Recent Attempts at Lehman Style

[jfrancesconi]

Hello All,

Here is a recent attempt using the lehman style formulation. 

The recipe I used is as follows:
Flour (KASL) (100%): 6.79 oz
Water (66%): 4.48 oz
IDY (.31%): 0.2 tsp
Salt (Kosher) (1%): 0.57 tsp
Oil (1%): 0.43 tsp
Total (168.31%): 11.42 oz | TF = 0.101

I mixed the water, salt, and yeast together in warm water.  I didn't give the yeast extra time to "proof", just mixed with water instead of mixing with flour.  I am not sure how large of an effect this had on the dough, but the dough seemed to mature nicely during a 48 hour cold fermentation.  I then took the dough out about 3 hours before bake time.  Formed into skins and placed into my mysterious oven.  My oven has a notch past 550 which I am assuming to be 575 or 600.  However, I put an oven thermometer on my tiles and the dial blew past the 650 degree limit on the thermometer.  So who knows.  The pies take 4-5 minutes to bake.  Probably a tad less, but I like to get a little brown/char. 

Overall I was extremely pleased, and even surprised with the pizza.  It surpassed most pizzas I have had at regular pizza places in my life, how much of that has to do with me making it, I don't know.  It is by no means perfect, and it there are some changes that can be made. 

My biggest concern/question at this point is, if you notice in the pictures below, you will see that the crust (cornicione) is pretty large.  It seems to rise a great deal during baking.  Now, at first glance, one might attribute this to the slightly greater amount of yeast, which may be the case here, except that I have used less yeast as well and still produced the large outer crust.  This doesn't bother me, actually, except it just doesn't seem standard.  The middle of the pie is still mostly thin. 

I'd like to hear some thoughts on this - is this normal and does it still qualify as NY Style, and, what could be causing this, besides yeast?  Perhaps I am not stretching the dough thinly enough and leaving too much on the outer edge. 

Thanks for any thoughts or opinions!

-Justin

[scott r]

justin, that is definitely not caused by too much yeast.  I have found that from even the tiniest amount to a fairly large amount I get the same amount of rise as long as the dough is mixed the same way and has fermented the same amount.  By this I mean a dough with little yeast would sit for a long time to achieve a double in size, and a dough with lots of yeast would sit for a short time but also double in size.

What has caused your thick cornicione is your stretching method.  You need to stretch the outside more.  Go to your local pizzeria and observe how they get a nice uniform pie.  Nothing beats watching person.

Good luck with those beautiful pizzas!

[Pete-zza]

Justin,

I agree with scott r that it is not the amount of yeast you are using. As you will note from this post, http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg17956.html#msg17956 (Reply 280), I made a Lehmann NY style dough with only 0.17% IDY and still got good oven spring. In your case, I think the more logical explanation is your use of high hydration (66%) and a very hot oven. Once the pizza hits the stone, the water in the dough quickly turns to steam and causes the rapid expansion in the dough. In my oven, I won't get the same degree of expansion, even with the same amount of yeast, because my oven temperature doesn't go as high as yours. To reduce the size of the rim, I would work the outside more as scott suggested. Some people actually flatten the rim so that it doesn't rise as much. In general, however, our members tend to favor the larger rims even if that is not really "standard" NY style.

Insofar as your use of the IDY is concerned, it can be added directly to the flour. It can also be hydrated by adding it to the water but if you do that I suggest that you do so after you have dissolved the salt in the water (as by stirring it for about a minute). About the only time I hydrate IDY in water is when the amount is so small (e.g., a pinch or two) in relation to the amount of flour that I am afraid I won't get sufficient dispersal of the IDY in the flour.

Peter

[jfrancesconi]

I figured it had to do more with my shaping technique. 

I don't really have a huge problem with it, in fact, it's one of my favorite parts... and everyone else seems to love it as well.  It's just that I don't try to do it.  I will try to slightly flatten the rim to see if it makes any difference. 

I have tried both ways, as far as incorporating the IDY.  I first went with mixing the IDY into the flour because I was mainly following your guides in the Lehman style thread.  I wasn't dissatisfied, but figured I would experiment.  I don't know if it made any difference at all, but I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Thanks guys. 

[pcampbell]

Your oven sounds like ours.  Is it a gas with burner below the oven compartment?  Where do you put your tiles?  Lowest rack or on the oven floor?

Our oven thermometer also goes up to 600 which is at around "4 o clock" and often the arrow will be pointing at "6" and the pies cook in about 4-5 also.  If I put it on broil, the gas will never turn off but the temperature seems to be limited by how much air the oven vents.

I think that the big cornicione is due to not stretching it out on the rim, which is something I do on purpose.  I am not really sure what style of pizza this makes it,  but yours sure looks good!

[jfrancesconi]

pcampbell,

Thank you for the compliments! 

Yeah, I really don't know what the deal with this oven is.  It is a Whirlpool Super Capacity ###.  I forget what the numbers are.  There is no cleaning cycle option on it, either.  It is a gas burner below the oven compartment, as you have stated.  I put the tiles on the lowest rack point, which is only about 2 inches off the oven floor.  I haven't experimented putting the tiles anywhere else, though.  The broiler on this oven is not one of those broilers that seems to emit heat from the top of the oven, so I'm not sure what it does. 

I am interested in putting the tiles near the top, as it seems to me they stand a chance of getting hotter, given that heat rises.  Does anyone have any experience with this theory?