Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza

[Jackie Tran]

Norma, thanks for the link to the formula again.  I will likely be makin 2 balls and I will likely up the hydration ratio.  Hand kneading 65% HR is about the lowest I can go. 

Also I'm more interested in the fermentation time and method of the preferment and dough.  I believe you have posted that in this thread not long ago so I will do some reading to look for that.

Norma, no need to do a retest.  If you are happy with your crust and crumb why mess with it?  If you really want to push the limits of your dough, then you can try a high hydraion hi temp bake at market, but I will leave that up to you.  Hi temp baking should be really reserved for low protein doughs and proper pizza ovens like WFOs or ovens that have both a top and lower heating element like a grill with a rotiserie burners.   If your oven at the market has a top burner or if you ever decide to put a rotisserie burner to your grill and still want to do high temp bakes, then I would do that at the end of the day so you don't have to try and cool the oven. 

Cheers,
Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

The poolish is mixed one day, then let out at room temperature (or if a proofing box is used the time is less to let this poolish bubble) until the poolish looks bubbly, all depends on your ambient room temperature. Then the is  poolish is cold fermented for 3 days. The final dough is then mixed in and the dough is balled and then cold fermented for 1 more day.  If you need any other instructions on how to mix the poolish or anything else, let me know.  It is so hard to find all these links on this long thread.  I strive for a lower dough temperature, because this dough can become unruly if the final dough temperature is too high.  The final dough temperature I use is about 73-75 degrees F.

I don’t know about a high hydration at this time, because I am involved in other projects, but might try that some day. 

I just did another experiment tonight with this dough.  I only baked this dough in my home oven at 500 degrees F and the bake time was 8 minutes.  When I get the pictures resized and write up the post, I will post pictures of the bake and pie.   

Norma

[norma427]

I tried an experiment out with this dough tonight, after Peter said maybe a test could see if it might be this dough and the handling of the dough that might cause oven spring.  This pie was baked in my home oven at 500 degrees F and the bake time was 8 minutes. 

The dough was a frozen left over dough ball from market from this past Tuesday. I time defrosted this dough ball in the microwave.  The skin was left a little thicker, when I opened it. 

This was a white pizza and it was dressed with white garlic sauce that had added fresh hot & spicy oregano added.  The pie also had some Foremost Brand of blended cheese added on top of the garlic sauce.  The pie was then dressed with some San Marzano tomatoes and grape tomatoes.  After the pie was out of the oven, it was then topped with fresh green basil and some opal basil.

In my opinion this bake went better than I expected.  I thought I would have a soapstone to try this dough out with, but I am glad now, that I got to try this dough out in my oven without the soapstone.  I am not sure, but think this dough will be better than a sour dough modified Lehmann dough.  That sour dough mix already has me perplexed. 

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

last of pictures

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks Norma, I'll PM you if I have further questions.  Feel free to add additional notes if you see fit.  My goal will be to try to make a pizza that is similar looking to yours.  I'll have to make some adjustments on my end as needed.

I have not been following this entire thread.  How was this bake different from your normal bake?  Was it just at a lower temp of 500 compare to 575?  Did you notice a difference in texture?  It looks the same as your other pies but I know pics can be deceiving?  What was the goal of this bake and what did you learn from it? 

Sorry for the many questions.  I'll try to pay closer attention from now on.   

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

You can PM me if you want, but maybe other people will also want to see your questions, since this thread is so long and it is hard to find anything. It will be interesting to see what other adjustments you make to this dough. 

This bake was just to see if I could get the same oven spring, that I get in my oven at market and my BBQ grill-setup.  Since they all different kinds of bakes in different ovens and my home oven really doesn’t go up that high in temperatures, that is why I did this bake, using lower oven temperatures to see if I still could get an airy crust.  If you read this post of Peter’s you will see why I did this test.  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg104810.html#msg104810

The last paragraph, tells why I wanted to do this. I usually don’t bake this dough in my home oven because it can’t get up to very high temperatures and it differs from my BBQ grill set-up and my oven at market, because there isn’t the same head space, which seems to make better oven spring.

