How do I know when Gluten Developement for pizza dough has occured?

[mkevenson]

Tom, In a recent post you wrote:
 
"No, using our smaller bench top mixers and out larger 80-quart mixers we don't see any difference in mixing time with only 1% difference in protein level. This is not to say that there isn't a difference in mixing time to achieve full gluten development, but since pizza dough is seldom, if ever, mixed to full gluten development we just don't see any differences in those undermixed pizza doughs. Bread dough, on the other hand, is normally mixed to either full development or a little past full development depending upon the type of bread being made so in that case we sometimes even see differences between two different flours of the same protein content.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
So my question is how do you know when pizza dough has reach, "not full gluten developement"?
 
Mark

[The Dough Doctor]

Mark;
There are two basic ways to tell when pizza dough is properly mixed when the dough will be managed through a cold fermentation period of at least 24-hours in the cooler/fridge.
The first, and easiest to describe is to watch the dough as it mixes, at first you will see a dark colored dough with a rough appearance. As the dough continues to mix/develop the color will change to a brighter, yellowish color and the dough will begin to take on a smoother appearance in the mixer. This is an indication that you are getting close to correct development. Continue mixing just until the dough develops a smooth skin in the mixing bowl, at this time the dough is best described as having a smooth, satiny appearance. You're now done mixing.
The other method is to take a piece of dough, about the size of a large hen's egg, and loosely form it into a ball, bring your hands together with your finger tips curled inward. Your finger tips should now be touching, position the dough ball on your fingertips and bring your thumbs down onto the dough ball, locking it in place on your fingertips, now roll your hands apart as if trying to bring the second joint of each finger into contact with one another, the dough will stretch between your locked thumbs, check the dough to see if it tears, if it tears the dough will require additional mixing time, but if it stretches without tearing the dough is properly developed. Like I said, this is not the easiest procedure to describe, but it works well as does the first method described above.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[mkevenson]

Tom, thanks a lot. I assume that when you say mixing, that is the same as kneading? Perhaps kneading is not a term used with a stand mixer?
If mixing/kneading by hand, say dough for 1-2 pies, I assume that the end point in kneading is the same, ie using the same tests.
This is very helpful!
I wonder if anyone ever made a video of the second stretching test?

Mark

Mark

[Pete-zza]

I wonder if anyone ever made a video of the second stretching test?

Mark,

See this video starting at 2:36:



Peter

[The Dough Doctor]

Mark;
In most cases when describing kneading of the dough one is instructed to knead the dough until it have a smooth, somewhat velvety appearance, and while this is not indicative of the same level of gluten development, it works quite well as a visual indicator. With hand kneading, another method that works well for me is to just knead the dough until it all comes together in an elastic ball, divide or scale the ball into the desired size/weight pieces, and allow to cold ferment for 24-hours, then remove from the cooler/fridge and allow the dough to warm at room temperature until it reaches 50 to 55F (about 2-hours) then knead each dough ball until it has a smooth appearance, place back into the fridge until about 2-hours before you want to use the dough to make your pizza skins. Remove from fridge, allow to warm to 50 to 55F, open into pizza skins by your perferred method, dress and bake. I've found that this procedure works really well for people without the arm strength needed to thoroughly knead the dough. I teach it to a lot of the rural farm families in my area where they also use the process to make bread too.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[kneader65]

Tom,

what are the implications for pizza (both for dough handling and the quality of the pizza)if you accidentally mixed the dough to full development?Are there any methods to undo the development?

[The Dough Doctor]

Mark;
You can't undo an over mixed dough, but worry not as it is essentially impossible to do by hand mixing. It is the under mixing of the dough that contributes toward that sought after open, porous internal crumb structure that is also important in achieving the crispiest crust possible. Using a mechanical mixer, if one mixes the dough to full development or even a little beyond full development, the greatest fault you are likely to encounter along your journey to making finished pizza is a bread like internal crumb structure. You can see this type of crumb structure in many of the frozen pizzas sold at your local supermarket. This is because most of the manufacturers mix the dough and are dressing the skins in an hour or less so all of the development must come from mechanical dough development aided occasionally by the addition of L-cysteine or glutathione (dead yeast). If you were to dramatically over mix the dough using a planetary mixer, or any other type of mixer for that matter, the dough would take on a glassy appearance due to water being released from the broken down protein structure, it would be stringy, sticky and not at all pleasant to work with. As the dough would ferment the proteins will be further broken down and a portion of the starch would be hydrolyzed into sugar by the enzymes present in both the yeast and the flour. The resulting fermented dough would be even softer and stickier than it was at the mixer. In the baking industry the bakers have an expressing for this, they call it "elephant snot" because when viewed from their perspective in a large (1,000 to 2,500-pound capacity horizontal mixer) the dough (if you want to call it that) is hanging off of the mixing agitator and the top of the bowl in long sticky threads, hence their name for it.
From a home making pizza perspective I guess you could possibly over mix the dough if you were to use something like PZ-44 which is the reducing agent L-cysteine in a whey carrier at a level beyond the recommended dosage. In this case the L-cysteine would chemically cleave the protein chain to give you the same effect as a grossly over mixed dough in a matter of minutes, regardless of how the dough is mixed. If you feel adventuresome and want to see some of this yourself, you might try adding some instant meat tenderizer to the dough. The meat tenderizer should show papain as an ingredient and papain is very effective at breaking down protein, hence its use as a meat tenderizer. I did work using papain as a reducing agent in bread dough back in the 70's and I well remember ending up with doughs that could literally be poured out of the mixing bowl until I got the dosage correct.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Pete-zza]

Tom,

Would it be possible to take the overworked dough with the more fully developed gluten structure and combine it with a like amount of ingredients and undermix the combination to produce a final dough (with double the initial dough ball weight) of the desired gluten structure?

Peter

[The Dough Doctor]

Peter;
For all practical purposes, protein breakdown is somewhat similar if achieved by mechanical mixing or fermentation. Due to the effect of protease enzymes hydrolyzing proteins where as mixing only breaks the protein chain (without destroying the integrity of the protein) at specific bonding points (which can be repaired through the addition of an oxidizer such as ascorbic acid) to the dough protein that is exposed to fermentation is actually weaker than that exposed to mixing. With that said, we commonly ferment a large portion of the flour (sponge) and add it back to the mixing bowl along with a smaller portion (25 to 40%) of flour and mix the dough to a desired level of development for bread, roll, sweet goods, and pizza production, Hence, there is no reason why if you had a dough that was mechanically overmixed you couldn't do just as you have proposed. The old ITT Continental Baking Company back in the 1970's and early 80's had a bread making process called the fatigue dough process that was very similar to this, but in addition to adding a small portion of flour back to the dough they also incorporated oxygen into the dough (remember oxidation mentioned above) by continuing to mix the dough at low speed in their horizontal mixers with the mixing bowl slightly open which caused the dough to sheet out over the agitator bars thus exposing the dough to air/oxygen, and the damage to the protein chain was repaired allowing the dough to be handled by their equipment without any problems. The reason for using this process is due to the fact that when you over mix a dough mechanically in this manner the protein can accept more water than it can when normally mixed to peak development, and this extra water is retained in the dough and finished product (bread in their case) so they got better yields in terms of loaves of bread from every 100-pounds of flour. $$$$ is a great motivator.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Qapla]

Over mixing is easy if you use a food processor with a dough blade. I have played with it just to see what will result.

Like Tom described, the dough is very glossy, quite soft and very sticky. By putting oil on your hands it is possible to shape the dough into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl to rest.

One it raises it will be even softer - however, once shaped into a pizza and topped it will still bake just fine - depending on how you like your pizza crust.