NYC so far: Doug eats pizza and thinks about it a lot

[HansB]

wb54885, I believe you, along with the rest of us, are pondering age-old questions: what constitutes art? Is some art better than other art? And what is the interplay between art and proficiency?

I don't know anything about music but my wife was an art history major so we're in a lot of museums and over the years have talked quite a bit about painting. If we were to compare two renaissance paintings hanging in a museum, it's probably a good bet both artists achieved the level of proficiency necessary to create their art.

Once proficiency has been attained, while we might say one artist is more proficient than the other, one painting may evoke more of an emotional response with me, the other painting may resonate with my wife. I don't believe it's possible to say one painting is better than another.  I'm sure you see where this is going, but substitute "pizza" for "painting" you'll have my view.

best,

In the e̶y̶e̶ taste buds of the beholder.

[wb54885]

When you cold ferment in bulk and then divide and ball (12 to 24 hrs out), what is your process?  Is it straight from the fridge and then degas the bulk and ball?  Are you remixing the bulk dough or just pressing down lightly and then forming individual balls?

I've never had success reballing dough straight out of the fridge.  It is very hard and obviously cold and seems to want to tear from the surface tension since the dough isn't relaxed.

Oh also, do you have a restaurant or a pop up type thing going?

Thanks jvp, this is not my place but a spot I’ve helped out quite a bit with opening a second location and standardizing practices and recipes across both spots.

This dough is wet enough that I’ve never had a problem with balling it cold—it has enough overnight rise and is pushed about 10 percentage points past its rated absorption, it’s actually very pleasant to knead and roll straight out of the fridge. We just dump about 25 pounds of dough onto a table and scale 15-16 25oz dough balls straight away. It takes about 15 minutes to do this many. I actually find that if it takes longer and the dough has time to warm up, it starts to rise again enough so that the stickiness and airiness begins to be prohibitive in rolling tight balls with an ideal balance of smoothness and tension. So if the produce guy comes round with a delivery when I have dough on the table, I move at warp 9 to get everything put away as fast as humanly possible!

[wb54885]

wb54885, I believe you, along with the rest of us, are pondering age-old questions: what constitutes art? Is some art better than other art? And what is the interplay between art and proficiency?

I don't know anything about music but my wife was an art history major so we're in a lot of museums and over the years have talked quite a bit about painting. If we were to compare two renaissance paintings hanging in a museum, it's probably a good bet both artists achieved the level of proficiency necessary to create their art.

Once proficiency has been attained, while we might say one artist is more proficient than the other, one painting may evoke more of an emotional response with me, the other painting may resonate with my wife. I don't believe it's possible to say one painting is better than another.  I'm sure you see where this is going, but substitute "pizza" for "painting" you'll have my view.

best,

QD, thank you for these ideas. One of my favorite concepts in criticism is the idea that proficiency/mastery is at the same time the “final” stage of learning, and also, seemingly paradoxically, a stage that looks sometimes wildly different from practitioner to practitioner. This is a major guiding thought in my appreciation of all trades and arts. It means that it doesn’t make sense to rank the greatest pizzerias against each other, but that it makes sense instead to identify the tier of Greatness and then to look at the ways individual artists express themselves at that level. Once you have reached technical mastery, what is left is playfulness and invention. And as Hans alludes to, whose expression of Self you individually connect with the most can be an illuminating event of self-discovery and even revelation. Is the pizza good because people like it, or do people like it because it’s good? I don’t know if it matters!   

[wb54885]

One of my favorite projects at this pizzeria has been fine-tuning the recipe and procedure for the hybrid Detroit/Sicilian style square pizzas we do. These were taken down a notch in size of dough ball used and put through either a fresh balling or a reball and a 3-4hr RT rise before being gently pushed and stretched into place in the pan, with a major focus on preserving air distribution and dough tension, and on maximizing oven spring during the initial bake of a two-bake process. Much accumulated wisdom from years of reading PM.com went into getting these things to a really good place. My thanks to everyone for their contagious passion and dedication.

[invertedisdead]

Loks very light!