Pete-zza's Roadmap to the Lehmann NY Style Recipes

[vincentoc13]

Pete-zza's,

Thank you so much for your generosity by making the road map, I'm a newbe and will definitely take advantage of it.

I went to the Penmac website and they offer bromated and unbromated all trumps flour.  In your opinion which one of these should I use for NY style pizza?

Thank you, Vince.

[Pete-zza]

Vince,

There are differences of opinion on the use of bromated and unbromated flours for the NY style of pizza. However, I would say that most of the pizza operators who specialize in that style in the NYC and surrounding areas use bromated flours. And, according to General Mills, the most popular brand of flour for the NY style is the All Trumps flour. That said, there are some members who are expert on that style, including scott123, who prefer using flours (bromated) with protein contents less than the All Trumps, which logs in at a protein content of 14.2%. Unfortunately, PennMac does not offer such flours. If authenticity is your objective, and your choices are between the bromated and unbromated forms of the all Trumps, then your choice would be the bromated form.

Peter

[vincentoc13]

Peter,

Thank you very much for your response.

[Pete-zza]

Vince,

My pleasure.

Peter

[SpaceFuzz]

Amazing job Pete-zza man

Good stuff

[JonDeaneStewart]

Peter,

Thank you for this. I've been looking through some of your recipes and was wondering where you landed on for your favorite recipe? What turned out the best?

There are so many different versions you have and I was having trouble keeping track of which was your most successful (preferably something using KASL)

Thanks!

Jon

[wahoo88]

Peter,

Thank you for this. I've been looking through some of your recipes and was wondering where you landed on for your favorite recipe? What turned out the best?

There are so many different versions you have and I was having trouble keeping track of which was your most successful (preferably something using KASL)

Thanks!

Jon

Jon,
Peter will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that there is necessarily a 'best' recipe here.  Rather, you can choose a recipe that uses the factors that you cannot change, or would prefer not to change (i.e. KASL).  Some other factors that could guide you to a recipe would be size of available baking surface, fermentation length requirements, stretching skills (lower hydration being easier to handle), and access to a mixer. Once you have identified your constraints, then you can select a recipe that falls within them.  Peter has shown on the big Lehmann thread (to which this thread references) that even very different methods of preparation can produce similar results when the standard Lehmann formula and workflow are used as a template for change.

Best of luck and be sure to post your results!
Dan

[Pete-zza]

Jon,

Dan is essentially correct.

To provide some background, the original Lehmann thread (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.0.html) was started in late September, 2004 as the result of my volunteering to take a commercial NY style dough formulation and to try to adapt it to a home setting. At the time, what most of us had were basic stand mixers (like the KitchenAid machines), pizza stones, peels, maybe a pizza screen or two, and standard electric or gas ovens. Some members had food processors and bread makers but some had no such machine at all to make their dough. There were only a few members who had scales and it was only considerably later that good digital scales became popular. The pizza stones were the typical Cordierite stones or the FibraMent stones. Steel plates and soapstone stones were nowhere to be found. They came much later.

So, I started by making the most basic version of the Lehmann NY style dough, using the basic collection of items mentioned above. Little by little, I started making the Lehmann dough in other ways. As I was doing this, I was also learning about things like autolyse and sourdough starters and other preferments, and these, as well as other methods, were eventually incorporated into my Lehmann doughs. I was also learning about various flours, vital wheat gluten and other ingredients, and how to manipulate the basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation to use these ingredients. In the past, I have referred to the Lehmann dough as my guinea pig upon which to conduct experiments. And that is how I used the Lehmann formulation. As a result, the Lehmann thread was a great learning experience for me.

While I can't point to an absolute favorite among the many Lehmann NY style doughs I made, I would say the the ones that were based on using natural starters perhaps produced the most flavorful crusts. But they are among the hardest to make, because of all of the factors that go into creating the starters and then maintaining them so that they are at the ready when the urge strikes to make naturally leavened Lehmann doughs.

The above said, we have had many members who started with the basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation in order to get their feet wet with that style. I think the fact that my posts were laid out in great detail, with a lot of discussion of technique and science and the math involved, was a big help to those who wanted or needed a lot of detail. However, it was common for members to enjoy initial success but to eventually long for something better. That is when they started doing things like changing the ingredients and/or their quantities and also to change the thickness factors (usually to lower them) and hydration values. Many also chose to use bromated flours, either high-gluten flour or a somewhat lower protein flour, but still bromated. Over time, the members ended up with versions of the Lehmann dough that were personalized to their personal tastes and preferences. And, that is how I essentially view the Lehmann NY style dough formulation--a formulation that is a good starting point but which can be modified in so many different ways.

Peter

[JonDeaneStewart]

Peter,

Thank you very much for your reply! Dan you too.

I made my first Lehmann crust tonight using your Lehmann NY Style Dough Recipe for 9-inch Pizza with KASL. I doubled the recipe, used a Food Processor, Pizza Stone, and allowed the dough to sit in the fridge for 48 hours.

