Tom Lehmann's NY Style Pizza

[wilsonc91]

wilsonc91,

Since you posted in this thread, I assume that you have been using a Lehmann NY style dough. It might help to know which specific Lehmann dough recipe you used but the problem you mentioned in the context of a standard Lehmann NY style dough can have many potential causes, including overkneading or underkneading the dough, insufficient fermentation time, overhandling the dough just prior to using (such as re-kneading, re-balling or re-working the dough just before opening it up), working with the dough while it is cold (e.g., directly out of the refrigerator or without sufficient tempering/warmup at room temperature), or difficulties in opening up the dough so that the thickness at the center of the skin is not materially less than the rest of the skin. A dough that is overfermented can also develop tears and holes but usually such a dough will not spring back when forming and stretching into a skin. If you used a preferment or starter version of a Lehmann dough, under certain conditions that could also result in a dough that is too strong and prone to overelasticity. Do any of these possibilities strike a familiar chord?

Peter

Thanks for the reply!

I'm using the recipe in the original post, I flattened out the dough on my countertop, and let it rise again for about an hour before working with it. Prior to that, it rested in my refridgerator for 24 hours. Admittedly, my technique is probably not great. Are there any videos that are recommended to watch?

[Pete-zza]

wilsonc91,

There are all kinds of videos that have been cited on the forum, for many different pizza styles, but you might want to take a look at those cited in Reply 789 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg107363/topicseen.html#msg107363. Ultimately, practice will be the best teacher.

Peter

[wilsonc91]

What do you guys do to avoid an overly puffy rim?

[norma427]

Since I was planning on going on the pizza tour this Friday with the other members of this forum, (if I can go now since my refrigerator broke down completely last evening and my mom started having bad back problems yesterday) I knew I wouldn’t be able to make the preferment part of the Lehmann dough.  I decided after I tasted Steve’s Lehmann dough pizzas at his home at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17934.0.html  I was going to try his formulation for market for the week I can’t make the preferment.  Steve had started using that formulation after I had tried the different attempts on the pizzas at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17417.0.html   but Steve modified that formulation to use less oil and some of the other ingredients and upped the salt in the formulation.  

I just made one dough ball to try out to see how it would bake in the deck oven.  I didn’t have time to mix Steve’s formulation until Monday evening, so I had upped the IDY and had left the dough ball sit out at room temperature for 1 ½ hrs. before cold fermenting for almost one day.  I had planned to make the pizza in the late afternoon to see how it would bake and taste.  When it came time to start to open the dough ball the dough ball started opening nicely, but all of a sudden we became very busy.  The skin was only partly opened and I had to start making regular pizzas for my customers.  The partly open skin was then covered with two cut plastic bags.  It sat on the marble slab for over an hour.  I should have taken a picture of what the partly opened skin looked like, but Steve and I didn’t have much hope for it because it was sticking to the marble slab, and sure was not the easiest to pick up (became deformed).  I lightly dusted the skin with bench flour again and continued.  The resulting pie sure was good even with all the problems.  It had to be baked on the top deck because we were too busy to try to put it on the bottom deck.  I do bake on the top deck but not as often as the bottom deck.  Surprisingly, even after the problem of the skin being deformed the final Lehmann dough pizza was very good.  I think it could have been better looking in appearance, but Steve, my taste testers and I thought it tasted about the same as my preferment Lehmann dough pizzas.

This is a video of Steve cutting the pie with a pizza cutter.  

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTyazmid8Ko" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTyazmid8Ko</a>

Thanks Steve for giving me a formulation to use for next Monday.  It produced a very good pizza. 

This is a print out of Steve’s formulation (with changed IDY I used) for the Lehmann dough and the pictures of the final pizza.

Norma

[norma427]

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[norma427]

I did use KASL as the flour in Steve's formulation, just like Steve does.

Norma

[norma427]

Since I was on the Pizza Tour on Friday I couldn’t start the preferment part of the Lehmann dough so today I used Steve formulation and made all my dough balls with Steve’s formulation.  This is just one picture of some of the dough balls made today.  I sure hope everything works out okay tomorrow with the pizzas made with Steve's formulation because it is supposed to be nice weather in our area and market probably will be crowded.

Norma

[franko9752]

Since I was on the Pizza Tour on Friday I couldn’t start the preferment part of the Lehmann dough so today I used Steve formulation and made all my dough balls with Steve’s formulation.  This is just one picture of some of the dough balls made today.  I sure hope everything works out okay tomorrow with the pizzas made with Steve's formulation because it is supposed to be nice weather in our area and market probably will be crowded.

Norma

Thats about how many dough balls i made today for my pizza thing tue.wed. and thurs.  Whan kind of bags do you use? I put mine in shallow trays with covers.

[norma427]

Thats about how many dough balls i made today for my pizza thing tue.wed. and thurs.  Whan kind of bags do you use? I put mine in shallow trays with covers.

Frank,

That is interesting that is exactly how many dough balls you made for your pizza you are making at another place.  I made more, but didn’t take pictures of all of them. The plastic bags are food safe bags I get here.  http://www.webstaurantstore.com/plastic-food-bag-6x3x12-1000-bx/1306312%20%20%20%20%201M.html  I use those plastic food safe bags because they don’t take up much room and keep the dough balls moist.  Tom Lehmann gave me the advise to use them.

These are more food safe bags if you are interested.  http://www.webstaurantstore.com/335/plastic-food-bags.html

Norma

[randyjohnsonhve]

This thread looks interesting...I just want to be part of it...Thanks, RJelli

[norma427]

Steve’s Lehmann dough formulation worked out very well yesterday for making the pizzas for market.  I had changed the yeast amount on Monday to 0.50% for a one day cold ferment.  The resulting pizzas tasted and almost looked the same as when using the preferment Lehmann dough.  I made Greek Style pizzas and pizza pinwheels and other products with Steve’s Lehmann dough formulation.  They all worked out well.  Some of the dough balls had to be opened cold right from the pizza prep fridge.  The cold dough balls did open well, but there was a couple of small bubbles from opening the dough balls without any temper time.

Video of Steve cutting one of the pizzas. 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-cRSXBl3Y" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44-cRSXBl3Y</a>

   This pizza had Alfredo sauce, two kinds of mozzarella, spinach, Romano cheese and oven roasted apple wood smoked bacon as the dressings.  My distributor had given me a case of the wrong Stanislaus product last week.  They gave me Full Red.  With my regular added ingredients the pizza sauce was very tasty.

Pictures of some of the pizzas from yesterday.

Norma

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