Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza

[Jackie Tran]

These were baked at 650-675 for about 4 min.  Got great spring on both pies.   I stuck the cheese pie under the broiler for a bit to brown the top but I FORGOT to watch it carefully.  What a noobish mistake.  The pie burned. 

The white pie (2nd one and the one without the extra folds) baked up great.  Had some nice voids in it.  It was better than the cheese pie by far. 

Here are both pies side by side.  And some crumb shots of the better white pie.  The white pie had these nice spider webs inside the voids.  I'm also posting parts of the crumb that didn't have voids.

[Jackie Tran]

Here are the crumb shots of the cheese pie (had the extra stretch and folds).  This pie not only burned but the crumb was not as good.  The crumb shots show evidence of overgluten development from the extra folds. 

Overall both pies were decent but a little too doughy to me.  Tasted like a good bread though.  That was my fault for balling them after the last cold ferment.  Had I not done that I'm positve I would have been able to open them up to 10".  I think that they still would have been a bit too doughy for my taste considering the preferment is about 64% of the final dough. 


This was a very good experiment for me as I learned a lot from it.   Thanks for the help Norma.  If I repeat this again, I would definitely divide and ball the dough prior to the last cold ferment and skip the extra stretch and folds. 

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

I can see if you would have done the balling, right after the mixing, then you probably wouldn’t have those problems in stretching out the dough. I can understand you didn’t want to wait for three hours because it is getting late and of course you oven was ready. 

I see you did get nice oven spring and I really like the spider web inside the voids.    I enjoyed looking at your pies and you did a great job, in making these pies with the short amount of time you had to let the gluten restructure.

I enjoyed watching you progress and seeing your results.  It’s good you learned from this experiment. 

Thanks for doing the experiment and seeing how you like this kind of pie. All the pies you make in different ways, can always teach you something.  At least each experiment I do teaches me something about what I would like to achieve.

Great job, 

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks Norma.  I too like the spiderwebs and had not seen this much of it in other pizzas that I've made.  I wonder if it has to do with the high preferment and relatively high % of yeast.    I was also impress to see voids forming in the dough on their own (white pie) despite the lack of the extra stretch and fold I normally use to trap air. 

I'm not sure but feel it may be due to the yeast % more than my handling of the dough.  Of course I always open dough up as carefully as I can so as not to disturb the bubbles that are there.  By relatively high yeast % I'm referring to the 3% in the preferment, and then the 4% in the final dough.  Also I forgot to mention that as you had said, there is no sourdough taste to this dough. 

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

Here is when Peter set-forth this formula for this dough.  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg88687.html#msg88687 If you are interested you can read why he decided on how much yeast to use in the poolish and also the final dough.

It’s good you did get voids without the stretch and folds, that you normally use to trap air.  In my opinion, when each person makes the same dough, there can be many variations because each person isn’t going to go about making the same dough in exactly the same ways.  Handling of each person of the dough is different also.  Oven temps, the kind of oven or oven set-up can also affect the same formula.  When I bake this same dough in my BBQ grill set-up there is a different texture to the crust.  You use a high-gluten bleached, bromated flour and in my experiences with that kind of flour, I probably would get a much different pizza with this same formula. 

One thing I wonder as you were going about making the poolish was you said you had to cut the poolish.  I had wondered about that, but didn’t say anything until you finished this pizza.  Could you explain how the texture was like of the poolish that you needed to cut it.  After my poolish cold ferments for three days, it is just like a sticky gelatin.  Something like a blob, when I pull some of it out of the container.  I never need to cut it.  I also wondered what the greasy like substance was in this picture of you poolish. Image 4675 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg105575.html#msg105575
The only other thing I was curious about was whether you oiled the dough balls at all?

Thanks for going into detail all what you experimented with in this dough,

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I think that they still would have been a bit too doughy for my taste considering the preferment is about 64% of the final dough. 

Chau,

Can you tell me where the 64% figure comes from and how it was calculated?

