behave like an insulator and can take a while to cool down once it goes into the refrigerator. Even during the cooldown process, the dough can still be expanding. If you decide that you want to use the room temperature rise in future efforts, you will perhaps want to reduce the amount of yeast and also consider using cooler water for the part of the formula water not used to rehydrate the ADY (which should be at around 105 degrees F).

Peter

[Pauley]

Thanks, guys!

If you decide that you want to use the room temperature rise in future efforts, you will perhaps want to reduce the amount of yeast and also consider using cooler water for the part of the formula water not used to rehydrate the ADY (which should be at around 105 degrees F).

I don't rehydrate the ADY, I just add it to the mix after the autolyse. My water is usually at room temp., 65^o - 68^o.

One of these times I'll try to document some things (i.e.-exact time counter, fridge, pre-cook rise times, etc.) to help pinpoint possible answers to appearance "issues". Pete-zza, the cheese pie bubbling could have been the cool dough issue, but the pepperoni one made 10 minutes later (out of the fridge at the same time) didn't exhibit that "problem".   

I believe I had neglected to tell my prep and baking procedures. (As stated before, I usually try to make up the dough at least 3 days in advance.)

Here we go!

1. I take my dough out of the fridge 1 1/5 - 2 hours before cooking time, keeping them in the 4-cup, round, plastic containers (loosening the lids). 
2. I then preheat a 14" Pampered Chef stone on the bottom rack for at least an hour, at about 525^o in an electric oven.
3. I take the dough out of the containers right before prepping them, dipping them into a bowl of flour. I toss it back and forth to shake excess flour off.
4. I place it on a round plate to form the rim and flatten the center with my fingertips.
5. At this point, all I've needed to do lately is drape it over the back of my hands to gently stretch it out.
6. I then place it on my lightly floured wooden pizza peel to dress it.
    a. about 1/3 cup of sauce (I recently bought a case of Stanislaus Pizzaiolo from a local distributor here in MD - Holt Paper Co.)
    b. about 3/4 -1 c. of Sargento shredded Mozz/Prov mix
    c. when I add toppings, I typically place half of the cheese on first, then toppings, then rest of the cheese
7. I then bake it on the bottom rack for about 5 min., then move it to the top rak for about 2 min.
8. I take it out by sliding it onto the perforated pan shown in the picture above to cool a bit before cutting.
9. Eat and enjoy!! 

PS-I know it is subjective, but what amount of sauce and cheese would typically be on a 12" NY Style pie?

[Pete-zza]

Pauley,

The normal, recommended way of using ADY is to rehydrate it in warm water, at about 105° F, for about 10-15 minutes. It can then be combined with the rest of the formula water, which can be on the cool side if desired. An alternative approach recommended by yeast producers for rehydrating ADY is to mix the ADY with half of the flour and the other dry ingredients, and heat the liquids (usually water) to 120-130° F.

If yeast producers felt that it would be safe to use the ADY in a nonrehydrated state and not materially affect yeast performance, they would tell you that, not only because people would rather avoid the multiple steps of rehydrating ADY but also because the most common error that people make in rehydrating ADY is not measuring the water temperature and, as a result, ending up with water that is too hot or too cold. As noted by Tom Lehmann at this post, http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi?noframes;read=29692, being off on the rehydration temperature by even a modest amount can impair yeast performance. There are members who do use ADY in a nonrehydrated state but they are in the minority and may have adapted their dough making procedures to accommodate that mode of use. If you don’t want to go through the hassles of rehydrating ADY, then you may want to switch to IDY, which can be added directly to the flour.

As for the amount of cheese and sauce to use on your pizzas, you are correct that it is subjective. It is even subjective among pizza operators, as noted at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=9932#9932 and http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=9919#9919. The amount of cheese used by pizza operators is a big issue because it is the most expensive ingredient used in making most pizzas. One company, Belissimmo Foods, has published a guide (commonly referred to as the "Burke" guide) to assist operators in portioning their toppings. This guide can be seen on the right hand side of the page at http://www.bellissimofoods.com/pdfs/bb_0504_f.pdf. Unfortunately, the guide does not show the numbers for pizza sizes above 14" but it does give you a general idea as to the amounts of toppings to use and one can roughly extrapolate the numbers shown to get approximate amounts for the larger size pizzas.

