I’ll be cooking them in a coal fired oven.
Wondering even what do high volume pizza places do doubt they have hundreds of pans, or enough dough for say 500 pizzas sitting in a freezer?
My thoughts:
1. Can I replace cold fermentation with a much shorter time period of room temperature? Or even faster cold fermentation times like 4 hours?
2. Is a 2nd proof in a pan needed? Can I just cook it directly in oven if I can stretch the dough properly?
3. Any methods of 2nd proofing dough outside of pan? Like typical round style pizzas? We used to press the dough out and pile them in a line and let them rise. Then transfer them into the pan at time of cooking? Obviously they won’t rise high like they do in a pan.
4. Par bake the dough and store in the fridge? Say 100-200 pieces at a time?
5. Can 2nd proof time be greatly diminished if I place pan in the oven for a few seconds? Then continue topping and cook?
6. Also what concerns can I have with a brick coal fired oven when cooking?
I’ve worked in a few pizza places before different types of round pies and have ran into issue of running out of last days dough. Can see this issue highly happening with Detroit style.
Anyway help is greatly appreciated in speeding the process up where you aren’t losing much dough quality in terms of flavor, and not tying up hundreds of pans.
Thank you!
there's no way to avoid needing a bunch of pans unless you develop a dough that doesn't need a proof in a pan. angelos's pizzeria in south philly makes a pan pizza (not DSP) that doesn't proof in a pan and gets fantastic results, but his dough has a rather complicated and long fermentation process. it's very high in hydration and has such a lovely gentle fermentation that it's very extensible and easy to shape to the pan without disrupting the gas pockets too much and it's just waiting to jump into action. but dsp in any traditional process is gonna need a lot of pans if parbaking ahead of time or baking to order.
as for fermentation schedule, ask 100 pizzerias and you'll get 100 different ways of getting from mixer to table. the fermentation isn't rocket science, just need to understand that its primary factors are time, temp and amount/type of yeast. change one variable the others needs change. warmer, you can use less yeast and shorter time. more yeast, you can go shorter and/or colder. permutations are infinite. faster permutations will be at the expeense of more developed flavor and may leave you with a yeastier aroma. i would do a bulk ferment in a tub, then ball the dough for a cold ferment in stacking dough trays, then before bake, press into pan and proof. from there you can top and bake or parbake and wrap for use later in service.
if you're always rockin and can predict need throughout service, skip the parbak and go straight from proofed dough to making pizza. if demand is unpredictable, i venture i'd go the the parbake route. if i had a lot of refer space, i'd consider/try putting proofed pans with dough in the cooler to use from the cold proofed state.
i wouldn't keep the parbake more than a day and a half.
wood is HOT and unpredictable, so you might be better off with a parbake, as it'll be hard to get a thorough and consistent bake in a wood oven if cooking from raw dough. coal is nasty, toxic and wouldn't want it burning next to my food. and it's even hotter than wood, so above comments are even more critical.
with parbake, you'll want to figure out techniques to minimize shrinkage of the finished product and too much shrinkage will result in too much cheese falling in the crack.
there's no one way to do things. practice practice practice and find a way to make it work for your equipment, time and space limitations. if it drifts afar from what dsp is, just make it your own style and call them square pies.