Up until this point I had been using the Peter Reinhart recipe with a few modifications I had made (I've only recently become a "serious" pizza maker). My friends have been coming over each week to try out my new crust and this was the first time I switched the recipe entirely, so it was definitely a risk. I have to say we were all blown away! This recipe turned out a full notch or two better than the Reinhart New York style I had been using.

Thank you! It was absolutely fantastic and I will continue to read your forum etc for ideas on how to improve. One thing I was amazed about was how much simpler this recipe was to make due to the low number of ingredients!

Thanks a ton! This  was by far the closest pizza crust I've ever made to that true "pizzeria crust".

I'll include a picture next time -- but when it came out of the oven tonight my friends descended upon it because it looked so damn tasty!

Jon

[Pete-zza]

Jon,

I'm glad that things worked out for you. If you are like many other members of the forum, the time is likely to come where you want an even better NY style pizza. So, in due course, you might find yourself wanting to tweak the recipe you used. One short term change might be to use a smaller thickness factor. When I first started the Lehmann NY thread, there were no dough ball weights stated in relation to pizza size. So, I relied on information gleaned from other places. That led to a thickness factor of about 0.10-0.105. While I was happy with that range of thickness factors, and there are some chain NY pizzas that use something in that range, a more conventional thickness factor among the more traditional pizza makers might be something in the range of 0.075-0.08.

A longer term change might be to go to a steel plate. But there is no hurry to go to that point. Learning to make and manage a dough consistently is perhaps more important at this juncture. However, if you are so inclined, there is no harm in reading what other members have done with their steel plates.

Peter

[dsm]

Pete,

Wow, an amazing body of work! I'm a little overwhelmed by options in the roadmap. I've made a few dozen neapolitan pizzas in a new FGM 950b WFO over the last two months and I'm ready to try something different. I love NY style pizza so this has got to be next. Which of the many options due you recommend for a WFO and 15" peel? What surface temp? Should I keep a fire or clear it out? I've got a couple of starters active I can use as well as both fleishmans and red star yeasts.

steve

[Pete-zza]

steve,

Thank you very much for the kind words. The Lehmann thread, which dates back to September, 2004, when I was essentially a novice pizza maker, was a wonderful learning experience for me. I found that the basic Lehmann NY style formulation lent itself to all kinds of experimentation, so I took advantage of that as much as I could, both for my own education and maybe to help others at the same time.

However, the above said, inasmuch as I do not have a WFO, I may not be the best one to advise you on how to best use the Lehmann formulation in the context of a WFO. The Lehmann formulation was adapted for use in connection with a commercial deck oven. My job when I volunteered to work on the Lehmann dough formulation was to try to adapt it to a home oven, which usually meant an electric or gas oven with maybe a pizza stone. However, over the years I tried to pay attention to what ovens and bake temperatures and bake times professionals used who specialized in the NY style. I found deck ovens with bake temperatures as low as 450 degrees F and with bake times of over ten minutes, and bake temperatures that approached 650 degrees F with bake times of around four or five minutes. I would say that most, and especially the NY slice pizzas, fell on the lower or middle part of the temperature range.

With specific reference to the WFO NY style, one member who did a lot of good work making NY style pizzas, both the elite style and the more basic NY style, in his WFO is Jackie Tran, best know to us as Chau. So, pending any other suggestions from our members, you may want to take a look at the thread that Chau started and advanced at:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=14201.msg142282#msg142282.

You might also want to take a look at Chau's thread where he tried to replicate a well-known NY style pizza, at:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=18671.msg180950#msg180950.

In the above thread, Chau used an LBE (Little Black Egg) at around 625-650 degrees F, but the concepts and principles involved should be useful in the context of a WFO.

I'd also like to suggest that you go to the New York style board, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0, and enter the search term WFO in the search box at the top right hand corner of the page. That will give you access to a lot more posts on using a WFO for the NY style, including posts by other members. If you'd like, you can narrow the search by using more search terms to give you fewer hits. But the objective is to immerse yourself in the body of knowledge that pertains to the making of NY style pizzas in a WFO.

Good luck.

Peter

[tinroofrusted]

Peter's suggestions are right on as usual.  Member bakeshack has made some very good looking NY style pizzas in his WFO which are shown here:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=19065.25

He gives a formula for naturally leavened NY style for WFO and posts some pretty awesome photos of NY style WFO pizzas.  Just about anyone would love to tear into one of those pizzas. 

BTW, the reference to "CM" in the recipe is to Central Milling flour. 

[dsm]

Thanks for the pointers. I just dove in those links for an hour or two and after going about 5 levels deep in engaging but decade old discussions came up for air. I'm not sure I can ever try a hundredth of these suggestions or even catch up to real time in this board :-). There are clearly a lot of people in the world who like NY style pizza! I did find a number of WFO discussions. Thanks again.

steve

[davey1025]

pft,

Thank you for posting that tribute exactly as I wrote it up . The check is in the mail.

Peter

Does that mean I still have to post mine you paid me for? lol

[Pete-zza]

Does that mean I still have to post mine you paid me for? lol

Peter