How long to knead? (moved)

[jamesw6777]

how can you tell if you knead too much or too little.I have seen kneading times from ten to thirty minutes.Some recipes are not too clear about this .

[scott r]

You can't time it, you need to feel it or look for visual clues.

[Bill/SFNM]

how can you tell if you knead too much or too little.I have seen kneading times from ten to thirty minutes.Some recipes are not too clear about this .

Recipes aren't very clear because kneading can vary tremendously based on the texture you are seeking, ingredients in the dough, proof time/temps, type of mixer, mixer speed, etc. I have found it is something you need (pun intended) to play around with. Since the main purpose of kneading is to build gluten, you can often judge in the final product what changes you might want to make next time. Not enough gluten (crumbly crust) means you should try kneading longer. Too much gluten (too chewy for your tastes) means you should try kneading less. There are other factors that affect the formation of gluten (type of flour, amount of fat, amount of hydration, proofing time) which can make this a tough nut to crack (2-steps forward, 1-step back), but you just have to pick a starting point and make small moves from there.

Bill/SFNM

[Pete-zza]

James,

scott r and Bill/SFNM are right. Also, knead times will vary by style. For example, knead time doesn't mean all that much if the dough coming out of the mixer or food processor, or even one made by hand, looks like the "dough" shown in the first photo of http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5762.msg49400.html#msg49400 (Reply 49). Some Chicago deep-dish doughs are kneaded for less than a minute.

For the standard pizza dough in relation to knead times, you may want to take a look at the following thread and the links embedded therein: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3204.msg27132.html#msg27132.

Peter

[jamesw6777]

Thanks for your help.My next pizza will be the new york style from American Pie.I will keep doing this recipe until I get comfortable with it.All my pizzas so far have tasted good to me,although I love pizza any time,any place, any way.

[Pete-zza]

James,

To give you an idea, I converted the Reinhart NY style dough recipe so that I could make a single 16" pizza rather than three 12" pizzas, and reported on my results at Reply 112 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,524.msg17203.html#msg17203 (see also some of the following posts). At the time, I did not know that the Reinhart recipe was intended to make three 12" pizzas, so I made some assumptions. Looking back now, my dough thickness was off a bit, but not by much.

Peter