Tom Lehmann's NY Style Pizza

[abilak]

got the IDY at Sam's today.. wow $3 for 2 16oz bags.
should I leave the yeast in the bag it comes in and put it in the freezer, or transfer the yeast to some type of container then store it?
I have never used this type of yeast.. only the rapid-rise stuff.

here are 2 more I made.

Made 2 more pies with the same basic recipe but added 1 tsp VWG per cup of flour to this batch of dough.
I could definitely tell the difference.
I didn't tell my wife that I added it and she could tell too.
A little more chewy, yet the crust was nice and crispy as well.

First 3 pics is pie with sargento asiago and motz blend.

4th pic is pie with fresh motz

(I prefer plain pie, but my wife insists on toppings... oh well).

[abilak]

forgot once again.

preheated stone to 550 for an hour.
the first pizza took 7.5 mins.
the second, almost 9 due to the fresh motz I assume.

[Pete-zza]

abilak,

My recollection is that Sam's carries the Fleischmann's IDY in the silver bag with blue lettering. If that is what you got you almost have a lifetime's supply .

The way I store my IDY is in the freezer. The bag you don't open should be kept that way (unopened) in the freezer. For the bag you do open, just close the bag after you have removed the amount of yeast you plan to use, wrap a rubber band around the bag to keep it shut, and place the bag in an airtight container back in the freezer. Using that approach, my one-pound bag lasted several years. If you make a lot of pizzas, you can keep a small supply in the refrigerator section if you'd like. It's not really necessary since I have not detected any problem using yeast right out of the freezer. Just take the bag of yeast out of the freezer as you are getting ready to make dough. By the time you are ready to use the yeast it will be up to temperature.

It looks like you are catching on fast and making nice pizzas right out of the block. Nice job.

Peter

[abilak]

thanks for the info Pete!
this site is extremely helpful... after reading the threads for a few days and taking notes. my pizza's are tasting better already.
I think I am addicted because I am making another one tomorrow morning.

BTW -- I know a lot of you guys buy whole peeled canned tomatos, so do I -- in the winter that is.
I have 22 large tomato plants in my backyard and tons of ripe tomatoes as we speak.
If anyone is interested this is what I do to make sauce.

Get a pot of water boiling,
Get a bowl with ice water in it.
Cut an X on the bottom of each fresh tomato.
Drop a few in the boiling water for 20 seconds.
Take them out and drop them into the ice bath for 20 seconds or so.
The skin will peel right off.
Throw a bunch in the food processor (I use a cuisinart) and add some tomato paste (you'll have to experiment to get the right amount).
Add dried basil, black pepper, oregano, and some kosher salt (again, you'll have to experiment with the ratios).
Pulse a few times until they are chopped pretty good.  The sauce should not be watery at this point.. it should stick to a metal spoon at least a little bit.  If too watery add more paste and pulse some more.

Now, here is something I noticed.
If you just use this sauce as is for pizza sauce, it is very good and has a very fresh taste that I like to top with fresh motz, and even some fresh basil too.

If you cook it for 5-7 mins, then drop a little bit of butter in at the end.  This sauce taste completely different and I like to top with motz, prov, and asiago blend.
Sometimes I throw diced garlic in the right when I am cooking it.  Garlic lovers will love this -- Don't forget to also put fresh garlic on the pie for the ultimate garlic experience.

[Wallman]

I had a moderate failure last week with the Lehmann NY Style dough. I let the dough retard for too long, over 5 days.  Interestingly, the dough tasted ok, but it had very little oven spring, I think the dough went slack. The baked pizza had almost an undercooked pancake like feel in the crust. I followed Pete's basic 63% hydration recipe.  Elsewhere there are suggestions on making an extended retardation dough, but this didn't work too well for me with the basic recipe.  Next time, I'll make pizza sooner!