By relatively high yeast % I'm referring to the 3% in the preferment, and then the 4% in the final dough.

Did you mean 0.30% and 0.40%? Normally, I would leave out the percents in the preferment and final mix displays but left them in this time in case I ever have to audit the recipe some time in the future. The key number is the percent with respect to the total formula flour.

Peter

[Jackie Tran]

Norma I agree with you, there are just so many variables to attribute to the voids to say it's simply this or that.   Sorry I didn't answer your questions earlier.  

-The preferment is as you said.  It's gelatin in nature.  Very gooey.  I scraped it out of the bowl with a spoon and into the liquid mixture (water, dissolve salt & ADY, and olive oil).  I stirred the poolish around for a few minutes and noted that about 70% of the poolish had dissolved into the liquid mixture.   The remaining 30% that did not dissolve (small clump shown in the picture), I held it up over the bowl with a fork and used scissors to snip off tiny bits into the water.  This was done so when the flour was incorporated, I would get an even mix of the poolish remnants throughout the dough.  

The greasy slick seen in pic 4675 and 4676 is the olive oil before and after stirring.  

Also I didn't oil the balls as I usually do before cold ferment b/c I knew I would be balling them the next day.  I didn't want the oil on the undersurface of the dough to make it too difficult to ball.  I was concern that the dough (gluten) wouldn't meld together well if there was additional oil.  So I just dusted the bottom of the bowl with flour instead.  that's why the doughball turned over onto the scale looks dry.
In the future I will definitely ball it up before cold fermentation (never after) b/c as it has been stated before cold fermentation develops a ton of gluten.  And I will also do the last cold ferment and proof in plastic bags to keep the moisture in.  That's a good technique for the climate I'm in.  

I was happy with the white pie and confident had I balled them prior to the last cold ferment my results would have been even better.  

It's interesting to note that just an addition of a few (4) folds create a drastically different crumb look and texture in the same dough formula.  Also that balling/folding/manipulating the dough at different stages of fermentation can drastically affect the outcome.   Again verifying your hunch that your oven spring is in part affected by your management/handling of the dough.    

Cheers,
Chau

[Jackie Tran]

Chau,

Can you tell me where the 64% figure comes from and how it was calculated?

Did you mean 0.30% and 0.40%? Normally, I would leave out the percents in the preferment and final mix displays but left them in this time in case I ever have to audit the recipe some time in the future. The key number is the percent with respect to the total formula flour.

Peter

Yes you are correct Peter.  I meant to say 0.3% and 0.4%.  Sorry about the typo. 

The 64% value I quoted is 64% of the final flour weight.  So 151gm of preferment divided by 235gm of flour in the final mix = 64%.   In my case I used 134gm of preferment to 209gm of flour to get 64%.      My hydration ratio was estimate by dividing the preferment in 2 and adding 67gm to each the flour and water weight in the final mix.  It came out to about 67%. 

Let me know if I messed up somewhere.  Math is not one of my strong points. 
Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

Thanks for going into detail what you did with this dough.  When I make this poolish and final dough, I only add the olive oil at the end of the final mix.  That small clump that you needed to snip off still has me wondering what that was. 

I find it interesting too that your stretch and folds did create a drastically different looking crumb.  I am still studying all the effects dough management and handling techniques have to do with a finished pizza.  I probably will be studying that forever. 

Thanks.

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Norma, I keep forgetting to say that I was very please that the crumb on the white pie resembles the crumb in some of your previous pics (picture #4086 in reply #565).  I'm referring to the fine hair like spider web gluten strands. 

I was please to get a similar looking crumb and a few big voids despite using ADY, a different flour, hand mixing, a higher hydration ratio, balling the dough at the wrong time, baking at a higher temp and using a different oven, and my general lack of attention to detail.   

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

I just find your whole experiment interesting no matter what kind of flour, baking temperatures, different kind of yeast, hand mixing, higher hydration and different handling methods.  It all shows how differently one dough formula can act for each different person.  Just one variable can change a pizzas outcome.  Put into that many variables and who knows what can happen.    You do a great job with any kind of dough. 

