Chicago Tavern with 48CF and 48CC

[PizzaGarage]

Chicago Tavern with 48 hour cold ferment and 48 hour cold cure:  I thought this was a really interesting crust, very tender yet strong enough to handle toppings. The crust sort of melts in your mouth, it's not cracker but it is very crisp. Had about 25 people over and most everyone kept telling me how good they were so thought I would share.

Baked on stone at 500-525.

Four is Sr. Lancelot @14%.  Any high gluten would work I suspect like an All Trumps etc...

Hydration 58%
Avocado Oil 17%
Kosher Salt 1.5%
SAF IDY .15%

Mix all at one, no oil delay, pull off mixer at 78, ball and CF at 36 degrees for 48 hours, 9oz balls.
Sheet at 48 hours, place skins on perforated sheet trays and Cold Cure for another 48 hours
Pull out of the fridge 30 minutes before making pizza which allows the skins to warm to room temp

I like the avocado oil better then corn, veggie or pure olive for thin crusts because the oil can handle the heat with little to no burning or off putting smells of burnt oil. Bake at 500-525 for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is browned to where you want it to be.  For these I used 50% whole mozz and 50% part skim mozz. 

[PizzaGarage]

Pics

[foreplease]

Your finished pizzas look outstanding. A couple questions...


You are baking the cold cured dough directly on the stone, right? That is, you are not baking on the perforated pans on the stone.


I do not have any perforated pans. Do you think it would work on screens or would I be better off on parchment and turning it 24 hrs into the cold cure?


If I got anything close to your results I would get a perforated insert, or a couple of them. We have plenty of half-sheet pans. Thank you for sharing your work. I'm really impressed.

[PizzaGarage]

Thank you

Yes, directly on stone.  When I was using other oils my crusts were burning far more and had to switch to a screen after 4 minutes, so if you are not using avocado oil something to keep in mind

I don't see why a screen would not work for cold curing, you need air under the screen and on top so you would need some sort of support under the screen so air can flow under the crust.  I think a seasoned screen would have less chance of sticking but try it out.  At 48CC the crusts are pretty firm and should come right off.  No baking on the sheet pan, direct on stone.

I do not think parchment paper would get enough airflow for the crusts to dry out, especially if stacked with more crusts and parchment. Pats in Chicago uses parchment and in all the videos they use right off the parchment, but in working with CC for a while now I suspect that Pat's does something else to dry out the crusts and afterwards stacks on parchment for ease of use on the line.  There just isn't enough air to dry out anything but the edges of the crust.

[PizzaGarage]

A couple more crust pics. I like the browning without burning and significant microblistering. The crust just melts away when eating due to the higher oil content yet strong to handle toppings

[PizzaGarage]

And here is the crust after 24CC. Much more pliable, I didn't bake at 24 but want to try it out next time

[foreplease]

Thank you, Pizza Garage, for a significant amount of information and help. We have a local pizzeria that can't possibly be doing this much work for the volume they do but your pizza and theirs strongly resemble each other.


My adult kids want me to work on coming as close as I can to duplicating it. So, for 2-3 pizzas at a time I don't care how long it takes or how many steps -or how I get there. Sometime this summer when we can all be together I would like to try this and maybe a practice run earlier. Thank you kindly for the great explanations.

[PizzaGarage]

That's very interesting. To shorten the process I suspect a 24CC will work.  I keep hearing from the owners on line of Pats and Kims Uncle (Westmont, IL) how long it takes to cold cure their crust and I don't believe any of it. Based on my testing anyway, the crust turns into a frisbee after 3 days CC.  I've gone up to 7 days and on day 4 CC the crust warps and is unusable. Now you can jack up the hydration to 70% and let it sit but what's the point of that when you are looking to dry out the crusts or as Pat's say "kill the yeast"

I would try the 24CC and see how it goes, that would shorten the process.

[foreplease]

Thank you Pizza Garage. I had to compress this first time into 48 hours total. It was good enough to continue the experiment using your full length procedure. Couldn't be helped this time so I bumped the yeast 0.2% and took some shortcuts in the cure.
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=26286.new#new

[ICPizza]

Thanks for your detailing your pizza runs @PizzaGarage .Giving this recipe a run here since the results look really good.  Point of clarification; do you bulk cold ferment, or do you portion and then CF?

Planning to see how I like this vs. the Crust Fund Pizza recipe that I've used a couple times. 

[PizzaGarage]

Portion then CF, no bulk

[tscaife]

Is 58% hydration and 17% oil correct? Never done hydration or oil that high for tavern style. If correct I'll give it a run and post results.

Thanks!

[PizzaGarage]

Is 58% hydration and 17% oil correct? Never done hydration or oil that high for tavern style. If correct I'll give it a run and post results.

Thanks!

Yes, that is correct.

[PizzaGarage]

I tried a lower hydration formula with a 24 hour Cold Cure and compared to a 24 hour Room Temp Cure ( CC vs RTC) and with a lower hydration at 50%

Baked on stone at 500-525.

Four is Sr. Lancelot @14%.  Any high gluten would work I suspect like an All Trumps etc...

Hydration 50%
Avocado Oil 17%
Kosher Salt 1.5%
SAF IDY .15%

[PizzaGarage]

Comparison of 24hr CC vs RTC.  RTC after 8 hours formed "bumps" that went away and flatted out by the end of the 24hr RTC period. RTC looked more translucent and had a leathery feel as opposed to the CC.  RTC just looked like something I would throw away.

[PizzaGarage]

Pics of 24hr CC, crusts were thin and crispy but tender.

[PizzaGarage]

Pics of 24hr RTC. Crusts were crispy and somewhat harder compared to 24hr CC. Very strong and thin crust. Notice the dots, after 3 experiments using CC the dots never appeared, only with RTC have they appeared and I have been trying to figure out how Kim's Uncle ( Westmont) get those and it appears that RTC is how based on my experiments, the exact duration of when the dots form is unknown. The crust was really excellent, I think both CC and RTC are good crusts with RTC being stronger, more hard and less tender. RTC I think can go super thin which might take the harder bite out of the crust

I plan to spend more time on RTC with various hydration levels. Maybe a combination of RTC first ( to form the dots) then into CC to keep the crust maintained

[kori]

What is a cold cure and a room temp cure?

[xBOBxSAGETx]

Man, you are crushing.  I like the higher hydration for accounting for the cold cure on the crust.  

As a noob can I ask a bunch of questions?  

-What size pizza that is and how many grams you're shooting for?  For a 14" 300g seems to be too thick for my liking, I tried kenjis 250g and that was entirely way too thin, so I next rip I'm going to try 275g

-What size are those sheet pans?  Are those half pans?  I love the perforated pans, I didn't even know that existed.  

[QuickDraw]

i live in mn.  this is the style of pizza that i grew up with, it was the most common pizza style around here at least that i remember.  we would pick it up from the local shop before delivery options made it to our area.  even today its a very popular style and in my neighborhood is one of the oldest that i remember still being in the same location with the same owners(they still dont deliver and never have to my knowledge).  your pizza looks a lot like this and if you put it in front of me, i would believe it.  i've never wanted to make tavern style because i can get the best in my neighborhood.  i kinda want to try making it now after seeing this.  

Awesome looking pizza!  not sure if it's common or not but if you go to my local place and pick up a pizza to go they put the pizza on a cardboard disc and put that into a large white paper bag with their logo on it, i always loved the packaging.