[Pete-zza]

Wally,

Tom Lehmann specifies an outer limit for the dough made from his formulation at 72 hours. Beyond that he recommends adding about 1-2% sugar. I believe what happened in your case is that the yeast ran out of food (sugar) and started to die, leaving too little yeast in the dough at the time of baking to support a good oven spring. Also, the protease enzymes undoubtedly significantly degraded the gluten and precipitated the release of water from the dough. This will cause the overall slack effect you mentioned. The lack of residual sugar shows up as a very light crust, and increasing the bake time usually does not improve matters. I did a similar test recently with a Neapolitan style dough and got the same results you did. The dough was, in effect, dead.  But that is how you learn. Or to paraphrase Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood): A man's got to know his dough's limitations.

One of the few NY dough formulations I am aware of that will allow you to make a dough that will last 5 days is Canadave's NY dough formulation. Its inherent design permits a longer window of usability.

Peter

[Wallman]

Yep, my dough definitely died.  I made a pie with the same dough batch at 24 hours and it was fine.  Just poor planning on my part!  Again, the pizza tasted ok, but didn't have any spring to it.   I've made Canadave's recipe once and should try it again.

[Pete-zza]

From time to time, I have thought about making a same-day, few-hours pizza dough based on the basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation that has been the subject of this thread. It wasn’t until I saw a post recently on the PMQ Think Tank forum, in which the poster asked Tom how to make a few-hours version of his dough formulation (see http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi/noframes/read/30245), that I decided to try such a version. As will be noted from the above post, Tom recommends using 2% yeast. Based on what Tom has said before in other places, the 2% refers to fresh yeast, not instant dry yeast (IDY) or active dry yeast (ADY). For instant dry yeast--which is what I have been using--one would need to use about one-third of the 2% number (or one-half for ADY). 

I decided to make both a 2-hour cold fermented dough, with a 1-hour counter warm-up time (3 hours total), and a 2-hour room-temperature only fermented dough (2 hours total). I was somewhat puzzled by the cold fermented version because there is little that happens in a dough from a fermentation standpoint in two hours of refrigeration. Apparently I am not the only one puzzled by this. I recall that pizzanapoletana (Marco) commented on this phenomenon at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1055.msg9357.html#msg9357. The best explanation I can come up with is that the two-hour cold fermentation may be solely for the benefit of pizza operators to allow them to better manage their inventory of dough balls.

I used the same dough formulation for both dough balls, and I tried as best I could to make the dough balls as identically as possible, adhering to the recommendations set forth by Tom Lehmann in the above post. (For the benefit of beginning pizza makers, I might add that I used the basic dough preparation techniques described in Reply 8 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2223.msg19563.html#msg19563).

For test purposes, I elected to make 12” pizzas and to use a pizza screen to bake them. I chose to use the pizza screen because it has been very hot lately in the Dallas area and I wanted to keep the oven time to a minimum--less than one-half hour. I used my KitchenAid stand mixer for mixing and kneading purposes, but any kneading approach should work equally well. And there is no reason why a pizza stone/tiles can’t be used if desired, in which case I would use the normal protocol (temperature and time) for baking the pizzas on stones/tiles.

The dough formulation I used for both doughs was as follows:

100%, High-gluten flour (KASL), 7.14 oz. (202.26 g.), 1 3/4 c. plus 1 t.
63%, Water*, 4.49 oz. (127.42 g.), between 1/2 and 5/8 c.
1.75%, Salt, 0.12 oz. (3.54 g.), 5/8 t.
1%, Oil (extra-virgin olive oil), 0.07 oz. (2.02 g.), a bit less than 1/2 t.
0.7%, Instant dry yeast (IDY), 0.05 oz. (1.42 g.), a bit less than 1/2 t.
* Temp. adjusted to achieve a finished dough temperature of between 85-90 degree F
Total dough weight = 11.88 oz. (336.66 g.)
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.105
Note: All measurements U.S./metric standard

I had no problems whatsoever in making the two dough balls or in shaping and stretching them out to 12 inches. Both doughs about doubled in volume by the time they were to be used and both had a nice balance between elasticity and extensibility. It was very easy to toss the skins made from the dough balls. In fact, I think that the dough would make a good choice for one wishing to practice their dough stretching and tossing skills.

Both 12-inch skins were dressed similarly in a simple pepperoni style. Each was baked on the lowest oven rack position of a 450-degrees F preheated oven for about 8 minutes, following which the pizza was moved off of the pizza screen to the middle rack position, where it was baked for about another 5 minutes or so, or until the rim of the crust had turned a nice shade of brown and the cheeses were bubbling and starting to turn brown in spots. The total oven time, from beginning to end, was about one-half hour.

