Need help planning pizza cook for 30

[tedious79]

Hey everyone,

I need a little bit of help here. I am planning to bring my Little Black Egg to a party where I will be cooking for 30-35. This will be the first time that I have cooked for this many people. I have been having very good success with smaller batches where I use my wild starter and would like to use this for the party on Sunday, but I am worried because it is a little unreliable with rise times and because of the weather right now, our house is in constant temperature flux.

My question to you is: What kind of fermentation should I do if I want to do a standard neapolitan pizza style? Should I go ahead and try out the starter for a bulk pizza bake? Should I just do a safe and steady IDY rise? If I do the IDY should I do a cold or warm ferment? Or should I do a mix of starter and IDY? Any help with formulations and weights would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all so much.

Sincerely,

tedious

[andreguidon]

for that many people, ill go with a IDY (Neapolitan recipe) and cold rise, with the dough in the fridge you have more control.... this was a party for 20 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,8141.0.html , take a look.

[tedious79]

Thanks, Andre.

Those pies looked awesome. So, 3 batches of that recipe were enough to feed 20? Do you think I can get away with 4 batches or should I up it to 5.

Also, I am going to probably just knead this by hand, because of how underpowered my mixer is. Any suggestions on how best to mix? Should I do it all at once or in batches?

Thanks so much for your continued help.

Sincerely,

tedious

[andreguidon]

i had 12 pizzas and made 10.... thats 4 pies per batch.... those are 14" pizzas or 35 cm.

mixing by hand is going to be difficult, cause its a wet dough.... thats what gives it that nice rim....

i make them by batch cause my mixer only holds that much...

best thing is buying a mixer... it was for me...

are those 30-35 adults

[tedious79]

There are approximately 25-30 adults and 5-10 children.

Maybe I'll will just do it in batches in my KA, it just seems like that it would take a long time, doing 4 batches and there will be a lot of things to juggle with proofing and such.  I was kinda looking forward to saying that I hand kneaded the dough and, that way, I can assure that everything rests and is complete at the same time.


Let me know what you think.

[andreguidon]

what i usually do is have separate big plastic bowls and just label each one with the time, and after 22 hours in the fridge you could take them all at the same time and ball them..... so you finish the batch and wile you are waiting the 30 minute you start the next batch....

[Mo]

dough calculator is what you need....plug in how many pies you want and your formula and it tells you how much to prep...

[tedious79]

Okay, so I think I have the dough formula (going to just do an IDY cold ferment) and knead (in batches) worked out.

What I need to figure out now is how to transport the dough. Should I ball at home and plop down money on some dough boxes to safely transport? Or could I get away with balling it at the party, which wouldn't give much time for a final proof?

Thanks again for the help.

[Pete-zza]

tedious79,

Some pizza operators use sheet trays to hold the dough balls and put the trays in plastic (food grade) bags (or put the trays in racks and cover the entire rack). The downside is that the trays are not stackable without a rack.

Tom Lehmann suggests using a lower finished dough temperature when using sheet trays for dough storage purposes, as he notes at the PMQ Think Tank at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?p=15886#15886.

Peter

[tedious79]

Would it be a bad idea to ball it cold, right from the fridge, and then pan it? I have about three-four hours where the dough is going to be out at room temperature (traveling, setting up, etc.) before cooking.

[andreguidon]

well, i ball them right after i get the dough out of the fridge (10 minutes after),  then a 3 hour individual rise inside individual oiled (very little oil) round tupperware.

[tedious79]

I just wanted to thank everyone. The party was a complete success.

Andre, the dough turned out great, the overnight ferment was perfect for your recipe. Additionally, I had a ton of great luck with the LBE. It worked fantastic for the long cook. Everyone was so impressed!!!

Thanks so much again.

[andreguidon]

congratulation !!!