Greek pizza

[Pete-zza]

As previously mentioned, the specs for the GM Full Strength flour can be seen at http://www.gmiflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/FULL%20STRENGTH%20BL%20BR%20ENR%20MT.pdf. For the King Midas flour, I found an abbreviated spec at http://www.cooknaturally.com/support/specs/kingmidas.pdf. As can be seen comparing the specs, the moisture content, protein content and ash content are identical.  However, the King Midas flour is shown as being unbromated. At http://www.dutchvalleyfoods.com/products/flour-and-grains/flours/144037/conagra-king-midas-flour-50lb, the King Midas Special flour is shown as bromated.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Thanks Peter, that's an interesting formula. Seems like a lot of yeast and a low TF? Or perhaps all that yeast makes the low TF work? I'll try it if Norma or .I can find the flour

Steve,

The amount of yeast, whether in the form of cake yeast or IDY, really isn't all that much, especially for a short, room-temperature fermented dough. To come up with an IDY version of the dough formulation I posted for a 15" pizza, I calculated the amount of water in 3.45 grams of cake yeast and added that amount of water to the original formula water, while keeping all of the rest of the ingredients the same (by percents) as originally given. I then converted the 3.45 grams of cake yeast to an IDY value, using the theartisan.net yeast conversion table that Paul referenced. This is what I ended up with:

General Mills Gold Medal Full Strength Flour #53381 (100%): Water (50.8561%): IDY (0.4056%): Salt (1.77188%): Olive Oil (0.4%): Vegetable (Soybean) Oil (3.6%): Sugar (2.10938%): Total (159.14296%):

276.12 g  |  9.74 oz | 0.61 lbs 140.42 g  |  4.95 oz | 0.31 lbs 1.12 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.37 tsp | 0.12 tbsp 4.89 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.88 tsp | 0.29 tbsp 1.1 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.25 tsp | 0.08 tbsp 9.94 g | 0.35 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.19 tsp | 0.73 tbsp 5.82 g | 0.21 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.46 tsp | 0.49 tbsp 439.42 g | 15.5 oz | 0.97 lbs | TF = 0.087712

Note: Dough is for a single 15" pizza; the vegetable (soybean) oil and olive oil blend have a combined baker's percent of 4%, with 90% being vegetable (soybean) oil and 10% being olive oil; thickness factor = 0.087712; no bowl residue compensation

As you can see from the above, the amount of IDY is only 0.4056%. That might be suitable for a cold fermented dough, but for a short-term room temperature fermented dough, I would usually be thinking of about 0.70-0.80%. At 0.4056% IDY, I think that you would need to give the dough a temperature assist. The PMQTT member who posted the original recipe said that he would put pans of dough on the oven for a short period in order to get them to rise faster. But even apart from that measure, it is likely that the pans that are stacked to rise are in a pretty warm environment, possibly in the proximity of the oven. With your instincts, I am sure that you will figure out how to make the dough work. BTW, while I was looking for something over at the PMQTT to add to this reply, I stumbled across another post by the PMQTT member who posted the original recipe. That post adds more detail on the preparation and management of the dough. The post/thread is at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10693. As it turns out, I had seen that thread before and even commented on it earlier in this thread at Reply 308 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,691.msg154711/topicseen.html#msg154711.

You are correct about the thickness factor. It is lower than what we have mostly seen elsewhere and have used before. However, as I noted in Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10534.msg93333.html#msg93333, I have had Greek style pizzas with a lower thickness factor value. The thickness factor mentioned in that post was 0.0891, or just a bit more than the thickness factor value of 0.087712 for the dough formulation given above in this post. However, interestingly, for a 10" pizza, the amount of dough used by the PMQTT poster is 7 ounces. That converts to a thickness factor of 0.08913, which is about the same as mentioned in Reply 3 referenced above. It looks like it is a small world. BTW, the PMQTT poster is in Worcester, MA, where there are apparently a lot of Greek style pizza places.