The photos below show the finished pizzas. The first set of photos is for the 3-hour dough; the second set of photos (regrettably under different lighting conditions) is for the 2-hour dough. I thought both turned out quite well but not as well as the typical Lehmann NY style pizzas I make using one or more days of cold fermentation. The crusts had a nice brown color, top and bottom, and were chewy and fairly soft with a breadlike crumb. For my palate, there was not a great deal of crust flavor, although the KASL itself, with its high protein content, contributed some flavor. However, the crusts and pizzas were tasty enough to be able to recommend them to someone who is interested or needs to make a pizza in only a few hours time. As between the 3-hour (cold ferment plus 1 hour warm-up) and the 2-hour version, I would perhaps go with the 2-hour version since I did not detect a big enough difference to warrant the 3-hour version. I might add that the Lehmann post referenced above also talks about a 4-hour cold ferment version using 3 hours of cold fermentation and a 1-hour counter warm-up time. I didn’t try this version but I suspect it will be a bit better than the 3-hour version.

For those who are interested in learning more about short-term doughs, the following items may be of interest: http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi/noframes/read/8503 and http://www.pmq.com/lehmann_winter-97-98.shtml. Note, however, that the latter article includes an error. The 7% IDY figure (in the 3d paragraph) should be 0.7%. I did not increase the oil content as suggested in the latter article, but that is something I plan to try in a future effort.

Peter

EDIT (10/24/14): For the Wayback Machine version of the Tom Lehmann PMQ Q&A on emergency dough, see http://web.archive.org/web/20110109052638/http://www.pmq.com/mag/200708/lehmann.php; for the Wayback Machine versions of the other inoperative PMQ links, see http://web.archive.org/web/20050115040043/http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi/noframes/read/8503 and http://web.archive.org/web/20080228031748/http://www.pmq.com/lehmann_winter-97-98.shtml

EDIT (2/20/19): For a recent PMQ article by Tom Lehmann on making an emergency dough, see http://www.pmq.com/September-2010/In-Lehmanns-terms-emergency-dough/

EDIT (4/12/22): For a video featuring Tom Lehmann and directed to making emergency doughs, see

[Pete-zza]

And the 2-hour room-temperature fermented dough version.....

[musiq]

Hi Pete-zza,
it's interesting you tried a quick pizza recipe, i've been thinking about doing the same lately.
As far as i know (and believe me, i don't know much!) , rising and maturing the dough have different timings, the former being generally quicker than the latter, and using the fridge has the purpose of retarding the rising enough to make the dough be fully developed. Maturation time is proportional to flour strenght, and this is the reason why for a napolitan pizza, which uses medium strenght flours, you shouldn't need cold fermentation. Using minimal amounts of yeast, and working on salt , hydration, dough kneading process, etc. you can control the rising and delay it even to 24 hours at room temperatures. Strong flours need longer fermentation time , thus requiring the use of the fridge.

All this considered , i reckon a quick pizza should be made with the weakest possible flour. Which means a low quality 00 , or an AP one..High gluten flours need more than 24 hours fermentation, otherwise what you get is something it will be on your stomach for hours..how were yours from this point of view?

I'm telling you, this is all theory, i still haven't tried anything like this...i was willing to , but got stuck in experimenting in roman style focaccia...90% hydration...hard work!

Anyway..thank you for your all your contributions to this forum! Before reading you guys, i had no idea where to start...

[Pete-zza]

Carlo,

Everything you have said in your post is correct, and for the reasons you mentioned.

