my dough failed me

[Chet]

  This is the third time I made pizza over the last 2 weeks, and my dough came out terrible, I use King Arthur flour, my last batch I made sat evening, , maybe someone can tell me what I am doing wrong,  here is the recipe, 3 cups flour, 2 tsp SAF yeast, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 cup warm water, let it proof, 2 tbs olive oil, 1 tsp salt, I dissolved the yeast with water and sugar, mixed the flour and kneaded it for 10 minutes, covered it and it doubled in size in about 1 hr, I punched it down and let it raise another hour,put it in the frige overnight, the next day I cut it in 2 pcs and rolled it out, from here on I made 3 pies, I tried prebaking one pie and the other 2 right on a pizza stone, the dough was flat I was having problems like the topping was burning before the crust was done, I am going to try  a different dough recipe, I made this dough a few weeks ago without putting it in the frige, had a little better luck, it raised a bit but the same problem the topping was bubbling and just about to start turning brown in spots and the crust was not done, I don't want to give up yet on pizza making but are there any tips on better dough making, I am baking at 500 deg.

   Chet

[widespreadpizza]

Chet ,  how long did you preheat your stone for?  and where is it in your oven? -marc

[Chet]

  I preheated the stone for 20 minutes on the middle shelf

           Chet

[widespreadpizza]

Chet,  your stone should be placed very low in the oven and should be preheated for roughly an hour depending on thickness.  IMO this is most likely the cause for your uneven cooking.  It takes time for your stone to absorb that heat and match the heat in the top of your oven.  Your dough recipie looks reasonable to me,  just make sure you dont divide it right before cooking,  do so either before the fridge step,  or right after kneading or it will resist stretching.  Also,  if looking for a NY style crust do not roll out,  use your hands to carefully form an even disk.  Finally make sure your dough warms to room temp before stretching and cooking.  This link should help more to get you up and going.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1453.0.html  -good luck -marc

[Randy]

Make sure you take it out of the cooler three hours in advance of panning.

[Pete-zza]

Chet,

I think the fundamental problem with what you have done is that you are trying to use one dough recipe to accomplish two essentially incompatible goals--to make a dough with a room temperature fermentation (and a rapid one at that) and cold fermentation. If you want to use 2 teaspoons of SAF yeast (I assume that it is active dry yeast), along with warm water, you should bake the pizza after the second rise, and not then put the dough into the refrigerator. Otherwise, there is a high risk of overfermentation and the types of problems you experienced. You are using volume measurements so it is hard to be precise, but I estimate that you are using around 2% yeast by weight of flour. That is high under just about any circumstance I can think of, and is compounded by the use of all warm water, but if you want to use that amount anyway, for flavor or other reasons, you should bake the pizzas after the second rise. You should also divide the dough into two pieces before fermenting, not after. And you should not use a rolling pin unless you are after a thin and crispy or cracker-style crust. Otherwise, using a rolling pin forces out all of the gases from the dough and restricts the oven spring. If you find that you have problems pressing and shaping the dough balls by hand, because of stiffness in the dough, you may want to increase the amount of water. One cup of water for three cups of flour may not be enough (it is difficult to say without knowing the weight of the flour and the water you used). Finally, the pizza stone should be heated for about an hour.

If you want to use cold fermentation to bring out more crust flavor, or for any other reason, then you should dramatically cut back the amount of yeast (ADY), say, to 1/2 teaspoon. And you should use only a small amount of the total water as warm water, say, 1/4 cup. The rest of the water should be on the cool side (e.g., tap water temperature, or even cooler). If you'd like, you can let the dough (divided into two pieces) "proof" at room temperature for about an hour, but that is all, and the dough balls should then go right into the refrigerator. The same comments apply here to rolling out the dough with a rolling pin and preheating the stone.

I think you will be OK so long as you go with either of the above methods individually, but not together. Another option is to determine what kind of pizza you want to make and find a recipe that will produce that kind of pizza.

Peter

[creampuff]

  This is the third time I made pizza over the last 2 weeks, and my dough came out terrible, I use King Arthur flour, my last batch I made sat evening, , maybe someone can tell me what I am doing wrong,  here is the recipe, 3 cups flour, 2 tsp SAF yeast, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, 1 cup warm water, let it proof, 2 tbs olive oil, 1 tsp salt, I dissolved the yeast with water and sugar, mixed the flour and kneaded it for 10 minutes, covered it and it doubled in size in about 1 hr, I punched it down and let it raise another hour,put it in the frige overnight, the next day I cut it in 2 pcs and rolled it out, from here on I made 3 pies, I tried prebaking one pie and the other 2 right on a pizza stone, the dough was flat I was having problems like the topping was burning before the crust was done, I am going to try  a different dough recipe, I made this dough a few weeks ago without putting it in the frige, had a little better luck, it raised a bit but the same problem the topping was bubbling and just about to start turning brown in spots and the crust was not done, I don't want to give up yet on pizza making but are there any tips on better dough making, I am baking at 500 deg.

   Chet

I'm wondering if you yeast is to old...When you prepare the yeast do you use 2 oz 105 temp water, mix the yeast well in the water and left it sit about 10 mins.  Is it foaming up? If it is not foaming up that might me one of the issues.  I use barley malt in place of the sugar, about 1 tsp directly in the water yeast mixture.  ! tsp yeast should be more than enough for the amount of flour you are using.  I would also go with a little more water than a cup.

I just prepare the dough, stick the balls in gallon size baggies with sum OO and let it sit to the next day.  I keep it up to 2 days.  And I only use 1 TBS of OO in the dough itself.

Is the stone hot enough?  Are you baking it at the lowest level in the oven? I preheat my stone on the grill it works great making pie at home.  What kind of cheese?  Are you using tab water? If so is it town water?  I boil all my water B4 I use it in my dough.

[Bryan S]

I'm wondering if you yeast is to old...

His dough is doubling in a hour, nothing wrong with the yeast other than the amount used.

[Chet]

Chet,  your stone should be placed very low in the oven and should be preheated for roughly an hour depending on thickness.  IMO this is most likely the cause for your uneven cooking.  It takes time for your stone to absorb that heat and match the heat in the top of your oven.  Your dough recipie looks reasonable to me,  just make sure you dont divide it right before cooking, I did that  do so either before the fridge step,  or right after kneading or it will resist stretching.  Also,  if looking for a NY style crust do not roll out,  use your hands to carefully form an even disk.  Finally make sure your dough warms to room temp before stretching and cooking. it was not exactly at room temp This link should help more to get you up and going.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1453.0.html  -good luck -marc

[srangel26]

Maybe yet made the dough work to hard, after balling it up you should of let it rise and rest for a couple more hours the n used it. almost sounds like my same problem but instead of home use it is restaurant amounts our problem, it rises so much it turns to Frisbees bye the next day.  well good luck