Peter

[Pauley]

Pauley,
.....
 If you don’t want to go through the hassles of rehydrating ADY, then you may want to switch to IDY, which can be added directly to the flour.
.....

Peter

I didn't realize there could be that much of a difference caused by not rehydrating ADY. 

I punched in some similar numbers into the Exp. Dough Calc., changing to IDY, dropping the sugar, and upping the salt. Let me know what you think. 

Flour (100%):       801.14 g |  28.26 oz | 1.77 lbs
Water (61.75%):   494.7 g  |  17.45 oz | 1.09 lbs
IDY (.5%):              4.01 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.33 tsp | 0.44 tbsp
IDY (.6%):               4.8 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.59 tsp | 0.53 tbsp (change per Peet-za's recommendation)
Salt (1.4%):          11.22 g | 0.4 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.01 tsp | 0.67 tbsp
Olive Oil (6.8%):     54.48 g | 1.92 oz | 0.12 lbs | 4.04 tbsp | 0.25 cups   (my bad)
Olive Oil (2.3%):     18.41 g | 0.65 oz | 0.04 lbs | 4.09 tsp | 1.36 tbsp
Honey (5.25%):      42.06 g | 1.48 oz | 0.09 lbs | 6.01 tsp | 2 tbsp
Total (175.7%):    1407.6 g | 49.65 oz | 3.1 lbs | TF = N/A
Single Ball:             351.9 g | 12.41 oz | 0.78 lbs

[Pete-zza]

Pauley,

I gather from your new dough formulation that you decided to stick with the high oil and honey levels because you either concluded that they caused no harm to the dough or you would like to see how the finished crusts taste since you didn't get a chance to try the crusts that had the high oil and honey/sugar levels. If it were my dough, to be on the safe side I would be inclined to increase the IDY a bit to compensate for the increased salt/honey levels. Maybe 0.60% would be a good starting figure. You can always modify the percent if it turns out the 0.60% is too high or too low for your particular purposes. To a degree, the amount of yeast to use will depend on how you intend to prepare and manage the dough, that is, whether you decide to use room-temperature fermentation or cold fermentation, or a combination of both. The 0.60% figure I mentioned presupposes that you will be using only cold fermentation.

Peter

[Pauley]

Pauley,

I gather from your new dough formulation that you decided to stick with the high oil and honey levels because you either concluded that they caused no harm to the dough or you would like to see how the finished crusts taste since you didn't get a chance to try the crusts that had the high oil and honey/sugar levels.

Peter

Peter, thanks for pointing out the high oil level out - that was an input error on my part. It should have read:

Olive Oil (2.3%):     18.41 g | 0.65 oz | 0.04 lbs | 4.09 tsp | 1.36 tbsp

I have changed that in the above post, as well as your recommendation for .60% IDY.

I think I'll stick with the honey as noted for now (I did eliminate the sugar, though).

I plan on making a batch based on the new formulation tonight, to bake later this week. I'll let you know the results. I'll also be going back to the cold fermentation right after mixing, as I didn't start out doing the counter rise. I think that came about the last few times making it because it was getting so late and my bed (ZZZZ) was (ZZZZZZ) calling. 

Paul

[Jack]

On the other hand. . . .

While I use 6.5% olive oil in my Sicilian dough, I just recently (about 4 dough batches) ago, stopped using any oil in my NY style dough and have been very happy with the results.  Composition follows:

Flour 100%
Water 65%
ADY 0.25% (hydrated)
Salt 1.75%
Sugar 1.0%

I will be lowering the ADY content slowly over time as this dough has been a bit hyperactive after a 7 day cold ferment; great crust, just too much oven spring in the rim.

BTW - I've used ADY dry, mixed in with the other dry ingredients and prefer to hydrate it.  I also think that ADY prefers not to go from freezer directly into warm water.  It's been more predictable since I started keeping a few ounces of ADY in a small jar in the fridge, seperate from the big container in the freezer.  Maybe this is all my imagination, maybe not, but it seems to correlate.

Jack