Although I had often thought about a short-term Lehmann dough, I did not intend to make a few-hours version until I saw the post where the poster asked Tom Lehmann how to adapt his formulation to a short term application. Under ordinary circumstances, if one wishes to get the best crust flavor, the most common way to do it is through a long fermentation of the dough. It doesn't matter what the flour is so long as the fermentation time selected is compatible with the flour selected. As you know, in Italy the 00 flour is used almost exclusively for same-day, room-temperature fermentation. Refrigeration, if used, is only to hold a dough over, not for fermentation purposes per se. In the U.S., some pizza operators routinely use cold fermentation for 00 doughs. As best I can determine, this is done primarily for dough inventory and management purposes, since it reduces or eliminates the need to discard or recycle unused dough at the end of the day. Even for strong flours, such as a high gluten flour, cold fermentation is used by many operators in the U.S. because it accomplishes the objective of getting better or more crust flavor--provided the fermentation period is long enough--and it also fits nicely with the practices that pizza operators routinely use to manage their inventory of dough balls.

When operators in the U.S. intentionally decide to make short-term dough (sometimes called "emergency" dough), it is usually because they have run out of their regular dough or something unfortunate has happened to their dough balls. It might be that the cooler broke down overnight, or there was a power failure overnight that ruined the dough, or any one of a number of other unanticipated or special events. Under these kinds of circumstances, the practice is to make a short-term dough using the regular flour and not change to another flour, which they may not have on hand in any event. You'd also like the finished crust to taste like the normal one and not have the difference detected by your customers. So, if an operator was using high-gluten flour, for example, to make a Lehmann NY dough, it is preferable to use that same flour for the short-term dough and not shift to an all-purpose flour solely because it will behave and perform better for a short-term application. As it so happens, if the flour is a high-gluten flour, the finished crust should taste better than an all-purpose crust because of its higher protein content. The high-gluten crust should also be chewier than an all-purpose crust and have better color, again because of its higher protein content. For these reasons, I would personally chose a high-gluten flour--either bread flour or a KASL type flour--over any other flour for a short-term dough. I might add that many individuals will favor a short-term dough, even if it has shortcomings, simply because it is easy and fast to make and produces a fairly good final product. I suspect that it is less common for pizza operators to use short-term doughs exclusively because competitors who use long fermentation would be able to offer a better pizza and conceivably drive them out of business.

You are correct that a short-term dough can play havoc with one's digestive system because the enzymes have had too little time to work on and break down the starch and gluten. I did notice a slightly leaden effect on my stomach with the short-term Lehmann pizzas I made. In the past I didn't pay much attention to that effect, and wasn't even consciously aware of it until the pizzaiolo at Naples 45 in NYC mentioned it to me when he was espousing the benefits of a 00 crust over a high-gluten one. Later, pizzanapoletana (Marco) said the same thing.

As you can see, there is a curious and somewhat intricate interplay between the flour used and running a business .

Peter

[musiq]

Peter,
your attention to details is , as usual, amazing. And i'm not talking about pizza now. You called me Carlo, and i don't even know where i wrote my real name in here!

Anyway..I know stronger flour generally give better flavour, mine was just a speculation on how going back to weaker flours could have been. I think many of us before been carried away by this passion, used to do the classic 2-3 hours rise, with AP flours, 50% hydration, and a ton of yeast. I was just wondering if the newly acquired knowledge could have helped me getting better result now in that enviroment, with the right adjustments of course. I've never had a real NY pizza (well, i've lived in NY till i was 4 , if i had it, i dont remember it!) , but working with your lehmann modifications , i 've been having very good results for my taste. So i tried a quick version of it few weeks ago...and besides the flat flavour ...i'm still struggling to digest it!! I admit i have my problems with gluten, but nonetheless i think anyone would benefit from a lighter pie...The last thing we would want in our bodies are undigested proteins! Mine is ,of course just a search for perfection, because we both know this kind of recipe would  be , as you mentioned, an "emergency", and thus we could be satisfied with it anyway...but are we?? We both know the answer...
This sunday i'm going back to italy for a few days..good occasion to experiment with my parents kitchen, not having to clean the mess afterwards!

Bye,
Carlo

[Pete-zza]

Carlo,

When you first joined the forum, you told us your name and that you were living in the UK but once lived in Italy. Knowing that, I intentionally drew the distinction between the way pizzas are made in Italy using 00 flour, with which you would be familiar, and how they are made in the U.S. using other flours, which you might not be quite as familiar. In Italy, and especially places like Naples, pizza makers seem to be bound more by tradition. This is less common in the U.S., where more attention is given to how to exploit ideas to create profitable businesses. In that context, it isn't surprising that a short-term dough should emerge out of flour, water, yeast and salt. If there is a way to do it, American entrepreneurism will usually find it.

