Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza

[Mad_Ernie]

Love the Elmo on your counter (and so would my daughter)   

[scott123]

Norma, like I said, my rant wasn't directed at you.  It was just one of those things that I needed to get out.

[norma427]

Mad_Ernie,

Thanks for saying you like the Singing Elmo.    Children are really wild about him and also, adults.  I purchased him on Ebay for 4.00, quite a buy.  He even has a singing pizza that moves his mouth and eyes when he sings. 

Norma

scott123,

I didn't take your cheese and oven heating directed at me.    I just wanted to let you know what I do.  I sure am not an expert, as I am sure other pizza operators aren't either.  I just try to find the best way to try things.  I can get quite complicated in knowing what the best ways to make a pizza in a commercial setting can be. 

Thanks,

Norma

[norma427]

Mad_Ernie,

Here is a link to the singing Elmo and pizza.  Your daughter can watch Elmo and his pizza sing. 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxE0p2A9Ieo" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxE0p2A9Ieo</a>

Norma

[norma427]

Peter,

I would like to ask a few questions about using the preferment poolish and final dough.  It is supposed to snow here later today and maybe some tomorrow.  I am undecided if I am going to incorporate the poolish into the final dough today.  I have to decide if I think there will be enough people at market tomorrow, for me to make my regular Lehmann dough and sauce.  Last week because of the predicted big snow, market was really slow.  When the weather men predict snow, that usually keeps people away from market. 
The questions I want to ask you is if I don’t make the final dough with the preferment today, can I bring the poolish home and just make a single batch of dough here at home and see what kind of results I get?  Do you have a formula worked out for a single dough ball using the preferment poolish?  Would you advise to just go ahead and make the final dough and if needed, freeze the dough balls?

Since it will be Fastnacht Day here tomorrow, that usually brings out a lot of people to market.  Many bakeries sell the Fasnacht’s here.  Fastnacht Day is a tradition here in Pa. Dutch Country.  If anyone is following this thread, this day is celebrated on the day before Ash Wednesday, which is the last Tuesday before Lent.  The tradition were originally made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter. 

If any one is interested in seeing what Fastnacht Day here is, here are two links.


http://winter-recipes.suite101.com/article.cfm/fastnacht_day

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8521.asp

Thanks,

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

There is no reason that I can see why you shouldn't be able to make just one 16" pizza using the poolish you have made. The way you would come up with the ingredients would be to go to Reply 149 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg88687.html#msg88687 and divide everything by five. However, since there may be others who may be interested in the dough formulation of just one 16" pizza, I have set forth the details below, as follows:

Total Lehmann NY Style Dough Formulation (for a single 16" pizza)

King Arthur Sir Lancelot Flour (100%): Water (61%): IDY (0.40%): Salt (1.75%): Olive Oil (1%): Total (164.15%):

310.16 g  |  10.94 oz | 0.68 lbs 189.2 g  |  6.67 oz | 0.42 lbs 1.24 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.41 tsp | 0.14 tbsp 5.43 g | 0.19 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.97 tsp | 0.32 tbsp 3.1 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.69 tsp | 0.23 tbsp 509.13 g | 17.96 oz | 1.12 lbs | TF = 0.08932

Note: Nominal thickness factor = 0.088; for one dough ball for a single 16" pizza; bowl residue compensation = 1.5%

Preferment (Poolish)

King Arthur Sir Lancelot Flour (100%): Water (100%): IDY (0.30%): Total (200.3%):

75.66 g  |  2.67 oz | 0.17 lbs 75.66 g  |  2.67 oz | 0.17 lbs 0.23 g | 0.01 oz | 0 lbs | 0.08 tsp | 0.03 tbsp (this is a bit less than 3/32 t.) 151.55 g | 5.35 oz | 0.33 lbs | TF = N/A

Note: Poolish represents about 80% of the Total Formula Water and about 30% of the total dough weight.