I know you know this, but for the benefit of others who might want to try the IDY version of the above dough, the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html can be used to make any size and numbers of pizzas. The thickness factor values mentioned above are so close to each other that it perhaps doesn't matter which value is used. Of course, if one wants to use a larger thickness factor value, that should work also.

Peter

[scott r]

dont forget that most of the greek places let the dough rise in a pan after forming the skin, so the crust will be thicker than a NY hand tossed dough with the same TF

[Kostakis1985]

Where I live in New Hampshire there are greek pizza places everywhere. Ive worked at 2 places for a long time.
Dough is prepared like this:
Salt , sugar, oil,water-48% is added then yeast, then flour mixed about 15 mins then balled. 10in pizza is 10 ounces of dough 16in pizza-16 ounces of dough. Its put on cookie sheets then put in the walkin cooler to cool off and let rise, then is put then they are taken out of the cooler flatened by hand and put through a sheeter and then put in apizza pan its strectched the rest of the way then each pan is covered and stacked and let rise a second time. They are then put in the refridgerator until they are ordered.

Im going to make one at my house soon just to post it on this thread.

Maybe i can help with some questions about this style bc i am greek and have been making this style for over a decade.

[CDNpielover]

Jamie,

It seems as though there are a number of folks here who are really interested in this style, so thanks for your contribution to the thread.  I think it would be GREAT if could make a pie and post it here, with pics!

It's interesting that your thickness factor varies for the different pan sizes (from 0.12 for the 10" to 0.08 for the 16").  To be honest, I haven't paid enough attention to how thickness factors affect my finished product, but do you notice a difference in crust thickness between the small and large pies?  I can see how this is a good method for pizza operators though, since it's really easy to remember!

 

[Kostakis1985]

When i first got to the forum and learned about thickness factor and i realized that a ton of places have different thickness factors between their pizza sizes, which explains in my opinion any way- why some places large pizza tastes better then their small or vice versa.

[Kostakis1985]

But yes the small pizzas always seemed like too much dough the ratios of ingrediants was off- which is probably way on an average friday night about 100 large pizzas are sold and only about 30 small are sold. And its isnt just friday night either this large to small ratio of pizzas being sold stays about the same everyday. So i think prople prefer the large better.

Every so often when we need to get rid of some small pizzas, if a customer orders a large pizza we have to say " we need to give you 2 small for a large bc were out of large right now its more pizza that way!" even though its not bc pi• r squared isnt more pizza but the customer is always like okay thanks!
But one time that didnt work and the customer said ill just wait until the large are ready bc my wife kids and i like your large pizza much better!

[Ev]

Peter,  Thanks for updating the formula and all the research you have done on this thread. You're right about the yeast. After the conversion, .4 isn't that much at all.

Scott,  Good point about the TF and the pan rise. I probably should have thought of that myself.

Jamie,  Thanks for chiming in. I appreciate experience and perspective, and look forward to your posts and pictures, of course!

[CDNpielover]

Steve,

The amount of yeast, whether in the form of cake yeast or IDY, really isn't all that much, especially for a short, room-temperature fermented dough. To come up with an IDY version of the dough formulation I posted for a 15" pizza, I calculated the amount of water in 3.45 grams of cake yeast and added that amount of water to the original formula water, while keeping all of the rest of the ingredients the same (by percents) as originally given. I then converted the 3.45 grams of cake yeast to an IDY value, using the theartisan.net yeast conversion table that Paul referenced. This is what I ended up with:

General Mills Gold Medal Full Strength Flour #53381 (100%): Water (50.8561%): IDY (0.4056%): Salt (1.77188%): Olive Oil (0.4%): Vegetable (Soybean) Oil (3.6%): Sugar (2.10938%): Total (159.14296%):

276.12 g  |  9.74 oz | 0.61 lbs 140.42 g  |  4.95 oz | 0.31 lbs 1.12 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.37 tsp | 0.12 tbsp 4.89 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.88 tsp | 0.29 tbsp 1.1 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.25 tsp | 0.08 tbsp 9.94 g | 0.35 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.19 tsp | 0.73 tbsp 5.82 g | 0.21 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.46 tsp | 0.49 tbsp 439.42 g | 15.5 oz | 0.97 lbs | TF = 0.087712