What I learned from this bake, is this dough can be baked in a home oven, even at lower bake temperatures and this dough can still get oven spring in the home oven.  I still am not positive, but think the dough formula and handling techniques, how the dough is made, and other variables do have something to do with how this dough can get oven spring.

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Norma, I'll post any questions here so others can benefit as well instead of PM'ing you.  Thanks for beings so helpful. 

I understand why you did the experiment now.  I think it's a good one as well, as it teaches you about your dough AND the home oven.  Gives insight to any needed adjustments and makes you a more versatile pizza maker. 

The only adjustment I think I'll need to make and plan on making is the HR.   Since I don't have a mixer and mix by hand.  Hand kneading tends to push the HR up IMO along with the fact that I'm in a high altitude & dry climate environment.   I can hand mix a 65% (which is very low for me) using Scott's straight dough mix method (I think that's what he calls it ) but I usually end up with a few lumpy bits.  I may use the food processor on this one as well as that can also help me mix a lower HR dough but will have to be carefull not too overmix.  As always when following a recipe,  I try my hardest to keep everything as the author intended only making necessary adjustments.  Again my goal is to try and duplicate one of your pies and not make something different.   I have no idea if I'll be successful or not but it should be interesting. 

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

If there is something in this thread that you need information about, I will try to find the posts and links.  I know this thread, but it is still hard for me to find the links.

Most of my doughs are made by hand also, because I don’t have a mixer at home.  I mix this dough at market in my commercial mixer, because this is my market dough, but you should be fine mixing by hand. 

I have no idea how your high altitude and dry environment will affect this dough, but when I make this same dough in the winter, it is the same.  The humidity and ambient temperature at market can be very low in the winter.  Then I have to make adjustments to the water temperature of the final dough.  In winter I have to heat the water, before I use it in the final dough.  What I have found out so far in using food processors,  this really isn’t the kind of dough that you mix in a food processor, but I could be wrong.  Usually those doughs are much lower in hydration.

I think you will be successful in making this formula. You have made many doughs already and are successful.  It isn’t very hard, but just can take a good amount of days, until everything is done.  It is like a wait and see dough.  If or when you decide to try this dough, I will be interested in seeing your results.

Norma

[norma427]

These are a few pictures of this pie, after it has cooled down. They were just taken a couple of minutes ago.  The first picture is the crust torn apart to see the crumb structure.  These were the last two slices of the pie.

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Norma, did you find that this lower temp bake in the home oven gave you a denser or doughier crumb at all or essentially the same crust texture?

Off the top of your head, do you know the protein content of the KASL flour you use? I have so much flour it's tough for me to buy more at this point.  I think I can blend a few flours to get close to the protein content of KASL.  It won't be exactly the same but should be close enough.   

Norma, good to know you usually mix this up by hand.  I had wrongly assumed you were using the mixer to get a 61%.  I'm not quite sure how you and others mix a 61% by hand without issues.

At this point the only thing I can attributed this too is the high % of preferment used (~74%).  Maybe once I start working with it, I'll find that it won't be hard to achieve the 61%.  I'll shoot for it though and won't go higher unless I feel that I really have to. 

You've mixed this up by hand so many times now I'm sure it's effortless.  Sorry for the noob question but can you quickly go over the steps you take to hand mix it.  Do you use the straight dough technique? or do you add the flour in a bit at a time, knead, and add more flour?   How long is your knead time approximately once you start adding water and flour and other ingredients to the the preferment.

Actually, if you don't mind can you list the order in which you add the ingredients to the preferment or do you add the preferment to the other ingredients.

BTW - I just started reading from page 12? (recipe for 1 16" pizza) and slowly making my way through the entire thread). 

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

The lower bake temperature in my home oven and the longer bake, did give this crumb a little drier texture than a faster bake as in my commercial oven or BBQ grill set-up.  It still was very good in my opinion, but just a little different. 

I think the KASL has a protein content of about 14.2 %.  If you want me to send you enough flour to test two dough balls out, let me know and I could probably send you some next week.  This flour is an unbleached and unbromated flour.