Final Mix
Poolish (from above):                                                         151.55 g | 5.35 oz | 0.33 lbs

Remaining Total Formula King Arthur Sir Lancelot Flour (100%): Remaining Total Formula Water (48.4166%): Remaining Total Formula IDY (0.4324%): Total Formula Salt (2.31470%): Total Formula Olive Oil (1.3228%):

234.5 g  |  8.27 oz | 0.52 lbs 113.54 g  |  4 oz | 0.25 lbs 1.01 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.34 tsp | 0.11 tbsp 5.43 g | 0.19 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.97 tsp | 0.32 tbsp 3.1 g | 0.11 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.69 tsp | 0.23 tbsp

Total Dough Batch Weight:                                                 509.13 g | 17.96 oz | 1.12 lbs

For future reference, you may want to double check my math to be sure that it is correct.

In your case, to make one dough ball you should use 151.55 grams of your poolish quantity and add the remaining ingredients as specified above under the Final Mix.

Your single dough ball test should be a good one to see how the dough recipe stands up to scaling down to that size. So, I look forward to your results. However, should you reconsider and decide to make the full dough batch and freeze the dough balls, I think that should work too. However, since there can be no fermentation for the dough balls while frozen, you will have to allow enough time in advance of use to recover the loss of fermentation. There is also no reason why you can't do both. You can use one dough ball and freeze the rest.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

Thank you for your advise.  Your information for other members or guests that might want to try this preferment with the poolish and final dough will be helpful if they decide to try it.
I had another member PM me about not understanding how the poolish should be mixed.  I answered them with the post of old criter and then the dough formulation you had given.  I also told them I didn’t really know how to scale this recipe down, but since you have just given the easy way of dividing by 5, I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before. 

I will see what happens today.  My mother was at our home last night for dinner.  She had a spell that she didn’t know what she was doing and when my daughter and I tried to help her to the couch she just buckled over and we had to put her on the floor.  I called 911, but by that time she came to.  She is an independent person and didn’t want the ambulance.  I am taking her to the doctors soon to see what might be wrong.  She is feeling okay now, but this concerns me.  It all depends on what the doctor says this morning.  It will depend on if the doctor thinks she needs more tests if I can get market ready today.

I will post later today on what I decided to do about the preferment with the poolish and the final dough.  It would be interesting to see what would happen with one dough ball at home and one frozen.

I don’t think I have to check your math, it mine that sometimes gets mixed up. 

Thanks,

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I had another member PM me about not understanding how the poolish should be mixed.  I answered them with the post of old criter and then the dough formulation you had given.

Norma,

I hope that all turns out well for your mother.

With respect to the poolish question, the way that I prepare my poolish is to mix the yeast (if IDY) directly in with the poolish flour, add the poolish water to a bowl, and gradually mix in the flour/IDY mix. If the amount of the poolish is small, I just use a plastic or other mixing bowl and either whisk in the flour/IDY or use a sturdy wooden spoon to mix everything. I add the flour/IDY gradually so that the flour is hydrated more effectively. For a much larger amount of poolish that can't easily be done as I just described, I would use a stand mixer, using the flat beater attachment at low speed. If I am using ADY instead of IDY, I use a portion of the poolish water at around 105 degrees F and rehydrate the ADY for about 10 minutes. It can then be added to the rest of the poolish water in the bowl.

In my view, one of the most significant factors that comes into play with poolish and that one must deal with effectively to achieve the desired results is temperature. In my opinion, that is the biggest elephant in the room. If the room where the poolish is to preferment is cool, as is very often the case in winter, even in Texas where I am, then it will take considerably longer for the poolish to reach the same stage as it would in a warmer room. Even if one uses very warm water to make the poolish to speed up the prefermentation process, that water shouldn't be so warm as to harm the yeast, say, above around 120-130 degrees F. But even with the poolish water at 120-130 degrees F, the poolish will cool down and approach room temperature over time. As an example based on my experience, a poolish using water at around 105 degrees F and starting out at around 82 degrees F (finished poolish temperature) and subjected to a room temperature of around 65 degrees F, will drop to about 72 degrees F in the course of an hour. It will drop to around 67 degrees F after 4 hours. Under these conditions, you are not likely to see a lot of bubbles in the poolish. If the poolish also happens to be cool at the time of the final mix, then that will slow down the rest of the fermentation process also unless other steps are taken to try to compensate for the cooling effects of the poolish. The only way to get around the issue of temperature without changing other parameters is to use a proofing box or some equivalent. In your case, it might be your Hatco unit.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

