I’ve always been pretty strict how I incorporate ingredients I use a planetary mixer a Kitchen Aid. First I mix water, yeast and poolish then add the flour, mix until hydrated usually a couple of minutes then I will let the dough rest for 10min. I then add the salt, mix for a couple of minutes then I add the oil after salt is mixed in. My question is does it really matter? I have seen people that look like they know what they are doing add the oil and water together in the beginning, is adding salt and the instant yeast together in the beginning a myth? Idk, I just follow directions from recipes in my books. I’m looking at getting a new mixer maybe a spiral but probably an Ankarsrum and I’ve seen people mix dough in a lot different ways then I do, some say they just throw everything in together and walk away and in 15-20 later Walla pizza dough. Have I been overthinking the mixing process?
Steveo,
Those are fair questions to ask. In my case, I learned how to make my doughs from the late Tom Lehmann. Tom was with the American Institute of Baking for about 50 years, and during that time he wrote articles about pizza for different publications (such as PMQ and Pizza Today), made videos, and was a fixture at the PMQ Think Tank and here on this forum when he retired from the AIB. Tom was also a lecturer and consultant all around the world. Because Tom was with the AIB, his audience was mostly professionals. I mention this background because Tom's focus was on trying to help professionals minimize failure in their pizza making. Tom often stated that failure was not an option. Tom was well aware of all of the potholes in the road and how to get around them. Professionals loved him.
So, for example, Tom advocated that salt not come into direct contact with yeast for any material amount of time and, for the most part, he promoted the use of fresh yeast and IDY to professionals rather than ADY. Using ADY required pre-hydrating the ADY using a part of the formula water (equal to about five times the weight of the ADY), at around 105F for about ten minutes. Clearly, using fresh yeast or IDY was a far simpler method. Tom also was a proponent of adding oil later in the mixing/kneading stage, not with the other ingredients at an earlier stage. This recommendation was because oil cannot hydrate the flour and, in fact, can actually impede gluten formation if there is too much of it. But he also acknowledged that oil had a wetting effect on the dough. Because of this, Tom usually recommended that as a starting point the combination of hydration percent and the percent of oil be equal to the rated absorption value of the flour.
If you would like to see the dough management procedure that Tom came up with for professionals, see:
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=43833.0There are also some videos featuring Tom (and assistants) that are very good in my opinion in educating us on how to make pizza dough, at:
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=60152.msg603158#msg603158Here on the forum, members do all kinds of things in making their doughs. For example, there are some members who may use ADY without pre-hydrating it, and claim success. Even some professionals do that but only a few that I have noted, and in some cases I concluded that more ADY was used than if it were pre-hydrated. And some members will add the oil up front instead of later, mostly for simplicity in making the dough or maybe they were not aware of Tom's advice on this matter. And some will sift the flour before using. That may be a good idea if the flour has been sitting around for a long time and gotten "cakey" in texture, and sifting it might improve its hydration a bit. With respect to yeast and salt, some will dissolve the salt in water before adding the yeast. The reason for this is because salt pulls moisture from yeast (it is hygroscopic in nature). So if it's left for too long in contact with the yeast it can cause stress on the yeast cells and cause them to break down. Salt can also toughen the dough, so if that effect is not wanted or needed, for example, to prolong the fermentation period a bit, it can be added later in the mixing/kneading stage.
For a good article on salt, you might check out this one from King Arthur:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/pro/reference/saltAs an aside, I might add that member FoodSim (formerly November), who is one of the smartest persons I know of, always sifts the flour and adds the oil up front. When I once sifter the four twice, November chided me and told me once was enough
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As they say: Different strokes for different folks
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Peter
