Tom Lehmann's NY Style Pizza

[abc]

Hello everyone, it's nice to see this thread nice and lively.  I took a hiatus from making pizzas, and started making some again during the holidays.  This time it was just pizza night.  Two dough balls in the fridge for about 6 to 7 days.  It had popped the lids of my plastic containers the past two nights, so i figured i need to finally use them.  Liquid from fermentation (not a lot) had started appearing... i hadn't seen this in years.  The dough was quite slack... not good for a total beginner... i had started using a wooden peel, and put extra flour on it w/ semolina.  I wasn't about to, but quickly decided to take some pics to contribute to this thread.

[abc]

and just a couple more

[Pete-zza]

Since I know you have Diamond Crystal, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you please weigh 1 cup and 1/4 cup of kosher salt?  An average between us should allow me to finish the kosher salt entry on the tools page.  I left it unfinished because I ran out of the brand I started with.

November,

Unfortunately, I don't have the Diamond Crystal brand of Kosher salt because it isn't sold in any of the markets where I shop. I don't remember exactly where I found the conversion data for the Diamond Crystal Kosher salt, but it came out of an internet search. What I have been using is 0.102882 ounces for one teaspoon.

I believe the conversion data I got for ordinary table salt came from actual measurements that Steve made a long time ago. My Morton's Kosher salt (coarse) conversion data came from the information on the package, which also suggests that the salt be used on the same basis as their brand of table salt, that is, teaspoon for teaspoon or cup for cup. I never took compaction into account. At the time I came up with the conversions, I was oblivious to compaction issues. A lot of times when an ingredient quantity (weight) is specified by cup, I divide that weight by 48 to get a teaspoon.

Peter

[November]

Peter,

That begs the question why you asked if I had it.  Were you feeling particularly psychic that day?

- red.november

[Bryan S]

Here's the link to the forum that i got the salt info. http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/salt.html

[Pete-zza]

That begs the question why you asked if I had it.  Were you feeling particularly psychic that day?

LOL. What November is referring to is an exchange we had by PMs in which he specified salt in a recipe he gave to me. I plugged the salt number into a dough calculating tool I was testing and apparently concluded from the amount that it was Diamond Crystal salt. Since I didn't have any Diamond Crystal salt I wanted confirmation from November so that I could substitute my Morton's salt for the Diamond Crystal if necessary. The updated version of the Lehmann dough calculating tool will offer both brands of Kosher salt.

Peter

[November]

Bryan,

Thanks for the link.  Some of that information, like Diamond Crystal's kosher salt dissolving faster, is quite accurate, but I'm here to say that isn't what it weighs in any of my 1-cup measuring cups.

- red.november

[Pete-zza]

The different Kosher salts were discussed here, http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3606.msg30417.html#msg30417, and also in another thread linked in that thread.

Peter

[November]

Peter,

I actually remember reading those posts months ago, but at the time I didn't have Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt.  For 1 teaspoon, I get 3.4g.

- red.november

[Pete-zza]

November,

Thanks for the information on the Diamond Crystal Kosher salt.

It seems to me that there are essentially three ways for the average home pizza maker to determine conversion data for items like salt: 1) actually weigh a specified volume of the item, such as a teaspoon, on an accurate scale, 2) use the information provided by sources like nutritiondata.com and usda.gov, and 3) rely on the information provided on the label. Of the three, item 3 seems the least reliable, in part because of rounding factors. A good example of the latter is the data given on bottles of oil. I checked over two dozen different bottles of oil at the supermarket the other day and they all said that 1 tablespoon was 14 grams. It didn't matter what the oil was. There were all the same. In the case of oil, I found the nutritiondata and us.gov sites to provide more accurate data.

This morning I took several weighings of my Morton's coarse Kosher salt, using a MyWeigh digital scale accurate to 0.1 gram, and the average was 5.59 grams for a teaspoon. The box says that 1/4 teaspoon is 1.2 grams, which is 4.8 grams when multiplied by 4. I leveled the teaspoons with the flat back edge of a knife. So, it was not "scant" or "rounded" teaspoons that I used. It occurred to me that since salt is hygroscopic, and since I keep my salt in a kitchen cabinet at room temperature, the salt may have taken on some moisture which might have affected the weights on my scale. In someone else's kitchen, the results could be different.