Thank you for explaining how you mix the poolish.  I can understand how you are explaining getting the poolish to bubble at different room temperatures.  Since market temperatures do vary greatly, there are those problems.  I have been using the disk heater and it seems to be doing well with the poolish, but since this poolish is only a small amount, hopefully when I get the Hatco merchandiser over to market, I will be able to test how the poolish works in that.  I think the Hatco merchandiser is a good piece of equipment and I had bought from craigslist at a Kentucky Fried Chicken place.  It seems like they had so much equipment they didn’t use.  I only paid 125.00 for it and had planned on keeping the wings I made to display.  Since the wings didn’t work out, I had an extra piece of equipment.  Maybe it will work for the poolish.  Since it is also humidified if wanted, do you think there would be any advantage to using that?  I think it would act something like a sauna. 
The poolish I made at market on Friday took about 3 hours to bubble enough. I did add water that was 120 degrees F.  I didn’t need to add any extra flour today, so something must have been wrong with my measurements last week.  I added two pictures from today.  The one shows the finished dough temperature.  The other shows the finished dough ball and behind it can be seen what the temperature at market was today. 
                  
Thanks for saying you hope things work out well with my mother.  I didn’t have time to make my regular dough today and am not sure if I am going to market tomorrow.  I did bring the dough home today that was for the 5 test doughs.  If I don’t go to market tomorrow I will try one dough ball at home and freeze the other four.  At least they will have some time to cold ferment.

If the weather isn’t too bad tomorrow, I might need to make an emergency dough.
                                 
Thanks,

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Over the last few days I conducted a Lehmann/poolish experiment. I am scheduled to be out of town for a few days so I can't provide all of the details now but I plan to provide more detail when I return, quite possibly at the Lehmann thread. However, I used the same Lehmann dough formulation you have been using for your poolish experiments but with several modifications on the poolish side. To summarize, I subjected as much of the total formula flour to the prefermentation process as possible while staying within the classic definition of a poolish, I prefermented the poolish strictly at my local room temperature (which is in the 60s), I added a heavy dose of diastatic malt (considerably above the recommended amount), and I fermented the final dough into which the poolish was incorporated for about 48 hours in my refrigerator. The dough remained at a cool temperature during tempering (again in the 60s), following which it was shaped into a skin, dressed and baked. The photo below is representative of the finished pizza. I thought the pizza turned out quite well but I believe there is room for improvement based on what I learned from the experiment.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

Wow..your pizza looks delicious!    I think you are really on to something great with your ideas for preferments with the Lehmann dough.  I would be interested in the taste of your crust.  I see you have added the diastatic malt.  Since you prefermented the poolish strictly at room temperature and it was cool, how long did your poolish take to bubble?  I will await your details.  They should really be interesting. 

Thanks,

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Thank you.

Although I used warm water at around 105 degrees F to prepare the poolish, I knew that I shouldn't expect much bubbling after a few hours at my room temperature this time of year. In my case, the poolish prefermented at a room temperature of around 65 degrees F for four hours, during which time the temperature of the poolish dropped in the direction of the room temperature. Rather than letting it work longer, I decided instead to put the poolish into my refrigerator for further development. I didn't mention it earlier, but I held the poolish in my refrigerator for 3 days. During that time, there was volume expansion of the poolish and a few more bubbles but not in great profusion. The photo below shows the poolish after the four hour prefermentation period. I did not take a photo of the poolish at the point where I took it out of the refrigerator to incorporate into the final mix.

I did the "cool" poolish experiment to see how much it penalizes the final crust. There is a penalty in my opinion, mainly in terms of crust flavor. I think "warm" is the better way to go.

Peter

[norma427]

I did the "cool" poolish experiment to see how much it penalizes the final crust. There is a penalty in my opinion, mainly in terms of crust flavor. I think "warm" is the better way to go.

