Long Time Trouble with Creating a Good Dough

[DavePZ]

Hello All –
I am new to this website, although I am an avid home cook, and love making pizza.
I stumbled upon this website, and was happy to see that I am not the only one obsessed with making pizza.

I have been trying to create a good dough for several years now, and have hit a wall. I can make a decent dough (much better than frozen pizza, chain pizza, etc) but cannot seem to get it to the next level. My favorite pizzerias just seem to be a notch above even my best pie. I just can't seem to get that great texture, and great taste.

Here is where I am at.
- I have tried all different types of flour (all purpose, bread, 00, etc) , and have settled on King Arthur Bread Flour.
- I use IDY only. (Never tried a sourdough wild yeast, although I think that’s my next step)
- I have tried warm rise, cold rise, autolyse, etc. with no big, big difference in quality.
- I have settled on sea salt, and water from my reverse-osmosis water purifier.
- I use my kitchen aid mainly for kneading, although I have done quite a bit on hand kneading as well.
- I use an electric oven, and pizza stone (oven goes to 550°F)
- I have tried starting with cold water, warm water, oil in my dough most of the time since my oven doesnt get that hot, two rises, one rise, let sit in the fridge for 3 days, ...etc...

I think I am following all the recommendations of making a good pie, but don’t know where to go from here.

Hoping that someone (or many of you), have been where I am now, and have some advise on what to try next, or how to troubleshoot my process, and get to the next level.

Any help or thoughts anyone has would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

[Pete-zza]

DavePZ,

Do you have a favorite pizza dough recipe and preparation instructions, up to the point that the pizza is baked, that you can share with us? That will help tell us where you have been. Also, is there a particular style of pizza that you are trying to replicate?

Peter

[DavePZ]

Thanks for the quick reply!
Last night I made some dough, and did a cold rise in fridge. I took detailed notes in anticipation of my post, so yes, tonight I will bake a pie, and reply with the exact recipie / preparation details (before and after rise), and final pie result (with pics).

Thanks!!

[DavePZ]

Details of my most recent dough:

Flour (100%) Chilled, (90% Caputo 00, 10% Vital Wheat Gluten)
Water (70%) Ice Cold, Filtered
IDY (0.6%)
Salt (2%) Sea Salt
Oil (8%) Olive
Sugar (1%) Raw

- I mixed 90% of the flour, with the salt, sugar, yeast, to fully mix.
- Mixed in the Ice Cold water and oil, and hand mixed until incorporated (appx 2 minutes)
- Transferred to Kitchen Aid with dough hook, and turned onto level 2.
- Let mix for 3 minutes, then added flour over the next 2 minutes (little bit at time), until got a good consistency.
- Let mix for 1 min longer, then turned off.
- Let sit for 5 minutes.
- Transferred to cutting board and dusted with flour. Dough pretty wet, but not enough to prevent transfer.
- Let sit for 5 minutes
- Cut into 3 dough balls, formed by wrapping under to create smooth surface.
- Transferred each into a zip lock bag, and placed in fridge.
- Sat in fridge for 36 hours. Not much rise.
- Took out dough, formed into ball, placed in oiled bowl, and covered with plastic wrap.
- Let rise at 65 deg for 10 hours. (raised well)
- Dough was definitely wet. Had to use good amount of flour not to stick.
- Made pizza @ 550 deg F.
Dough had some flavor, but not much. A little cakey.
Pictures below.

[Pete-zza]

DavePZ,

As best I can tell, your recent dough is a version of a well known Peter Reinhart dough formulation from his book Bread Baker's Apprentice, but in which you substituted a 90/10 blend of Caputo 00 flour and vital wheat gluten (VWG) for the recommended flour, added some sugar, and made a few other changes in dough processing and dough management. The basic dough formulation to which I refer is the one given at http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001199.html. If my analysis is correct, that is a fairly tough dough to make, because of the high hydration and the very thin skin that is made from the dough. In fact, I described my results and observations using the abovereferenced dough formulation at Reply 19 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,203.msg54497.html#msg54497.

One of the things that greatly puzzles me by your dough formulation is the large amount of VWG you used. I used member November's Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ and, based on using a 90/10 blend of Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour and Bob's Red Mill VWG, I came up with a protein content for the blend of 18.3%. That number will not change much for another brand of VWG. If my basic calculation is correct, that would be an exceptionally high protein content, with possible negative implications for the finished crust. Also, even with all of the VWG you used, it seems to me that a hydration of around 70% would be high for the blend. The rated absorption value for the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour, for example, is 55-57% (see, for example, Reply 17 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2951.msg25328/topicseen.html#msg25328). The Reinhart dough formulation calls for using high gluten flour or all-purpose flour. A 70% hydration for those flours is still above their rated absorption values (Peter Reinhart is exceptionally fond of high hydration doughs), but manageable if you are used to working with high hydration doughs.