Note: Dough is for a single 15" pizza; the vegetable (soybean) oil and olive oil blend have a combined baker's percent of 4%, with 90% being vegetable (soybean) oil and 10% being olive oil; thickness factor = 0.087712; no bowl residue compensation

As you can see from the above, the amount of IDY is only 0.4056%. That might be suitable for a cold fermented dough, but for a short-term room temperature fermented dough, I would usually be thinking of about 0.70-0.80%. At 0.4056% IDY, I think that you would need to give the dough a temperature assist. The PMQTT member who posted the original recipe said that he would put pans of dough on the oven for a short period in order to get them to rise faster. But even apart from that measure, it is likely that the pans that are stacked to rise are in a pretty warm environment, possibly in the proximity of the oven. With your instincts, I am sure that you will figure out how to make the dough work. BTW, while I was looking for something over at the PMQTT to add to this reply, I stumbled across another post by the PMQTT member who posted the original recipe. That post adds more detail on the preparation and management of the dough. The post/thread is at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10693. As it turns out, I had seen that thread before and even commented on it earlier in this thread at Reply 308 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,691.msg154711/topicseen.html#msg154711.

You are correct about the thickness factor. It is lower than what we have mostly seen elsewhere and have used before. However, as I noted in Reply 3 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10534.msg93333.html#msg93333, I have had Greek style pizzas with a lower thickness factor value. The thickness factor mentioned in that post was 0.0891, or just a bit more than the thickness factor value of 0.087712 for the dough formulation given above in this post. However, interestingly, for a 10" pizza, the amount of dough used by the PMQTT poster is 7 ounces. That converts to a thickness factor of 0.08913, which is about the same as mentioned in Reply 3 referenced above. It looks like it is a small world. BTW, the PMQTT poster is in Worcester, MA, where there are apparently a lot of Greek style pizza places.

I know you know this, but for the benefit of others who might want to try the IDY version of the above dough, the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html can be used to make any size and numbers of pizzas. The thickness factor values mentioned above are so close to each other that it perhaps doesn't matter which value is used. Of course, if one wants to use a larger thickness factor value, that should work also.

Peter

Peter,

I want to try making this dough soon, however i'm not very experienced with different levels of yeast, proof times and temperatures.  I want to make this dough for this weekend, so I can certainly afford to let it sit in the fridge for 2-3 days.  Do you think 0.4056% is an adequate amount of IDY for a 2-3 day fridge rise?

Thanks!   

[Pete-zza]

I want to try making this dough soon, however i'm not very experienced with different levels of yeast, proof times and temperatures.  I want to make this dough for this weekend, so I can certainly afford to let it sit in the fridge for 2-3 days.  Do you think 0.4056% is an adequate amount of IDY for a 2-3 day fridge rise?

CDNpielover,

I see from a weather report that it is on the cold/cool side in Calgary, Canada, so I think you might need a bit more IDY to have the dough usable on at least the second day and possibly the third day. It is hard to be precise on these sorts of things, but you might try using 0.45-0.50% IDY. To be on the safe side, you will perhaps want to monitor the development of the dough to be sure that it doesn't overferment. Usually, that won't happen until the dough at least doubles in volume. With a formula hydration of about 51% and with a total of 4% oil, I wouldn't expect to see the dough going wild.

Peter

[CDNpielover]

Thanks Peter,

I will make up this dough and keep it in the fridge for about 48 hours.  I used the expanded dough calculator with 0.5% IDY to come up with the following formulation for a 12" pie:

Flour (100%): Water (50.8561%): IDY (0.5%): Salt (1.77188%): Olive Oil (0.4%): Vegetable (Soybean) Oil (3.6%): Sugar (2.10938%): Total (159.23736%):

179.26 g  |  6.32 oz | 0.4 lbs 91.17 g  |  3.22 oz | 0.2 lbs 0.9 g | 0.03 oz | 0 lbs | 0.3 tsp | 0.1 tbsp 3.18 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.57 tsp | 0.19 tbsp 0.72 g | 0.03 oz | 0 lbs | 0.16 tsp | 0.05 tbsp 6.45 g | 0.23 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.42 tsp | 0.47 tbsp 3.78 g | 0.13 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.95 tsp | 0.32 tbsp 285.45 g | 10.07 oz | 0.63 lbs | TF = 0.0890277

[CDNpielover]

wow, the doughball seems really small!  I hope I didn't screw something up!   