Peter

Peter,

Each time before I mixed the poolish into the final dough, I let the poolish in front of the disk heater while I was mixing dough or doing other things.  The poolish did bubble more in that amount of time. I was worried maybe the poolish would start to fall, but it never got to that point. 
I will see what you post later about your experiment with the preferment with your poolish and your final dough formulas.
Thanks for posting the picture of how your poolish looked. It's also good to see you tried out your idea. 

Thanks,

Norma

[Glutenboy]

Peter -

The lovely browning is matched only by your perfect pepperoni coverage.    Seriously, that's a really nice golden brown.  Flavorful?

[TXCraig1]

Norma,

I've been getting some pretty good results using a preferment with the method I described here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10237.0.html It generally bakes up nicely, and I've been very happy with the flavor and texture - some spurious results, but I'm learning.

I've been using Ischia culture in the preferment (I'll use the word "preferment" to make sure I don't incorrectly use the word "poolish." I can't say I'm fully fluent in the technical specifications of the different varieties, but I'm fascinated by this and like you trying to learn more). I see no reason why this method couldn't be easily adapted to IDY/ADY.  I use water straight out of the tap (RO filtration) which is usually mid-60's. My room temperature is usually around 72F but it's been bloody cold here recently (40F outside - 68F room temp), and I can definitely see a reduction in activity. In addition to experimenting with increased culture % to combat the cold, I've been putting my preferment in the the oven with the light on (90F) for ~4 hours before mixing the final dough. The increase in activity during that time is very noticeable. I can't say I can tell much difference in the final product between the preferment at 24 hours at 72F and that at 20 hours at 68F with the bump up to 90F for the final 4 hours. In fact, I've had some unpredictable results from both - most noteably in terms of speed the final dough rises at a constant temperature, and the extensibility of the final dough.

The preferment makes up about 25% of the total dough by weight. This is the result of trying to replicate the UPN dough from the videos, however, I have done some experimentation with taking the % up higher, and I was not happy with the results. I didn't care for the feel of the final dough. I didn't care for how it handled - less extensible, more prone to having thin spots when opened, and I thought it was tougher and more bread-like when baked. Perhaps this is a function of the sourdough yeast and results with commercial results would be different. I'll be excited to see what you learn.

Below are a couple pictures of my preferment just before incorporating into the final dough and some recent pies made with this method.

Craig

[norma427]

TXCraig1,

In reverse engineering UPN Dough, are you still using a piece of old dough to add to your preferment and then final dough? With using a high heat and the way you are making your dough, I see how great results you have achieved.

It’s great to see how you are experimenting and getting to know you dough with each step you take.  Your idea of putting the preferment in the oven in a cooler room is good.

I also am on the learning curve and learn something new each time I try something different.  When I watch as each pie is made, dressed and then baked, each step can contribute to different results.  I am sure I never will stop learning and won’t have the equipment to try some of the ideas of other people, but I enjoy watching and learning from them. I am just learning more about starters and preferments and it is very interesting what they can do.  As you can see in this thread, there are some doughs I sure didn’t like, but with each step there is something new learned. When I try to compare some of my pies made at market and then at home, there is a big difference.  I need to learn more about making pies at home.  Where I really have a problem is with my math..lol, but that isn’t going to stop me from trying.

I have seen you BBQ modification and see the amazing pictures of your pizzas.  In your talking about what you have done to modify your BBQ grill and the high temperatures you are achieving, that is really great! 

Thanks for sharing your pictures of your preferment and pizzas.  You are doing a fantastic job! 

Norma

[TXCraig1]

Norma,

If I ever got to the point where I made pizza every day (I can dream can't I?), I would use the old dough method I discussed. It made by far the most flavorful pizzas I've ever made. Now, I'm trying to duplicate the flavor without having to have old dough. So far not so much luck. I've been experimenting with 48 hour preferments and I'm not pleased with my results so far. I'm looking at various salt levels in 48 hour preferments now.

Thank you for you other kind words.

Craig

[Pete-zza]

Peter -

The lovely browning is matched only by your perfect pepperoni coverage.    Seriously, that's a really nice golden brown.  Flavorful?

