Randy's PJ Clone with Pete's Advice (14 inch-0.13)

[dvolcano]

I contacted Pete a few weeks back for some troubleshooting advice after several sessions of frustration centered around overly elastic doughs with marginal post-bake crusts.  Pete aided in diagnosing the likely culprits associated with my 'rubber band' doughs and suggested that I try out Randy's PJ clone recipe after I described the type of pizza I was seeking.  He passed to me his calculations for a 14 inch PJ clone with a 0.13 thickness factor and addressed some of my concerns/questions associated with the dough making and kneeding process.  Below are some photos, observations, and impressions of this process.  I would like to thank at the outset Randy for sharing this great recipe and special thanks goes to Pete for taking the time to help out a complete stranger.

I made two separate doughs on Wednesday, April 9th to bake on Sunday, April 13th.  Below is the process that I used for each dough:

Part One

1) (~60.6%) 194 grams cool tap water into stand mixer bowl (Kitchen Aid Professional Model-350 watt/5 quart bowl)
2) (~2.5%) 8 grams salt into water
3) (~5.3%) 17 grams of table sugar into water/salt mixture
4) (~4.5%) 14 grams of Honey into mixture

Mixer was equipped with  spindle whip and stirred on speed 2 for 2 minutes.  The cooler tap water that was used was reluctant to solubilize the honey...so I manually (with spatula) scraped honey off floor of bowl and started the mixer on speed two for another two minutes.  As an aside, I elected to use cool water due to the long storage period (4 full days) of dough prior to its usage...I thought that using cool water may aid in keeping the yeast in check.

Part Two

1) (100%) 320 grams of King Arthur's All Purpose Flour into dry stainless steel bowl
2) (1.5%) 5 grams of Instant Dry Yeast into flour with spatula mixing to attain even yeast dispersement

Part Three

1) Slowly added flour/yeast mixture portion-wise to stirring liquid (stir speed on mixer-slowest speed) over ~2 minute period using the paddle attachment
2) Over this 2 minute period paddle picked up majority of material-paddle was then exchanged out for spiral dough hook (slightly pre-lubricated with cooking spray)
3) Turn on mixer to speed 2
4) (~3%) 9 grams of extra virgen olive oil was drizzled into kneeding dough.  As an aside, one may want to stop mixer after a few minutes to manually incorporate oil...but during the 8 minute kneed period I employed I noticed this was unnecessary as the dough naturally incorporated all the oil.  I did take the dough off the hook once during the 8 min need and then restarted the mixer.
5) After the 8 minute kneed for dough #1: I found the dough to be somewhat extensible but still definitely prone to tearing in application of Lehman's dough test.  Knowing when to stop kneeding is/has been an uncertainty for me.  It should be noted that with dough two I needed for an extra 5 minutes (13 total) and noticed no difference in elasticity or extensibility.

Below is a photo of the dough prior to the 4 day refrigeration/aging that ensued in a slightly lubricated sealable container on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator.  The second photo is of the stretched dough on the peel after the 4 day age.

[dvolcano]

After the four day aging period I removed both doughs from refrigerator and placed them on countertop and covered with a towel.  Prior to the stretching process the doughs were out of refrigerator for 1 hour.  Both doughs stretched nicely...but my impression was that they were a little too extensible.  I think the four-days aging was a day or so too much.  I would like the dough to be a bit more elastic....but, overall an obvious and vast improvement on the 'rubber band' doughs I was frequently encountering was appreciated.

The doughs were dressed on the peel and went into an oven (550-600 degrees) on top of a stone on the very bottom rack that had been preheated with oven for an hour prior to the baking process...so that the stone was 'oven-temp'.  The pizza was baked for ~7-8 min or so...I gauged completion by visual inspection rather than the timer. 

Below is a photo prior to placing the pizza into oven.  A 'finished product' photo is also provided.