A short-term dough will appeal to ordinary home pizza makers also because it saves time and is easy to make. I have the luxury of time to make exactly the pizza I want to make, but most people don't have that luxury. But I still think it is good to know how to make the best short-term dough possible for those occasions where there is a desire or need to have it, for whatever reason. I think quite often about how more flavor might be introduced to a short-term dough. I know that there are chemical additives to do this sort of thing, as some bakers and commisaries use to create faux sourdough breads, but I would prefer natural ways--which I have yet to uncover.

Peter

[enchant]

I received my first KASL via mail order on Thursday.  Now I have all of the ingredients and no excuses, so I made a couple of dough balls using this version of the Lehmann recipe:
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg17956.html#msg17956

I planned to take them out of the fridge around 4pm on Saturday to bake for dinner.  This would give them about 50 hours fridge time, which seemed pretty good.

Since then, we received an invitation to a cookout on Saturday afternoon.  I already have Father's Day plans for Sunday, so it'd be Monday earliest before I'd be able to use them.  So I'm going to pull them out tonight with only 26 hours of fridge time.

Is there anything I can/should do to compensate for the reduced time?  Should I take them out of the fridge a little early and give them more counter time?

[Pete-zza]

enchant,

When I followed the formulation you referenced, I let the dough stay in the refrigerator for about 3 days, and it took some time before the dough started to expand in volume. At 26 hours of fermentation in your case, you might expect a less extensible (more elastic) dough because of the shorter fermentation time (due to the small amount of yeast used and the slightly colder dough temperature).

To compensate at least in part for the shorter overall fermentation time, I would take the dough out of the refrigerator several hours before you plan to use the dough. Just dust the dough ball lightly with a bit of bench flour, cover it with a sheet of plastic wrap, and let it warm up. Usually, it takes a dough ball around 1-2 hours after coming out of the refrigerator to warm up sufficiently to use (depending on the dough temperature and the room temperature), and it is still good thereafter for about another few hours. So, if you stay within a window of about 5-6 hours or so after removing the dough from the refrigerator, and your kitchen is reasonably warm, I think you should be OK. The longer counter time should help accelerate the fermentation and rise as the dough warms up. What you want to look for is an expanded dough that is noticeably puffy and soft (you will also be able to tell by just poking your finger in the dough). As long as the dough is heading in that direction, I think you should be OK, and if a bit more time is required, then let the dough rest some more. You might even find that 5-6 hours is not quite long enough under the circumstances.

I'll be interested to see how the dough turns out.

Peter

[enchant]

Since I made two dough balls,  it will be an interesting experiment.  I'll take one out now for pizza tonight and then take another out on Monday and see if one was particularly better than the other.  And I'll report back.

[enchant]

Since I don't have much else to compare this with, I wouldn't know how it stacks up to what everyone else has been doing, but personally, I'm thrilled with the result.  This is the first pizza dough I ever made that didn't taste like little more than wet flour.  Up to now, I've always bought my dough frozen from a bakery, and was pretty happy with it.  This stuff is easily as good.  I'll probably always keep a few pre-bought balls in the freezer when I need something in a hurry, but I'm going to start using this from now on.

I took the dough ball out of the fridge at 1pm -  about 5 hours before I was ready to bake.  I tried a trick that I'd used last week that had worked pretty well.  I put the ball into a lightly oiled ceramic bowl, put the bowled dough into a plastic food storage bag and partly submerged it into a bath of tepid water.  About an hour later, I came back and the dough felt to be room temperature, and I removed it from the bath.  A few hours later, at 5pm, the dough was overflowing the bowl - probably 2.5 x its original size.  So I figured it was probably ready, and I fired up the oven.

The dough was very soft, easily extensible, and had a good windowpane to it.  It cooked nicely using my usual method - 550 degree oven preheated for 45 minutes.  Bake for 7 minutes.  It was perfect.

I think that the only thing I'll change is to reduce the quanties so that I'll get a 16 oz ball.  The recipe I used was for a 20-oz ball, and the edges of the crust were awfully large (but very very tasty!).