Another thing that puzzles me is why you let the dough rise at 65 degrees F for 10 hours. With close to 0.60% IDY, it is hard to imagine how the dough wouldn't overferment after 10 hours at that temperature. What I would expect is that the dough would become very wet, due to the release of the water from its bond, and be slack (due to damage to the gluten structure by the protease enzymes) and hard to handle without adding an excessive amount of bench flour. I would also expect a lighter than normal crust color, even less than I would expect from using the Caputo 00 flour, which is hard to get crust color from in a standard home oven. I did not see a requirement in the Reinhart instructions to use anything like 10 hours of room temperature fermentation.

Maybe the above analysis will help clarify the results you have been getting. However, it is still not clear to me what style you are looking for or what specific outcome you are looking for. Essentially any dough formulation can be modified in some way to achieve different results, but to do so requires an appreciation of the results sought to be achieved. It is not clear to me at this point exactly what you are looking for.

Peter

[DavePZ]

Thanks Peter,

To be honest, I don't know exactly what my goals in the dough are, more than a flavorful, chewy dough that I cant seem to get. I tried the VWG to increase the chewyness.

Two days ago, I took the dough out of the fridge, and let rise for 2 hours before baking. The finished dough was not fluffy or chewy, and that’s why I tried the long rise yesterday. There was not that big of a difference in flavor or texture between the two to be honest...

I think the Reinhart dough was the starting point of this one, but since it didn’t work the first time (last year), I've been constantly experimenting, but without really tracking my changes.

I think I'm going to take a recipe you posted, and try to follow it EXACTLY, and see what happens. From there, I’m going to see if I can slowly make changes, one factor at a time, and try and see how each change affects the final product.

One other question I have; do the good NY pizzerias use a sourdough culture? or just IDY?

Thanks for the analysis! It has gotten me thinking more clearly about a systematic approach...

[UnConundrum]

Dave, Pete mentioned it, but it didn't stand out.  With a 550 degree oven, I wouldn't use the caputo as it seems to "like" an oven above 700.  Try a high gluten or bread flour instead. 

[Pete-zza]

One other question I have; do the good NY pizzerias use a sourdough culture? or just IDY?

DavePZ,

If you go back in history, you will find that the old NYC pizza masters used fresh yeast (aka wet yeast, cake yeast or compressed yeast) to make their NY style pizzas. It wasn't until about World War II that active dry yeast (ADY) started to be used and in the 1970s when instant dry yeast (IDY) was invented. But, old habits die hard, and there are still pizza operators out there who still use fresh yeast (it is also cheaper than the dry forms at high pizza volumes). IDY is perhaps now more popular to use than ADY because the IDY can be added directly to the flour, whereas ADY requires rehydration in warm water for several minutes before using.

I am not aware of any NY pizzerias that are commercially using a sourdough culture to make the NY style. However, I have done so several times in a home setting. Also, member Matthew recently made a great looking NY style pizza using a naturally leavened dough and reported on his results at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9543.msg82687.html#msg82687.

Peter

[DavePZ]

Peter –
Wanted to thank you for the critique, and analysis, it has been quite helpful…
I wiped my slate clean, and started from the beginning. I took a recipe from the NY Pizza thread and followed as close as I could.
2-1/2c KA Bread Flour
1c water at room temp
½ tsp IDY
1 tsp sea salt (ground fine)
½ tsp Oil

-Dry mixed the flour, salt and IDY
-Added dry mixture to bread machine
-Added water to bread machine, and turned on the dough setting
-Let kneed for 2 minutes, until incorporated
-Added oil, kneaded for another 5.
(I’m waiting for my digital thermometer to come in the mail so I can start reading temps)
-Divided into two dough balls, and placed in ziplocks.
-Placed in fridge for 24 hours. Seemed to have almost doubled.
-Took out, formed one of the balls, placed in glass bowl, covered in plastic wrap, and sat in warm place (73°F) for 1-1/2 hours.

Dough looked great, rose 1-1/2 times I’m guessing.

Baked on preheated stone at bottom of oven.

Best pizza to date. Good flavor, and good texture.

Do you have any comments/suggestions??

Thanks Again, and I look forward to developing my methods!!

Dave

[Guts]

Dave I'm going to try this one next. looks great!

[Pete-zza]

Dave,

If everything worked out as well as your pizza shows, I am not sure that there is anything else you should change. However, if you used one cup of water to 2 1/2 cups of KABF, that is still a high hydration (unless you have a very heavy hand measuring out the flour). Did you add any more flour during the mixing/kneading process or on the bench?

Is there anything that you would like to change or improve?

Peter

[DavePZ]

Thanks, I think I am going to tinker with it for a while...

I did need a lot of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the peel, and there was a bit too much flour cooked onto the bottom. I guess I'll add a little more flour at the get go to bring hydration down a bit.

Actually my next big pizza move is to turn my Webber gas grill into a temporary pizza oven. Ive got an interesting idea I plan on trying this weekend once the stones come.

If it works I will post in a different topic.

Thanks again!!!

Dave

[s00da]

Did you consider lower your IDY % and to increase fermentation time? You can try the same recipe for a 24hr, 48hr or even 72hr fermentation period. See how they differ.

Also, before trying the sourdough starters, how about trying poolish or any other pre-ferment.

There are really many things you can do if you have the time and willing to put in the effort.

Saad