PFTaylor's Home Version of Patsy's Pizza

[pftaylor]

I just finished snapping picures of the best pie I have ever eaten at home. My family gobbled up the pie in scant seconds. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here goes nothing:

[pftaylor]

More:

[pftaylor]

Here is the ingredient list I used for the dough:
22.5oz of KASL flour
1 - t Olive Oil
1 - T Sicilian Sea Salt
1 3/4 cup tap water (+ 1 T)
1 - t IDY
1 - T Vanilla malt
~ 1/2 cup Biga (originally shown as Giba)
These ingredients produced 3 dough balls of 12.8oz each and I stretched them to roughly 15 inches. I could have stretched the dough out further (thereby reducing the rim size) but my grill won't close then. The pictures don't show the oven spring (or grill spring in my case) very well but it was impressive to say the least. Let me know if anyone would like for me to post the procedure I employ for assembling and cooking and I'll describe it in detail.

I cooked the pie on my TEC grill for exactly 3 minutes 3 seconds. The flavor was outstanding. The last time I had this much satisfaction was when I finally dialed in my stereo and could pinpoint on the imaginary stage where every instrument was being played from. I can't stop grinning...

[vitoduke]

Pizza looks great. Here's a stupid question - What is Giba?   Thanks

[Pete-zza]

jft,

Very nice job.

Do you know for sure what kind of flour Patsy's actually uses?

I tried to convert your recipe to baker's percents and to calculate the thickness factor for your pizzas, but I was baffled by the term "Giba". I noticed that you used the Sclafani tomatoes (which I assume are San Marzanos), fresh basil leaves, and what appears to be Parmigiano-Reggiano and Romano Locatelli cheeses, but I couldn't connect those items with "Giba". I see that vitoduke has beat me to the punch, but I would also like to know what "Giba" is.

I did a rough calculation of the hydration percent, using my digital scale to weigh your stated volume of water, and it looks to be around 64-66%. Did you actually weigh the water? I assume the 1 T of water may have been the amount of water added during the processing of the dough to get it to the right texture and consistency.

Peter

[pftaylor]

I think Biga (Giba) is the Italian word for starter, chef, etc.

The taste of my crust these days is superb and I can thank Jeff for coming up with the idea. I'm not sure what strain of wild yeast floats around Tampa but it sure is conducive to a pie.

Pete-zza, I did not weigh the water I just used a measuring cup and was as precise as I could be. Water is one of the few ingredients I don't weigh because I can interpret the meniscus fairly accurately in a measuring cup. The San Marzano tomatoes are DOP certified. Regarding what type of flour Patsy's uses I have narrowed it down to High Gluten. Solely by the process of elimination. My reasoning is I have tried everything else and everything else isn't close. While I still have too large of a rim I do think the answer lies in a small dough ball and stretching it out. I have experimented with 15" - 16" skins down to 10 ounces of dough ball weight (too thin in the middle) up to 14.2 ounces (rim is way too big). I think the answer is in the 12 - 12.5 ounce dough ball range for a 15" - 16" finished pizza. I know it sounds light but I know of no other method to achieve a modest sized rim other than reducing ball size and stretching. Cooking at 800 degrees or so doesn't hurt either.

[Pete-zza]

pft,

Since the Italians use the term biga instead of poolish (the French also like to use the more French sounding name levain), I assume that is what you meant. That complicates converting to baker's percents, but I am sure that there is a way. Was your biga based entirely on using wild yeast, i.e., no commercial yeast, along with flour and water? Did you weigh the ingredients for the biga?

Peter

[pftaylor]

As usual you are correct sir. Biga is the correct term. I do have a valid excuse though. I am the product of the Virginia public school system and only so much can be expected...LOL

I did start the biga with 1/8th teaspoon of commercial yeast, 4 ounces water, and 4 ounces Caputo 00 flour (Caputo has to be good for something). I refreshed the biga every day for 5 days and then weekly with 4 ounces of water (by volume)and 4 ounces of flour (by weight which was about 8 ounces by volume).

My understanding of starters is that the commercial yeast is all gone after a few refresh cycles so maybe the yeast in the Caputo has taken over. Who knows. What I do know is that the flavor in my crust is outstanding. Funny thing about the Caputo flour - my family doesn't like the taste of pies made with it but they love the taste of the KASL based pies enhanced with a Caputo based biga. Go figure.

[Pete-zza]

Did you use fresh baker's yeast for the starter or one of the dry forms? I'd like to duplicate your starter and see if I can then calculate the baker's percents and thickness factor for your recipe--at least the main recipe--and assume that one would have an adequate supply of the starter on hand to make any desired size and number of pizza.