I have to say...the pizzas were great and I was especially impressed with the crust texture and taste.  The crust was chewy (although I used AP flour) and sweet...reminiscent of a PJ pizza.  I have two more doughs in the refrigerator that will be made tomorrow...but will have a 3 day age rather than the 4 days.  I will note any differences in dough elasticity/extensibility and taste/texture with these new '3-day' doughs.  Thanks again to Randy for the recipe and to Pete for all of his help.

Dennie

[Pete-zza]

Dennie,

Congratulations on a successful outcome.

Sometime you might want to repeat the exercise but use a higher protein flour, such as bread flour. I believe that PJ is using a high-gluten flour but it is hard to know for sure because the flour is a proprietary flour that is most likely milled to their specifications. If you can get your hands on some high-gluten flour, that may be the best choice if you are trying to replicate the PJ style. I think your 14" pizza with the 0.13 thickness factor (a roughly 20-ounce dough ball) is perhaps quite close to the PJ product.

Peter

[dvolcano]

I will find some higher protein % flour and give it a go.  I should point out that the dough weight was 20.12 ounces prior to baking...I used no dough residue correction factor.  I will also let you know how the 3-day dough turns out tomorrow.  Thanks again for your help and advice.

[Randy]

I was pleased to read of your success.  In my past testing I thought the flavor fell off a little after three days but that was before I started reducing the yeast so keep us posted on your test.  You may want to experiment with the amount of sugar and honey a bit.  If you reduce them, reduce the salt trying to maintain the ratio of sweet to salt. 

This pizza reheats straight from the freezer to oven really well.

Randy

[dvolcano]

Reducing the yeast from 5 grams seems reasonable to me.  If one plans for a 3 day storage...what is the lower limit for yeast that one would want to approach?  Any ideas?

Dennie

[Randy]

Because of the amount of sugar and honey, I would not go much lower but then again I have no test to back that up.  Peter may have though.

Randy

[Pete-zza]

Dennie,

Some time ago, I experimented with making “thin” versions of Randy’s basic recipe. Along the way, I reduced the levels of several of the ingredients in that recipe, as I discussed at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15793.html#msg15793 (Reply 2), at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15953.html#msg15953 (Reply 8), and at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg20711.html#msg20711 (Reply 20).  In my experiments, I was trying to put myself in PJ’s shoes and how they most likely were making their pizza dough. Based on what I now know about PJ's pizzas from the research I have done, I would say that I was on the right track.

In the latter two cases referenced above, you will see that I used only 0.40% IDY. I used a 48-hour fermentation period, but I am sure that with proper control of water temperatures along with the reduced amount of yeast I would have been able to go out to three or more days of cold fermentation. Papa John’s goes out even further. They deliver to their stores twice a week. To do this, they no doubt prepare their fresh dough balls in a controlled environment (for uniformity of results and other quality control reasons) and allow the dough to ferment for a specified time before delivery to their stores. Otherwise, the dough balls may be unusable because of insufficient rise in the dough. So, their dough balls perhaps have a life span of around five or six days and about three or four days in the stores. All this means using small amounts of yeast (even less than I used in my experiments), low temperatures, reduced hydration levels, and so on. In a home environment, you can use more yeast than PJ uses since your operating environment is different from theirs.

In the examples I referenced above, I used a thickness factor that is less than what Randy uses, but it is possible to use the 0.13 thickness factor and my set of baker’s percents in the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html to get the quantities of ingredients needed to make a dough ball of around 20 ounces for a 14” pizza.

I think you will get a kick out of this PJ video showing the preparation of a PJ pizza: http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=PPm8aHvpjE8. It’s my favorite “how to” PJ pizza-making video of the ones I have seen. You will note that the fellow making the pizza aggressively docks the dough (one side only) with a plastic dough docker. That is perhaps standard operating procedure but it may also be an indication that the dough is a fairly fresh dough without a lot of fermentation, or it could be a cold dough. Also, it looks like the dough is still quite elastic. Moreover, to toss and spin the dough the way shown in the video, the hydration of the dough can’t be very high. I would guess that it is around 57-58%. You will also note in the video that there are no scales around. PJ uses Spoodles for the sauce and color-coded cups for the cheese and toppings.

Peter