Thanks again for doing the experiment.  It was all interesting to me.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

The 64% value I quoted is 64% of the final flour weight.  So 151gm of preferment divided by 235gm of flour in the final mix = 64%.   In my case I used 134gm of preferment to 209gm of flour to get 64%.      My hydration ratio was estimate by dividing the preferment in 2 and adding 67gm to each the flour and water weight in the final mix.  It came out to about 67%. 

Chau,

Thanks for the explanation. The normal convention with respect to preferments is to relate them to the weight of the total formula flour, total formula water (the Italian way) or the total formula dough weight, and not to the final mix. However, that is a number that can be calculated and, if used consistently, might also be a meaningful number for analysis or planning purposes.

Peter

[Jackie Tran]

Thanks Peter, I'll make a note of that for future reference. 

Chau

[norma427]

Another way to use this dough.  I also posted this BBQ chicken pizza under General Pizza Making at  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11568.msg106016.html#msg106016 and also under the monthly challenge at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11496.msg106019.html#msg106019

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

  Norma that is a very creative way of making a pizza.  I thought I've heard it all but never would have thought of using a waffle iron. 

Speaking of waffles.  I haven't made waffles using starter in awhile and you've got me wanting some.  I'll post pics in your waffle thread if I get some time. 

Chau

[norma427]

Jackie Tran,

Thanks for saying that was a creative way of making a pizza.  You know how all of us are always trying to get even top and bottom heat, so when I was making the waffles, I was thinking what would be a better way to try this out because the waffle iron does get even heat on both plates.  This pizza would have had the really puffy rim, but then it also would have been puffy all over.  I had to laugh when I saw waffle iron lid rising from the baking pizza.  Of course I couldn’t keep baking that way, or one side would have been puffy and the other size would have been flat.

If you get to try the waffles with your starter, let me know how they turn out in terms of taste and also how the bake goes.

Norma

[norma427]

This is the link to the article in Bon Appetit this month about Root’s Market, where I make this dough and where I have a market stand.  I find it funny that the author of this article correctly tells how to pronounce “Roots”.  (Be advised that “Root” rhymes with “foot.”)

http://www.safsf.org/documents/Lancaster_BonAppetit_Aug2010.pdf

Norma

[norma427]

Another use for this dough. This pizza is made with this same dough that Steve and I used yesterday, in an experiment in the 1/4 size convection oven, with a small soapstone. 

Although this pizza turned out good, Steve and I fouled up with the convection oven.  We had turned it on to heat the soapstone.  We didn’t think, when we just used the timer to let us know when the soapstone might be hot enough to bake on.  We kept monitoring the temperature on the soapstone, top ceiling heat and other measurements inside the oven.  We did use an IR gun to measure the temperatures.  Both the top ceiling heat and other temperature were within 15 degrees of everyplace we measured.  I guess this was because the convection mode was on.  Well, when we thought the oven was hot enough, Steve loaded the pie.  Since I didn’t have a small enough peel to load the pie, Steve made a peel out of a pizza box.  He was trying to be environmentally friendly and also had to have some way to load the pie onto the soapstone.  We watched the pie rise, because there is a window in the front of this oven.  We then looked and saw the light wasn’t on for the convection mode.  The timer must have gone off and no buzzer sounded.  Then we switched the oven mode over to manual and continued baking.  I don’t know if we lost any oven spring or what else might have been different, but next time we try this dough, we are going to make sure we have the oven on manual mode. We could have tried another pizza, in the convection oven, because I did have another small dough ball, but by that time with the big pizza oven on, the heated humidified humidity holding cabinet, the heat blowing from the deli case, heat blowing from the pizza prep refrigerator and this convection oven on, it was just getting too hot.  Temperatures inside the market stand were about 96 degrees F.

Pictures below,

Norma

[norma427]

last of pictures

Norma

[haybot]

Could someone point me to the latest recipe used? I would love to try my hands on something new.