Hi,
I'm just going to make a few very quick suggestions to the current discussion about temperature, autolyse, room temperature rise and refrigerated rise and about mixing for direct mixed doughs (indirect contain preferments, starters, etc and have different techniques and considerations)
Pete, you are very right to assume mixing in a commercial mixer, using a commercial batch size is a very different animal than mixing up enough dough for 1 or 2 pizzas. There are surely many similarities, but different considerations must be applied. As you mentioned, humidity has much less to do with it, if the ingredients are weighed out. Temperature is the factor to be recalculated. I look to have a lower finished dough temperature than Tom, who recommends 80-85 degrees. I prefer a finished dough temp of 70-75...I'll get to why soon. I usually start out with a water temperature of 60-65 and in
the summer, or if the kitchen is particularly hot, 50 degrees. My goal is to keep my dough as cool as possible and to avoid as much mixing friction as possible. I only take flour temperatures when I suspect it is either ultra hot or ultra cold in the kitchen and I may have to compensate with the water temperature. Otherwise, I only take the water temperature and finished dough temp.
That being said, the heat build up from mixing friction in a commercial mixer is pretty rapid and once the dough mass gets warm, it takes longer for it to cool down, so trying to keep it cooler in the first place is always my goal. In a small mixer, friction should be less of a factor, except that most home cooks (and commercial ones too) tend to over-mix and the doughs come off the mixer warmer than they should. Because I want to undergo long slow fermentation, it is imperative that the dough be cooler than what is usually recommended.
Here are some mixing pointers for a small mixer:
invest in a scale and always weigh out everything in your formula (I know it seems like a pain, but it is the only true way to gain absolute consistency)
make sure your water temperature is around 65 degrees (if you are using bakers yeast, the lower temperature won't be a problem, but if using ADY and IDY you may want to hydrate the yeasts in a bit of the formula water that is warm. (in commercial situations, IDY can be sprinkled right into the flour, but for small batches such as for home use, the dough mass will be remain too cool to properly activate the yeast.)
pour all of the water in to the bowl of your mixer (reserving the hydrated yeast) add the salt and then the flour, and then crumble the cake yeast or add the hydrated yeast.
Mix on the low speed if possible or only until there is no white raw flour visible. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. This is the adaptation of the autolyse method in pizza making. Italian pizza makers refer to this period as riposo. Pizza dough requirements are slightly different than bread dough, but essentially, the rest period allows the flour to become fully hydrated which is otherwise known as biochemical gluten development. This "rest" period differs in time depending upon mixer types, batch sizes and ambient room temperature. For a small home batch, with a home mixer, 5 minutes should be sufficient.
BGD will aid in shortening mix out time and promotes less degrading of protein while contributing to the extensibilty properties and the over-all tenderness of the finished product.
Mix out time will vary with type of flour, hydration level and batch size. (I am talking about a dough of 65% hydration using a 12.5-13% protein content--American flour, not 00)
Rather than being a slave to time, which is different for every formulation, you must learn to see, hear and feel the signs that your dough has properly mixed out. Once you've developed the dough in this manner, you can time each sequence. However, if you change anything in the formula, then the sequence and timing may change too.
When using a planetary style mixer (like a kitchen aid), try to use a very, very slow speed. It is not necessary to knock the dough about the bowl. Mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and you hear a gentle smacking and sucking sound as the dough pushes and pulls from the sides of the bowl.
The dough may appear to have a dimpled cottage cheese texture--this is fine. If you take out a silver dollar size ball of dough, lightly flatten it and roll it over your knuckles, you will see that it either tears or it stretches. If it tears, a bit more mixing time is needed. (this is not the gluten vale test , the dough is not stretched out to that point, we are not looking at it's extensibility qualities, we only want to see if it is properly mixed out.)
Working at home you can do 2 things at this point: you can continue mixing until the dough is smooth, or you can finish it by hand.
Why finish by hand? because for such a small amount, especially if you are using a kitchen aid type mixer, you want to treat the dough as gently as possible.
Also,if temperature is a factor, take the temperature of the dough before you actually finish it. If it is at or beyond your goal, finish the dough by hand and it won't raise it too much higher.
if you are under your goal, finish it in the mixer.
Bench rest, or room temperature fermentation or first rise: how long? Commercial pizzerias bench rest or let the dough rise in bulk to save fermentation time in the refrigerator. Allowing dough to initially rise at room temperature hastens the maturation qualities that would be found in say a two or three day dough, but because they need to use the dough within 36, they give it a long initial unrefrigerated fermentation period. The understanding is that, this long initial rise will hasten the deveopment, but will decrease total life of the dough. It really depends upon what the shop's production needs are.
For a small home batch, the temperature factor becomes super crucial in that the small piece of dough will rise much faster in higher temperatures and will expend itself fairly quickly. Unless you are going to use the next day, or the room temperature is quite low--or that the amount of yeast and starter compensates for it, bench rising isn't all that necessary for small batches of dough.
Bakers and commercial pizza makers have a set schedule every day, so they know exactly what amount of time and at what temperature they will, or won't bench rise their dough. Most of them do not bench rise, they prefer the controlled environment of the cooler, allowing for a long slow first rise in the bucket, and scalling and shaping 12 hours later. Others scale and shape right off the bat and refrigerate to use 24 to 36 hours later. There is no set way.
In AIB (Tom) recommends the dough to come off the mixer at 80 degrees optimum, this is for a straight mixed dough, that is immediately scaled, shaped and refrigerarated by cross stacking the dough trays for a couple of hours until the doughs completely cooled down. The dough is ready to use the next day with a maximum of 2 days and possibly 3 if the cooler is really, really cold. If you are working with any kind of preferment or starter, that temperature is way, too high...
The main problem with this forum, is that you guys are so prolific and so varied that I'm not sure how to address all of the things that are going on here. I'm not sure if what I've just written will be of any help. But if you come away from this with anything, it will be about the importance of temperature. Adapting home versions of commercial formulas is a challenge, but is extremely rewarding.
Evelyne
