Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza

[norma427]

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

haybot,

This is the link for one dough ball.  The next step up is five dough balls.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9908.msg90226.html#msg90226   

If you need any other instructions or don’t understand how to go about this formula, let me know and I will try and help or provide the links.

Norma

[norma427]

It was one of those days.   I usually sleep all night long without waking up, but awoke in the middle of the night not feeling too hot.  When it was time to get up this morning, I felt worse and couldn’t decide if I would make it at market all day in the heat.  I got ready, but kept feeling worse.  I knew I had to decide what to do because my dough balls and sauce were at market. By the time I arrived at market I was even feeling worse, so I decided to freeze all the dough balls and sauce.  I had to go to the office and pay electric and propane and pick up some items for my mother.

I decided on my way, I would take some videos of the outside fruit and vegetable stands and also take a few videos of the flea market.  This is only part of the outside of Root’s market.  Someday when I have time, I will take some videos of all the meats, deli, cheese, poultry, bake stands, candy, fudge, subs, pickle stands and all the other stands that are inside the market.  If anyone is interested in seeing what some of the outside stands look like or how many vegetables and fruits are just on the outside of Root’s, these are the videos. Many of these standholders grow all their on vegetables and fruit. In the one video you can see the whoopie pies that our area is famous for. There are many more fruit and vegetable stands inside the buildings at Root’s.  Inside is where I make my pizzas and dough. These videos were taken early, so some of the standholders weren’t set-up then or they were just getting ready.

Root’s Market Outside.  Some of the outside stands.  If you listen, the cicadas can be heard singing.

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

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id0sjiC4MTw" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id0sjiC4MTw</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IMzh0nlmnI" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IMzh0nlmnI</a>

Root’s Old Mill Flea Market and Antiques, across the street from Root’s Country Market.  Some of the flea market and antiques stands.  Third stand in on right was my old Funnel Cake, Ice Cream, Lemonade, and Mexican Food Stand.

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

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyioqL5wDE" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNyioqL5wDE</a>

Norma

[haybot]

Thanks for the quick reply, because i didn't have that much time i had to cut the time in the fridge for the preferment to roughly 30hours. The finished dough, balled, rose quite a lot in the fridge over night. Is this normal or is this due to cutting the fermenting time of the preferment short? I don't think it overfermented (smells good) but i'm not sure about the signs for that. On one of the balls a large bubble showed. But the dough didn't seem to loose a lot of water or fell together or sth like this.

Is it possible that the dough was just warmer than normal and thereby rose more in the fridge? If its still rising it probably didn't overferment right?

[norma427]

haybot,

I don’t think the amount of time your poolish was in the refrigerator did affect your finished dough ball.  It sounds to me like your final dough temperature might have been to high.  What did your poolish look like before you incorporated it into the final dough?  The signs of a large bubble on the dough ball could mean it is over fermenting.  What do you mean by the dough didn’t seem to loose a lot of water?  If your dough ball keeps rising and forms bubbles, in my opinion you should use it shortly.  Since I can’t see any pictures of how the dough ball looks, I am not sure what to tell you. If you can explain more and let me know when you plan to make a pizza, maybe I can be of some help. I will help whatever way I can.

Norma

[norma427]

I used another preferment Lehmann small frozen dough ball this evening to make a blueberry and peach dessert pizza.  I modified my waffle iron so the hinged back could open up and not crush the crust.  This pizza was baked between the two plates of the waffle iron, that were held up with cannoli roll tubes.  The dessert pizza was dressed with a fresh blueberry syrup that I have made this past weekend.  I used apple wine, sugar, a little water, a few squeezes of lemon and cornstarch to make a slightly thick sauce for the peaches.  I also used whipped cream cheese to top this pie.  Some of the slices did have a slight dusting of confectionary sugar.

Norma

[norma427]

rest of pictures

Norma

[haybot]

Norma,

i used the dough after 24 hours in the fridge and it really did overferment from what i can tell. The pizza tastet good but turned out quite crispy and didn't have that much oven spring and not a lot of coloration. The first pizzas were best but the others where the dough has been out of the fridge longer stayed quite white during baking. The poolish looked ok imo. Not much different than when i put it in the fridge it roughly doubled in size and had lots of small bubbles on top. I will do this again soon and document it proper (didn't have my camera around this time) and see what happens. Since the poolish was cold and the water i used for the final mix wasn't even hand warm i don't see how it could have been too warm but i don't have a thermometer to check it properly. Anyway i will do this again soon since the taste defenitly improved over my normal lehmann dough.

[norma427]

haybot,

That interesting that you dough did overferment in 24 hrs. Did you check on the bottom of your dough balls to see if there were a lot of bubbles or anymore big bubbles on the top of the dough ball?  The doubling in size of the poolish with small bubbles on top sounds like it was okay.  I usually strive for a final dough temperature for this dough of about 73 degrees F.  I find if it gets to high the dough wants to ferment to fast.  I have seen this when I had done multiple experiments at market with different final dough temperatures.  Could you tell me what kind of oven set-up you have and if you bake on a stone or what rack you bake your pizzas on.  That could be something that is affecting the coloration of the crust.  Also what kind of flour do you use?  I think this pizza made with the preferment does have a better flavor than a regular Lehmann dough crust.  I don’t know why your pizza didn’t have better oven spring, but it could have also been from overfermentation.  This dough took me awhile to understand.  I have found when letting the dough balls warm-up that I have to watch them to see if they start to develop too many bubbles.  Then I know to either use the dough balls to make pizzas or put them back into the fridge.