Glutenboy,

The crust browning was actually a different "browning" than what I normally achieve with the basic Lehmann NY style. It was more "golden", with more of a bread appearance. Craig mentioned that he used his preferment at 25% of the total dough weight. Mine used all of the formula water, plus an equal weight of flour, and it represented almost 74% of the total dough weight. That was intentional because I wanted to see what I would get if I subjected the maximum amount of flour to the prefermentation of the poolish. As a result, my crust had more of the attributes of a baked bread than a pizza crust. I think I would be inclined to agree with Craig that the 74% figure is too high. Like Craig, I, too, experienced an increase in elasticity. I wondered about this since the acids of preferments are supposed to strengthen the final dough. In Norma's case, she did not experience that, as her videos demonstrated. I did. However, my dough was very robust and not difficult to open up, and I did not develop thin spots or webbing, albeit the dough was more elastic than what I normally experience.

From the standpoint of crust flavor, it was flavorful but not great. I somewhat anticipated this result because of the cool prefermentation of the poolish, both before and during refrigeration. That was also intentional because I wanted to see if such a regimen was workable and to what extent. I was especially mindful of Norma's restrictions at market where she would most likely not be permitted to make a poolish at home and bring it to market for the final mix. That alone could rule out a lot of possibilities. Maybe Norma's Hatco unit will solve this problem, and thereby avoid the need to use some kind of proofing unit, but that remains to be seen.

This "cool" poolish test pretty much convinced me that you need a lot of prefermentation activity in order to develop the byproducts of fermentation that are responsible for crust flavor. In my experiment, the dough doubled by the time I decided to use it (based on the poppy seed method I used). The dough was still firm to the touch, and I seriously entertained the thought of leaving the dough in the refrigerator until I returned from my planned trip. However, I didn't want to lose the results of my test up to that point so I completed the pizza at that time. But I do believe that the dough could have held out much longer and, as a result, might have produced more byproducts of fermentation to provide more crust flavor. It would have been like a preferment version of your now famous quasi-geriatric dough.

The pepperoni coverage comes from all of my Papa John's clones where I tried to fit over 40 pepperoni slices on a 14" pizza . Essentially the whole pizza is covered with almost no space between slices. They shrink a bit during baking, thus creating a bit of space between them. But they don't slide all over the pizza due to cheese upheaval during baking as can happen when you use a lot less slices.

Peter

[TXCraig1]

Like Craig, I, too, experienced an increase in elasticity. I wondered about this since the acids of preferments are supposed to strengthen the final dough.

My recent, more acidified doughs have been less elastic as you would expect. This weekend, I made two identical batches except that I let one preferment go for 24 hours and the other for 48. The 48 was noticeably less elastic and baked up more bread-like in appearance. I'm actually not surprised by the increased elasticity of your dough. Several years ago, I also experimented with various preferments that went up to 100% of the formula water and up to 100% hydration. As the preferment% of total dough and hydration% increased, I saw decreasing elasticity up to a point then it began to increase up to the point where the dough would actually just fall apart like the gluten had been completely denatured. I unscientifically attributed this to the level of acids and the enzymes. I assumed that at low levels, they strengthened the dough but at some point they became concentrated enough that they simply started to dissolve it. I have only experimented with San Francisco and Ischia cultures - no commercial yeast. I suspect this is why my high preferment % dough were far weaker than yours - to the point where they were completely nonfunctional where you could still make a nice pie. In my old tests, I never went as low as 25% preferment/final dough. It was not until I started studying the UPN videos that I moved it that direction, and my results are better.

Craig

[norma427]

If I ever got to the point where I made pizza every day (I can dream can't I?)

Craig,

LOL in saying you can dream of making pizza everyday.    Best of luck to you in duplicating the flavor of the old dough with other experiments.  I will be watching your posts to see if you are obtaining the results you are looking for. You have already tried many experiments, and I believe in time, you will succeed. 

Thanks,

Norma

Peter,

It is interesting to hear about your experiments with the preferment and the conclusions you formed from using a different formula.  Since I didn’t go to market today, I am going to let at least one of the dough balls ferment for more than one day to see what happens.  I might try different things with other 4 dough balls.  At least that way I might see how these 5 dough balls are different in times of fermentation and also in freezing. 

Thanks,

Norma