[Pete-zza]

wow, the doughball seems really small!  I hope I didn't screw something up!   

CDNpielover,

Your numbers are correct. Remember that you should give the dough sufficient time to rise while in the pan.

Peter

[CDNpielover]

HOLY HECK - I just made one of the best pizzas of my entire pizza making career!  

I used the the new formulation posted by Peter (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,691.msg181438.html#msg181438) but modified to use IDY instead of cake yeast (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,691.msg181657.html#msg181657).  Based on Pete's advice, I increased the yeast to 0.5% and used the expanded dough calculator to get the numbers for my 12" pan (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,691.msg182073.html#msg182073).

The dough had an approximately 48 hour cold ferment, and was then transferred to a floured counter and covered with plastic wrap and allowed to warm to room temperature for 1 hour.  The dough was then pressed out in my 12" inch pan, which had been liberally oiled with canola oil.  The dough was allowed to rise at room temp for a total of 2 hours, and for about 20 minutes of this time the pan was placed on top of my preheating oven to further promote rising.  I would estimate the risen skin was 1/4" or so (it's difficult to tell when the dough is pressed out to the edges of the pan).

I applied sauce (Pete's PJ clone) to the edge, followed by hot genoa salami, canned shrooms, banana peppers, and some local bison whiskey sausage on one half.  A 50:30:20 blend of mozza:orange cheddar:provolone was then applied top the edges.

The pie was cooked for 15 minutes on a stone on the bottom rack in a 500 degree oven.  I increased the temp to 550 for the last 5 minutes or so to encourage top browning.

The pie turned out EXCELLENT.  This dough is really, really great.  My first attempt at this style didn't come out so well, because I didn't cook it quite long enough, and (more importantly) I didn't have a well-seasoned pan, so the burned cheese stuck in the pan.  I seasoned the pan with corn oil in my oven, however, and the pizza slid right out, perfectly!

I know some folks here say you can only get this pizza in certain areas in the Eastern United States, however this pizza eas essentially identical to the "Greek Pizza" that is ubiquitious at neighborhood pubs here in Calgary.  

I am going to focus on this pie for my next few cooks, I think, and this is definitely going to become one of my go-to formulations!

Anyhow, here is some pizza porn for y'all:  

[CDNpielover]

moar pics:   

[Ev]

By George, I think you've got it! Nice work!

[Kostakis1985]

I made dough at work yesterday and took a 16oz dough ball home with me. I put it through the sheeter right before I left after we closed. I got home and stretched it in my pizza pan I got from the pizza place where my father works.(they use pans with holes in the bottom now)After I finished stretching it I let it rise until it was ready about 2hrs, being too tired and not hungry I refrigerated it until today. Preheated the oven to 450 sauced and cheesed the pizza. I didn't time the bake but it was about the same as at work.

I didn't have any cheddar so this is only wm mozzarella so it looks close but not exactly.

For some reason the top of the pizza was done before the bottom. The bottom wouldn't brown that well. When I make ny style I can never get enough top browning I wish I could get some char on top but it never happens

This is the house of pizza style typical around where I live!

[Kostakis1985]

Sorry one of those duplicate pics was supposed to be this a picture of the dough risen in the pan. its a little over risen by id say about 20-25 mins its still fine though

[Ev]

Wow, what a gorgeous pizza! How did you get the rim so even? Really really nice!

[Kostakis1985]

Its strange one day my uncle was showing me how to open the pizzas and i couldnt do right then one day i just knew it cLicked theres a special way to do it you kind of over strecth the pizza up the sides of the pan then push it down all the way around