Focaccia/Taglio Question

[rootandbranch]

Hey all,

I've been struggling with focaccia / taglio bakes recently.

I've been running into an issue where my dough is blowing up like a balloon during the bake. Any tips on guidance to prevent this? I've never come across the issue on Sicilian pie bakes.

I've been running

80% caputo pizzaeria
20% semolina
3% salt
5% starter
80% hydration

Long mix until elastic / not super sticky. Rest for an hour, followed by a bunch of stretch and folds. Then shaped and fridged for 24-48hrs prior to bake.

[PizzaCalcio]

I am having the same issue  - any solutions?

[Jon in Albany]

I can't speak to focaccia because I haven't made it, but I know I get bubbles in my pizza dough when it is shaped and baked too cold. Tom used to recommend pizza dough being in the 50-60 degree range. if you are coming right out of the fridge, maybe try a little room temp dough warm up before baking.

[graystones11]

I am having the same issue  - any solutions?

Using a fork and stabbing the dough throughout before it does its final rise in the pan has worked very well for me to prevent large bubbles from forming. It does not affect the small bubbles that form the structure, but gives relief to those large bubbles that want to form.

[scott r]

Its too cold or not fermented enough when you see that.  You should be able to bake it with just the oil/water/salt solution without bubbles if everything is done correctly .

[PapaJawnz]

Its too cold or not fermented enough when you see that.  You should be able to bake it with just the oil/water/salt solution without bubbles if everything is done correctly .

I agree that it's likely not fermented enough.  5% preferment on a cold ferment dough is going to take weeks to mature if not brought out to ferment at room temperature for a most of the day.  5% would do well for a 24 hours room temp ferment.  Lately my 48 hour cold ferment doughs have been using 10% preferment and about 40-42 hours in the fridge and finishing them for 4-6 hours room temp prior to baking.

[bronxtrader]

I think another issue could be that you are using too much dough?

[Yuvalvv]

While I agree underfermented dough and/or cold dough can (and will) cause bubbling with "standard" round pizzas, that is not always the case with taglio/pan pizzas/breads
In my experience, you can still get these huge "pita-like" bubbles even if your dough is perfect; It is usually caused by "weak" spots in the dough created during forming/shaping, e.g. creating an uneven dough across the pan - gas is pushed to specific spots instead of uniformly throughout the dough, causing these spots to puff up during baking. Higher hydration doughs are much more prone to this.

To "solve" this:
1. Work on your stretching/shaping, so the dough is evenly "spread" across the pan (easier said than done)
2. Drizzle some olive oil across the dough - its weight will prevent these bubbles from forming
3. Dock the dough
4. Poke these holes as they form during baking (I've seen pizzerias making al taglio / pala doing this)

(This is assuming your dough is baked at peak fermentation and is not too cold)

5% preferment on a cold ferment dough is going to take weeks to mature if not brought out to ferment at room temperature for a most of the day.  5% would do well for a 24 hours room temp ferment.

A preferment doesn't need to replace the yeast in the formula, that is not the goal with using a preferment. You can use whatever % preferment you want, and then adjust the yeast quantity as necessary; E.g. if you need a total of 0.5g for X hours of fermentation at Y temperature, and you used 0.2g yeast in your preferment, add 0.3g more yeast to the final dough (or if you already used 0.5g in the preferment, no need to add any additional yeast). This way you can use any % of preferment you want while fully controlling the fermentation.

[PapaJawnz]

I don't use commercial yeast, so IDK.  My sourdough starter is my levain.  The inoculation percentage means a lot as far as the final fermentation time.

I use Craig's sourdough prediction chart.

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=22649.0

[Yuvalvv]

Ooh my bad. For some reason I thought you were talking about yeasted preferments. Didn't notice OP said 5% *starter*.