If you decide to try this formula again and have more questions, I will try to help.

Norma

[haybot]

I'm using an electric oven with the pizza stone on the lowest rack. The temperature of the oven is 300°C. For the flour i used a blend of 70% flour with a protein content of 9,8% and 30% one with 11.2 %. Thats pretty much the highest you can get in germany. Above that you end up with whole wheat flour which i don't favour for pizza.

[norma427]

haybot,

From what you just explained to me about your oven temperatures it sounds to be about 572 degrees F in our conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit.  I am not good at figuring that out, but from what I can see on conversion temperatures from the web, that oven temperature should have been good in baking your pizzas. 

I am not experienced in using flour with your protein content.  My flour I use is a high-gluten flour and has a protein content of around 14.2 %.  That is another reason maybe your  pizza didn’t get as much of coloration in the crust, in my opinion.  I don’t know anything about flours from Germany or if your flours have other added ingredients or not..  It is interesting to hear about other countries and what they have available in terms of flour.  Maybe you could try to use the flour you have access to that is 11.2 %.  At least that would get the protein up some. 

From what you explained to me in you past post, I would tend to believe you dough overfermented.  Since you said you water wasn’t that warm that you used in the final dough, I am not to sure about that.  Do you mix by hand or have a mixer?  If you knead the dough by hand or even have a mixer, if you knead the dough too long, your hand temperatures can even up the final dough temperature.  If mixing by a mixer a long mix time can also help the final dough temperature to become to high.  Maybe you could try a cooler water temperature for the final dough mix. 

Your oven spring could also be related to different things.  It could be your flour or how you open the dough.  In my experience, when you open the dough balls, try to keep an edge or rim and not try to press much on that.  Just gently press you fingers around the middle and then try to slide you pie around in circles, while pressing on the middle.  When you made your regular Lehmann dough were there problems with oven spring?  If not, then I would tend to believe some of your problems were related to you dough overfermenting.

If you have a chance and want to try this dough again, if you could post some pictures of what your dough balls look like, maybe I could help you more.

Let me know if you need any other ideas.  I am not an expert on any of this.

Norma

[norma427]

Another use for this preferment Lehmann dough.  I used a small frozen dough ball and made a pizza on the Panini Grill this morning. I heated the Panini Grill up and decided to try to grill a pizza on it because it does have even top and bottom heat. The bake of this pizza went well.

This pizza was dressed with ham, pineapple, green peppers, Ray’s BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese and fresh tomatoes.   The ham, pineapples and green peppers were first grilled on my regular BBQ grill, which gave them a smoky taste. 

Pictures below

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

Another use for this preferment Lehmann dough.  I decided to do an experiment with this dough right after I incorporated the poolish into the final dough..  I cut one dough ball into 3 pieces.  Stretched and folded each piece different times and then took the dough pieces home.  They were left at room temperature to ferment for 6 hours. I never used this dough the same day I make it before today. It is usually balled and cold fermented for 1 day.  I took the pieces out of a plastic bag and stretched and folded again and then lightly floured them and put them on the baking stone in the oven.  What was made from the divided dough ball, was sausage buns for Hot Italian Sausage.

Pictures below,

Norma

[DenaliPete]

Norma i feel I'm going to have to pay even closer attention to your posts and progress, because the things you make all look wonderful.

[norma427]

Norma i feel I'm going to have to pay even closer attention to your posts and progress, because the things you make all look wonderful.

DenaliPete,

Thanks for saying the things I make look wonderful.     I am always experimenting with something.  Today I made cinnamon, brown sugar, butter pinwheels with this dough.  I didn't take any pictures though. 

Norma

[norma427]

I decided to do a little experiment on mixing times on Monday for this dough.  I use a Hobart 20 qt. mixer.  I decided to mix one dough batch for 6 minutes and another dough batch for 20 minutes.  These are some of the pictures of the different pizzas from both a shorter mix time and a much longer mix time.  When using my mixer it didn’t seem to matter if the mix time was shorter or longer in achieving oven spring and handling dough after a one day ferment.   

Another experiment from yesterday. Steve and I both experimented with making cinnamon sticky buns from preferment dough made into cinnamon sticky buns yesterday.  We used two dough balls for this experiment and let the one cut, wrapped up cinnamon bun dough proof for longer to see what would happen with the bake.  I didn’t look at a recipe for cinnamon buns before we made these cinnamon bun rolls yesterday.  I had made cinnamon buns at home before and just guessed at the ingredients that would go into making cinnamon sticky buns from a preferment pizza dough.  I will do this experiment again, after looking at what ingredients should go into making this large of pan of preferment dough cinnamon sticky buns. We also hand stretched this dough.  The next time I am going to try a rolling pin to roll out the dough.

Pictures below of first and second experiment

Norma

[norma427]

End of pictures of different mixing times pizzas

Norma

[norma427]

Experimental cinnamon sticky buns from preferment dough.

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures

Norma

[Matthew]

End of pictures of different mixing times pizzas

Norma

Looking good!