Rock808,
I looked at the metric version of the recipe you used in order better to analyze it. That version is:
4 g active dry yeast
60 ml warm water
235 ml cold water
6 g salt
410 g bread flour
Using the expanded dough calculating tool at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html, I converted the above recipe to baker's percent format as follows:
Flour (100%):
Water (71.9511%):
ADY (0.9756%):
Salt (1.46341%):
Total (174.39011%):
| 410 g | 14.46 oz | 0.9 lbs
295 g | 10.41 oz | 0.65 lbs
4 g | 0.14 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.06 tsp | 0.35 tbsp
6 g | 0.21 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.07 tsp | 0.36 tbsp
715 g | 25.22 oz | 1.58 lbs | TF = N/A
|
Apart from the high hydration (almost 72%), which most people will find difficult to work with (the dough will be quite wet), I don't see anything out of order with the recipe you used. And there is no reason why you can't use bread flour. A high-gluten flour might be more common for a NYC style dough, but there is nothing wrong with using the bread flour. Where people sometimes experience problems like yours is where they re-shape, re-ball or re-knead the dough before working with it to make a dough skin. That disorients the gluten structure and makes the dough very elastic and difficult to stretch without tears or rips forming. With about 72% hydration and almost 1% ADY, the dough should have been very extensible (stretchy) after 24-36 hours of cold fermentation. In fact, it is possible for the dough to overferment, or be on the verge of overfermenting, by that time, although the addition of sugar might extend that event. But, if it does occur, the dough can again be very difficult to work with without tearing. Usually, the dough is on the wet, slack side and resists drying by adding bench flour. To the extent that the dough can be shaped into a skin and made into the pizza, the crust will often be almost without color and on the chewy/crackery side. Does any of the above sound familiar?
BTW, you don't need to use sugar to make a good NY style dough/pizza. However, if you use the amount of ADY (almost 1%) called for by the recipe you used, you will perhaps want to add some sugar to the dough, perhaps 1-2%, if you want to use a fermentation period of more than two days. Alternatively, you can dramatically reduce the amount of ADY, to about a third or half its current value. You can also add some oil to the dough, which is often done with NY street style pizzas. Around 1-3% oil is quite common.
For newbies who are interested in the NY style, I often suggest that they read the following thread:
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2223.0.html. That thread discusses the use of a stand mixer to make the dough but toward the end there is a post that offers instructions and tips for hand kneading.
Peter