[Pete-zza]

enchant,

I'm happy to hear that you were pleased with your results. I also like the little "trick" you used to warm up the dough. What I use when I need to warm up the dough is a simple proofing box, like this one: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,403.msg4887.html#msg4887 (Reply 6). It's the last thing I need this time of year in Texas, but it comes in very handy in the winter.

Since you are new to the Lehmann dough, did you follow any particular instructions to make the dough? The formulation you tried, if you followed it to the letter, is not one of the easiest because of the minuscule amount of instant dry yeast--only 1/5th of a teaspoon. Most people are likely to "cheat" and increase it out of an excess of caution. It can almost happen by accident since it isn't easy to measure out 1/5th of a teaspoon.

It will be interesting to see how the remaining dough ball turns out. It should be even more extensible by Monday and, if you have a sensitive palate, you may notice more flavor in the finished crust. You might make mental notes of the two pizzas for comparison purposes. That will help you in the future. You should also learn a bit about the lifespan of a typical dough.

BTW, it is possible to make frozen versions of the Lehmann dough. For details, you may want to take a look at Reply 272 at page 14, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg17428.html#msg17428. If nothing else, you will learn a lot about dough just reading the post.

Peter

[enchant]

Since you are new to the Lehmann dough, did you follow any particular instructions to make the dough? The formulation you tried, if you followed it to the letter, is not one of the easiest because of the minuscule amount of instant dry yeast--only 1/5th of a teaspoon. Most people are likely to "cheat" and increase it out of an excess of caution. It can almost happen by accident since it isn't easy to measure out 1/5th of a teaspoon.

I used your instructions that you gave to pizzzagirl:
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2223.msg19563.html#msg19563

I'm not sure if I got exactly a fifth tsp of IDY, but probably close to it.  I have a quarter teaspoon measure.  I leveled that off and then knocked off what I estimated to be about 20%.  I think it was probably closer to a fifth than a fourth.

I tried to be as accurate as possible.  I've got a digital scale, and although it doesn't  register hundredths of an ounce, I does do tenths.

I thought that the first ball seemed just slightly dry to me, but I decided to blindly follow the recipe and see how it baked.  But I immediately made a second ball and increased the water from 7.6 oz to 7.8 oz, and the tackyness seemed just right.  But for all I know, my scale isn't measuring exactly.  Today I baked that second wetter ball.

It will be interesting to see how the remaining dough ball turns out. It should be even more extensible by Monday and, if you have a sensitive palate, you may notice more flavor in the finished crust. You might make mental notes of the two pizzas for comparison purposes. That will help you in the future. You should also learn a bit about the lifespan of a typical dough.

The crust I had today was pretty tasty, but I suppose anything can be improved.

BTW, it is possible to make frozen versions of the Lehmann dough. For details, you may want to take a look at Reply 272 at page 14, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg17428.html#msg17428. If nothing else, you will learn a lot about dough just reading the post.

THAT would be great.  My wife and I run a business out of our home, and although things are a little slow now and I've got time on my hands to make dough, it's not always that way.  Suddenly Saturday is upon us and it's time to make pizza.  It would be nice if I can make some "backup" dough to keep in the freezer.

Now I've just got to find a cool and dark place to hide that soon-to-be-purchased 50 lb bag of KASL from my wife.

[Pete-zza]

enchant,

You should feel free to tweak the amounts of flour and water. For the sake of consistency, I always start with accurate amounts weighed on my digital scale but almost always make slight adjustments in the bowl to compensate for the minor variations in flour due to age, moisture content, humidity, storage effects, etc. Also, a small amount of the flour and dough may stick to the sides of the bowl, dough hook, your hands, etc. Usually the adjustments are not more than a fraction of a teaspoon of flour or water (there's almost never a need to change the other ingredients). Those using volume measurements may experience even greater variation. What is most important is to be able to identify the condition of the dough that leads to the best results. That comes with experience and practice and no amount of words or photos can convey that condition with precision. But once you achieve a successful dough on a repeatable basis, you will always remember it and be able to replicate it pretty much at will. Even then, the dough will not be identical every time but the variations will be small.

Peter