A little help...

[Camaro10]

So I am new to pizza making and have been looking around the forum for formulations regarding NY style pizza. I choose Glutenboys recipe:

2) The formulation I used for eight 300 (plus a gram or 2) gram dough balls is as follows:

All Trumps Flour -      1520 g - 100%
Water (room temp) -   928 g -  61.05632%
IDY -                        4.3 g -  .282895%   (measured as 1 teaspoon)
Sea Salt -                   38 g -   2.5%

Protocol-wise, I started with about half the flour and all the IDY in the Kitchen-Aid pro-500.  I added all the water and mixed with the spiral dough hook (and a little manual coaxing) until thoroughly combined.  Rest a couple of minutes.  Then I added about half the remaining flour and kept mixing (inspired by Varasano).   At this point it turns from batter to really wet dough and the hook has a chance to really develop the gluten.  A couple of minutes of this on settings 1 (and 2 for a bit) and I could see the webbing forming.  Added the salt and mixed a bit more.  Rested a couple of more minutes and added the remaining flour as I mixed for the final time.  Just a couple of minutes does it.  The dough was smooth and extensible.  A bulk room-temperature rise for a couple of hours.  The rise was good but not out of control.  Then I scaled and pulled the dough balls tight, oiled the containers and the doughs (I use the Gladware round containers) and put them in the fridge for a nice long nap.  No degassing like I used to with the Harvest King.  All trumps doesn't seem to forgive and recover from re-balling.  I was more generous with the olive oil (evoo) than usual because the All-Trumps dough has given me sticking issues.  This time, that was resolved.  I made the first batch of pizzas after a 4-and-a-half day rest and used up the last dough on day 8. (I made twelve doughs in all.)

Observations:  The dough handled beautifully.  Twelve hand-stretched pies and not one tear.  I even accidentally caught a stretched skin on the handle of the peel.  It just dimpled and rebounded.  I noticed that after day 6 I had to be more careful as the dough was getting a bit more delicate, but never did I hit the breaking point.  The trade off was worth it.  The older it got, the better the flavor, crumb and texture.  Best dough I've ever made.

The cheese was a mix of Belgioso fresh mozzarella (cryo log) and just a bit of Boar's head whole milk (just for kicks).  I also used some grated grana padano and pecorino romano before the Mozz went on.  The tomatoes were (I'm ashamed to admit the brand, but they were absolutely delicious) S&W crushed tomatoes in the giant can from Costco.  I strained them a bit to thicken them up, added some salt, fresh garlic and a bit of crushed red pepper, used an immersion blender to smooth the texture (just a bit) and they went on the pie like that.  Topped it all off with a pre-bake drizzle of Santini EVOO.  Fresh basil on the way out of the oven.

Don't scoff at the S&W's (I would have) till you've tried them.  They were sweet and mild.  Okay, I'm spent... 
I have a few problems and questions...


1. I do not yet have a mixer, so I will be mixing by hand (and a wooden spoon). Is there anything I should take into accountability while doing this such as over or under mixing.

2. Also how many grams is a dough ball for a 14",16",18" pie. I know they vary upon thickness but is ther a general rule to figure this out.

3. If I wanted to make one dough ball would I divide each of his ingredients by 8?

Thank you!!


Also do you recommend this recipe for beginners or is there something else I can do before diving in??

[Pete-zza]

Camaro10,

You indicated that you use a 300-gram dough ball. What pizza size did that dough ball make? The answer to that question will help answer questions 2 and 3.

Peter

[Camaro10]

Hi Pete I haven't made the dough as of yet. The recipe I posted is the one I was going to follow. Thanks

[Pete-zza]

Camaro10,

The Glutenboy recipe you are planning to use is the one at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7761.msg66628.html#msg66628.

As Glutenboy tells us in Reply 10 in the above thread, the 300-gram dough ball is intended to make a roughly 14" pizza. That means that the thickness factor for that case is (300/28.35)/(3.14159 x 7 x 7) = 0.06874. For your purposes, you should use that value in the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html along with the baker's percents you noted in your post (but excluding the 100% for the flour) and the number of pizzas you want to make and their size (I assume 14"). The expanded dough calculating tool will do all the calculations for whatever scenario you decide to use. If you plan to make the dough by hand, you might want to add a bowl residue compensation of around 3% to compensate for minor dough losses during the preparation of the dough. Once the dough is done, you will want to divide the bulk dough into 300-gram pieces (unless you plan to make only one pizza), and scale the dough balls on your scale to 300 grams.

Glutenboy is the expert on the recipe you plan to use and may be able to give you advice from the perspective of a newbie. I will note, however, that beginners will often have difficulty forming 14" skins out of dough balls weighing only 300 grams. Also, beginners in general frequently have problems with dough balls that cold ferment for more than two or three days.

Peter

[Camaro10]

Peter, why is it that cold fermented dough is harder to work with?

[chaspie]

Camaro10, I've been using the Glutenboy dough recipe too, and it has been working great for me.  The last time I made it, I increased the hydration to 62.5% and the IDY to .4% and I added .75% sugar.  I also use Gold Medal Better for Bread flour, not All Trumps.  I liked the results I got with my last batch very much.  I should mention that the only reason I increased the IDY percentage is because the 1 lb package I've been using was opened about 18 months ago, and I have recently begun to suspect as a result of other baking that I do that it is no longer as active as it was when it was fresh. 

I haven't found cold fermented GB dough difficult to work with, even after 5 days of cold fermentation.  I am a total newb, with little experience, and I've not had even the slightest bit of trouble with it. 

My normal routine is to make four dough balls of 309 grams each (10.8997 ounces each), which gives me a thickness factor of 0.0964 for a 12 inch diameter pizza.  I ball them and put them in lightly oiled plastic containers in the fridge immediately after my last stretch-and-fold, so they spend very little time at room temperature.  I normally use two balls after about 48 hours of fermentation, and use the remaining two after 96 to 120 hours of cold fermentation. The dough is very extensible and easy to shape whether on day 2 or day 5.  I find that it is a little more elastic on day 5 than day 2, but it is still easy to shape.   If I go 6 days, the dough seems very slack and spongey, so I try not to go beyond 5 days. 

Anyway, I don't think Peter said that cold fermented dough is harder to work with, but rather that beginners often have difficulty with dough balls that cold ferment for long periods of time, more than two or three days.  But Iike I said, that has not been my experience out to 5 days.  The GB dough is really a good one, IMO.

[Pete-zza]

Peter, why is it that cold fermented dough is harder to work with?

Camaro10,

That is a hard question to answer in a generic sense since different dough formulations can produce different doughs with different behaviors at any given moment. However, I think that it is safe to say that any given point in time, a dough can be underfermented, just right, or overfermented. On one end of the spectrum, a dough that is underfermented can be stiff and difficult to "open" up to form a skin without tears or rips or holes forming in the skin. This dough needs more fermentation time. On the other end of the spectrum, an overfermented dough, if too far gone, can be difficult to open up because there are enzymes in the flour and acids that form during fermentation that act to attack the gluten structure and weaken it. That can make the dough damp or wet and overly extensible (stretchy) and difficult to handle without holes or tears forming in the skin. Unfortunately, when a dough reaches this stage, it is rarely salvageable. So, re-balling the dough, or rolling it out with a rolling pin, or adding bench flour to offset the wetness, or saying prayers to make the dough less extensible rarely work. The dough you want is the one that, at the moment you want to use it, is properly fermented. That might be in the middle of a workable range or just short of overfermenting, but it can't go over the cliff.

Peter