What you may want to try is to make a starter from KA flour and see if your family can detect a difference. I can't see why the Caputo in such a small quantity should make a noticeable difference.

You might also try taking a piece of dough from one day's production and use it for leavening the next batch of pizza dough. This is what Mangieri at Una Pizza does except I believe that his starter is all natural, inasmuch as the dough goes through a period of fermentation of around 36 hours total. I don't think a commercial starter would last that long.

Peter

[scampi]

Next time you need to make sure you close the lid when cooking outside. I noticed quite a few leaves fell on your pizza.  kiddin...the Pics make me hungry..mmmm Thanks for sharing!!

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
I used IDY to jump start the biga. I have considered starting another biga once I recieve the starter Jeff has sent on to Steve as a comparison to my Caputo based biga. Thanks for the suggestion. If the results are anything like I've experienced I can't wait.

I need to talk about the Polly - O Fresh Mozzarella cheese for a moment. That may have contributed  to the quantum leap in flavor as well. Or it may have been that the biga aged a few weeks. Or maybe it's all the above. It's almost as if I've unlocked a combination to a safe.

But I know this, I am as close as you can come to an authentic Patsy's pie in a home environment. The crust is what has really sold me on the authenticity. The foldabilty, crunch, lightness are all there. My body tells me that I'm real close because I feel exactly like I have when I've eaten the real thing. Not stuffed but satisfyingly full. The only aspect of my version which is not as close as I would like is the sauce. But I'm at least 80% of the way there overall.

Scampi, you are right about the leaves. They are a problem but I don't want to disappoint my mom who gave me the plant...

[friz78]

PFT,
Great pizza - it looks perfect!  When cooking in your grill, do you place the dough right on the grill grates or do you have a stone inside the grill?

This pizza starter idea is all new to me.  Is there another thread within the forum that elaborates on the starter idea?
Friz

[Pete-zza]

Friz,

If you do a site search using "sourdough" you should find several threads where starters, including sourdough starters, are discussed at some length. You might also look for Jeff's postings, since he is a big advocate of using starters in his doughs.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Friz,
I have finally achieved an acceptable level of proficiency in the art of grilling after many months of effort. Cooking at 800 degrees is worth it or so I figured when I began this journey. I knew that's where Patsy's Pizza and other elite pizzerias cooked their pies at so that was the logical goal for me.

I started out with removing the grates and placing the stone in their place with the hood open.  The result was a completely burned bottom and a raw top (45 second cook time though). From there I eventually migrated to using double stacked unglazed quarry tile on top of the grates. If you look closely at the pictures you might see a distinct line on the bottom of the pizza where the tiles meet. The tile configuration is what I use today.

The major problem I have with grilling a pizza is that my hood is now completely warped from the intense heat. I cannot bathe the top of the pie with enough heat unless the top is closed and that means a warped hood. The only other option available to create the necessary heat level would be to modify my home range and that didn't pass the giggle test with my wife.

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
I've reread your post #8 and am confused. Do you think the biga is flavored by commercial yeast, wild yeast (Tampa strain), or Caputo 00 yeast (Italian strain). As a background, the mixture aged on my pool deck for the entire time in an open container.

[Pete-zza]

pft,

I'm not an expert on these matters, but I have had some experience in making bread doughs based on starter cultures that were created using only wild, or natural, yeasts, and commercial yeast as well. I think your starter is a combination of all the types of yeast you mentioned. Wild yeasts exist just about everywhere, outside, inside, in flours, and even on our bodies, waiting to be captured by a flour/water combination somewhere.

I tend to draw a distinction between starters that are based entirely on wild yeasts (what the French refer to as levain), and those that are based on using commercial yeast. My experience is that a starter made from wild yeasts produce a more pronounced sourdough flavor in a bread made using such a starter. I love that flavor for breads but not for pizza crusts. Tony Mangieri at Una Pizza uses what I would consider to be a levain, in the form of a chef (a piece of dough from the last production of dough). I suspect Mangieri uses it in small amounts so that the flavor enhancements are significant and noticeable but not overpowering. That's one of the reasons I would like to visit his restaurant and try to learn more about what he actually does in making his pizza doughs.