I don’t mix this formula by hand. This is mixed in my commercial mixer at market. I just said I thought it could be mixed by hand.  Most of the doughs I make at home are mixed by hand.  The reason I said in my other post that I didn’t think this dough would be suited for a food processor is because of adding the poolish, which is very sticky.  I could be wrong about mixing this dough in a food processor.  I never tried mixing this dough in a food processor.

How I mix this dough is first weigh out the flour and IDY for the poolish  I use a whisk to distribute the yeast into the flour, then add the water and mix this all together.  I used a spatula to mix the poolish.  For one or two dough ball this can be mixed by hand.  It will look like a really thick pancake batter.  Cover and let this poolish sit out at room temperature, (or use a proofing box) until this mixture starts to bubble.  This can take varying amounts of time, all depending on what the ambient temperature is.  Then keep the poolish covered and cold ferment for 3 days.  Then add the final dough mix.  I add the water and poolish together, then flour (all the flour at one time), IDY on one side and salt on the other side and mix until the ingredients come together and look throughly mixed. Then add the olive oil and continue mixing until the olive oil is incorporated into the dough.  Next ball and let cold ferment for 1 day.  The dough should be ready to use then.  My commercial mixer does this fast, but I am not sure how long it will take to hand mix. 

Here is a link to show what the poolish should look like and the final dough.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg93116.html#msg93116

Anymore questions, just ask.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

When I suggested that you try to make a pizza in your home oven that is "identical" to what you make at market, I did not stop to think that you cannot make a 16" pizza in your home oven. That would have been the best test to determine whether it is the oven or the dough formulation that is more responsible for the oven spring in your case. Can you tell me the size of the pizza you made, the size of your pizza stone, and the oven rack position you used to make your last pizza? I assume that you used the same dough ball weight as you use at market.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

I can make a 16" pizza in my home oven. Sometimes there are problems with me loading a 16" pie and getting it on the baking stone, in my home oven. The pizza stone is 16" in diameter and I have four rack positions in my home oven and I used the second to the top rack position for this pie.  The dough ball weight was the same as my 16" pizza at market.

The only reason I let this dough a little thicker was to see if I had the same results as when I left a small dough ball a little thicker at market, and seeing if that also could get the better oven spring, if I let the rim and skin thicker.  That is what happened with this pie.  The rim did get about the same amount of oven spring, if the dough was left thicker and the rim was made bigger. 

In some ways, you are right that this is not “identical” to my regular pizza at market, but in my opinion when I let the smaller dough balls thicker in my home BBQ grill set-up and at market in my commercial oven, these results were about the same, except this pie was a little bit drier, when baked in my home oven.  I attribute that to the longer bake time.

Don’t you think this test showed anything about this dough and handling techniques?

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Don’t you think this test showed anything about this dough and handling techniques?

Norma,

My gut wants to say yes but when it comes to matters that are governed by science and technical factors I have learned that you really can't be definitive in the conclusions unless the two things to be compared are as close to each other as possible. To do the best comparison in this case, one would have to use the same dough batch weight, the same dough condition (e.g., fresh dough or frozen dough, but not one of each), the same skin thickness (thickness factor), the same pizza size, and the same types and amounts of sauce, cheese and other toppings. In your case, you might be able to make a smaller sized pizza for your home oven setup and stone but you would have to use a proportionate amount of sauce, cheese and toppings (which is based on the surface areas of the pizzas, as Tom Lehmann discusses, for example, at http://thinktank.pmq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7381&p=49812&hilit=#p49812). Even then, there would be the nagging feeling that the different pizza size is not exactly comparable to the other pizza size.

Peter

[Jackie Tran]

Jackie Tran,

The lower bake temperature in my home oven and the longer bake, did give this crumb a little drier texture than a faster bake as in my commercial oven or BBQ grill set-up.  It still was very good in my opinion, but just a little different. 

I think the KASL has a protein content of about 14.2 %.  If you want me to send you enough flour to test two dough balls out, let me know and I could probably send you some next week.  This flour is an unbleached and unbromated flour.

I don’t mix this formula by hand. This is mixed in my commercial mixer at market. I just said I thought it could be mixed by hand.  Most of the doughs I make at home are mixed by hand.  The reason I said in my other post that I didn’t think this dough would be suited for a food processor is because of adding the poolish, which is very sticky.  I could be wrong about mixing this dough in a food processor.  I never tried mixing this dough in a food processor.

How I mix this dough is first weigh out the flour and IDY for the poolish  I use a whisk to distribute the yeast into the flour, then add the water and mix this all together.  I used a spatula to mix the poolish.  For one or two dough ball this can be mixed by hand.  It will look like a really thick pancake batter.  Cover and let this poolish sit out at room temperature, (or use a proofing box) until this mixture starts to bubble.  This can take varying amounts of time, all depending on what the ambient temperature is.  Then keep the poolish covered and cold ferment for 3 days.  Then add the final dough mix.  I add the water and poolish together, then flour (all the flour at one time), IDY on one side and salt on the other side and mix until the ingredients come together and look throughly mixed. Then add the olive oil and continue mixing until the olive oil is incorporated into the dough.  Next ball and let cold ferment for 1 day.  The dough should be ready to use then.  My commercial mixer does this fast, but I am not sure how long it will take to hand mix. 

Here is a link to show what the poolish should look like and the final dough.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg93116.html#msg93116

Anymore questions, just ask.

Norma

Thank you Norma for offering to send me a sample of KASL flour but that won't be necessary.  My Sams Club HG flour should be around the 14% range and will suffice even if it's bleached and bromated.  My real intentions for this project is to play around with cold fermented preferment a bit and see if I can glean any new ideas or knowledge, which I'm sure I will.  Thanks for clarifying the hand mixing issue.  I agree that using a food processor could be a sticky situation. 
I will employ the power of the straight dough method to achieve around a 65% HR.  Again, I know it won't be following your recipe exactly but it should give me similar results and the lessons I learn about using a cold fermented preferment won't be affected by HR. 

Thank you for noting the steps inwhich you mix up your dough by hand.  I'm sure it will become very useful for those who are interested in making your pizza.   I have already mixed up the preferment last night using ADY instead of IDY.  The preferment is looking quite robust this morning.  i will keep an eye out for the big bubbles or for the high activity level as a sign for when to cold ferment.   Thank you for your help and I will post up pics as they come in.

Norma your pies always have those nice great big voids.    I can get mine that way but do so by employing a stretch and fold technique part way through the fermenting process.  I've been curious to know (or figure out) if your voids come incidentally through the use of a cold fermented preferment (say that 3 times as fast as you can) or if they are injected in during the dough handling procedure.  BTW it is my belief that those big voids also play a big part in oven spring. For these test pies I'll leave out the stretch and fold on 1 ball to see if there is a difference in the end bake.  Should be interesting.

Cheers,
Chau

Whoops I keep forgetting to ask you.  Do your pies have a sour(dough) taste to them at all?  With as much yeast as required and a 4 day cold ferment I would think that they do.   Thx

[norma427]

Peter,

I enjoy pizza making and learning how dough behaves.  I am not always into the matters that are governed by science and technical factors.  I can see how if everything is not exactly the same there can be variances.

I think I will just stay on course and study this dough, the best I can without getting too technical. 

Norma

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

I found out over time that the poolish part of this dough doesn’t have to have really big bubbles after I tested it for awhile.  I learned this over time.  It will still keep fermenting while it is cold fermenting for 3 days.  Now I only let the poolish part start to show some bubbles on the poolish and then cold ferment.  You will find when you get this poolish out after 3 days, that it will be a sticky mixture.  You can then decide if you want to add the water to the poolish to make it easier to remove from your container.  The poolish will smell wonderful.

Thanks for saying my pies have nice voids.  This has come from studying this dough and trying different ideas.  Should be interesting to see how you make out without the stretch and folds.

The crusts from this poolish preferment have no sourdough taste. 

Let me know if you need any other help.

Best of luck, 

Norma

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

Here is a tip heavy-d gave Peter for getting the poolish out of a container after the 3 day cold ferment, if you are interesting in reading it.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg94554.html#msg94554

Here is also a picture of how the poolish looks after I experimented with it for awhile, before the 3 day cold ferment.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg94752.html#msg94752   

If you look down in these pictures, this is how the poolish should look when it is cold fermented for 3 days.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg95017.html#msg95017

Norma