I personally prefer to use a starter made from commercial yeast. The flavors are more subdued and I find that they make a nice contribution to the flavor of a pizza crust without overpowering it. And the starter can be easily replenished, and it is not as touchy or temperamental as a natural starter. The question I do not have a good answer for is whether wild yeasts overtake a commercial yeast, or vice versa. Nancy Silverton, who is an expert breadmaker and well known and well regarded author of books on baking, says that if a small amount of commercial yeast is added to a natural starter, the commercial yeast will overtake the wild yeast but not for long since the commercial yeast won't survive for long in the acidic environment of a natural starter (see pp. 10-14 of Nancy Silverton's Bread from the LaBrea Bakery). Ms. Silverton adds that if commercial yeast is to be added to a natural starter, a step she recomends for certain types of breads (and which I have done myself on occasion in the past), it should be in only small amounts so that the commercial yeast doesn't overtake the natural starter and "overpower the subtle flavor characteristics" of the bread made from the starter. 

If Ms. Silverton is right, then your starter, which uses only a small amount of commercial yeast, should become more natural with time as the starter captures wild yeast from its surroundings. Last night, I started a starter (a poolish, or biga) based on your formulation and should, in due course, be able to test out the concept of one type of yeast taking over the other. I left my starter on my kitchen counter overnight but plan to take it outside for a while today since it is supposed to be a nice warm day here in the Dallas area. I have never had a problem creating a natural starter where I live, so I think I should be in pretty good shape.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
Thanks for the informative post. So the take-away I should have is that my biga is either wild or commercial but not Italian?

[Pete-zza]

pft,

Maybe your biga is part Italian. But if the Caputo flour contains any Manitoba flour, it could be part Canadian also  .

Peter

[DKM]

MAN I WANT THAT PIZZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess I need to make one.

DKM

[Pete-zza]

pft,

I took a stab at trying to come up with the baker's percents for your home version of the Patsy's pizza as posted above in this thread and, more recently in somewhat greater detail, in Reply #7 at http://forum.pizzamaking.com/index.php?topic=888.new#new. What complicated matters somewhat was the recitation of water by volume rather than weight and also the difficulty of measuring a goopy substance such as a biga. As best I can determine, the baker's percent of your basic recipe (apart from the biga) is as follows, along with the ingredient amounts:

KASL, 22.5 oz. (5 cups), (100%)
1 T. olive oil, 0.50 oz., (2.2%)
1 T. Sicilian sea salt, 0.55 oz., (2.5%)
1 3/4 c. water, plus 1 T., 15.70 oz., (70%)
1 t. IDY, 0.11 oz., (0.47%)
1 T. Carnation Original malt, 0.35 oz., (1.55%)
1/2 cup Caputo 00 biga (see more on this in the next paragraph)

For the biga, per your original instructions I initially combined 4 oz. of water (by volume), 4 oz. of Caputo 00 flour (by weight), and 1/8 t. IDY. That combination produced a starter of around 3/4 c. weighing 7.4 oz. A few days later, I measured 1/2 cup of the biga, the quantity called for in your formulation, and it weighed 5.2 oz.

By my calculations, the basic recipe should produce a dough ball weighing around 39.7 oz. Adding in the weight of 1/2 cup of the biga (5.2 oz.), the final weight should be around 44.9 oz. That would be sufficient to make 3 dough balls each weighing around 15 oz. However, since you indicated that you have been throwing away some of the dough (around 5 oz.), I recalculated the numbers to come up with the following formulation that should allow you to make 3 dough balls of around 13.3 oz. without any leftover dough--and close to your original dough ball weights. As indicated, the baker's percents remain the same.

KASL, 19.95 oz. (100%)
Olive oil, 0.45 oz. (a bit more than 7/8 T.), (2.2%)
Sicilian sea salt, 0.50 oz. (a bit more than 7/8 T.), (2.5%)
Water, 13.95 oz. (about 1 5/8 c.), (70%)
IDY, 0.09 oz. (a bit more than 7/8 t.), (0.47%)
Carnation Original malt, 0.30 oz. (a bit more than 7/8 T.), (1.55%)
Caputo 00 Biga, 4.6 oz.

The modified recipe should produce a dough ball weighing around 39.9 oz. (35.3 oz. for the basic recipe plus 4.6 oz. for the biga), or 3 dough balls each weighing 13.3 oz. Since it is unlikely that you will be able to accurately weigh out 4.6 oz. of the biga, I suspect that anything close to that should work and not pose a problem. The slightly higher dough ball weight than you were previously using (12.7 oz.) might also allow you to overcome thin spots in the dough during shaping.

As may be noted from the above numbers, the calculated hydration percent is quite high, at 70%. It's quite possible that it is actually lower once the biga is taken into account. Also, if I had used one of the often quoted conversions of water to weight, 8.33 oz. per cup, instead of weighing 1 3/4 c. of water in the original recipe, the calculated hydration percentage would have been 67%, or 3% lower. My eyeball is apparently not as accurate as yours  .

Peter