By nature, I try to achieve accuracy and precision in what I do, and in using conversion data for the Lehmann and other dough calculating tools, I would rather have accurate and precise data than estimates. So, of the three choices mentioned above, which is the one that you deem to be the best way of achieving accurate and precise data? I realize that the average person doesn't pay much attention to how an ingredient is measured using measuring spoons. They just give it their best shot. Also, Morton's doesn't seem to deter anyone from using their Kosher salt as they would their usual table salt.

I might add that when I checked the nutritiondata and usda.gov websites I could find only data on table salt, not Kosher salt.

Peter
Edit: Corrected scale accuracy to 0.1 gram.

[November]

Peter,

"It occurred to me that since salt is hygroscopic, and since I keep my salt in a kitchen cabinet at room temperature, the salt may have taken on some moisture which might have affected the weights on my scale."

I've actually contemplated mentioning this at least a dozen times in the past, but I'm not sure how many people would either find it useful because of the minute scale were dealing with, or because it just isn't that easy to understand for many people.  Water is actually less dense than sodium chloride, so the notion that salt weighs more per volume shouldn't be that obvious.  A few things have to be taken into consideration.  What kind of salt it is will matter to density related to water absorption.  If its cubic or rhombic, such as fine salt, or roundish with jagged edges like coarse salt, the average density has a better chance of increasing.  However, flakey kosher salt may simply remain the same because moisture could dissolve an exposed corner of a flake and cause an adjacent flake to "weld" itself to that flake's corner.  This would be the equivalent of clumping, but because of the flakey shape of the salt, substructures resembling A-frames could form, providing unyielding and space wasting support for the salt above.  This affects both density and compaction.

One more thing you have to keep in mind about flakey salt: since the flakes are more delicate than cubic or rhombic shapes, they have a tendency to break during rough handling (shipping) or under a lot of weight (1 cup versus 1 teaspoon).  This also modifies density.  This is also probably one of the reasons for the large discrepancy between labeling and weighing in this case.  We've talked about this before.  It is unrealistic for a manufacture to measure something at the plant and label it as such, when they know full well that the product changes before reaching the consumer.

As I mentioned before, I keep everything out of the way of humidity, so when I measure its weight, it's definitely a dry weight.  Your mileage may vary.  I prefer to take option 1 to begin with.  I almost never trust the label.  Like I said in a message some time ago, if my measurements aren't close to what the USDA reports, I investigate further into the discrepancy.

As you know, the Uncle Salmon food tools page has oils in the list.  Those densities were taken from an up-to-date physics source, so I consider them pretty reliable.

- red.november

[SemperFi]

Got a question concerning the weeklong rest in the cooler.  I now have a scale and did T. Leahmans recipe as follows (key points only):

Hydration:  65%
Oil:             0%
Sugar:         0%
Salt:          1.5%
ADY:           .25%

I used cold filtered water, non bleached bread flour (Gold Medal- Better for Breads), Fleischman's yeast, Kosher salt.  Made my dough balls, froze the batch.  Defrosted 2 of them (overnight in cooler), then allowed a 5 day rest in the cooler.  Rise is nice and slow, did not double though.  Bench rested for 3 hours, definite proofing here, reached double in initial size.  Oven at highest setting, 1/2" pizza stone, 8+ minutes cook time, Precious Mozzarella, Hormel Pepperoni.  Here is the thing now...the dough smelled like a city pool!  Pronounced chlorine or bleach smell, not quite overpowering, but enough to kill bread taste and pizza taste, in both pies.  Pizza looked nice (lil pale-I know, no sugar or salt...thats what you get), but it had nice crust, ciabatta like crumb, a couple of very large bubbles on rim.  What in the world happened?  Too long rest in cooler?  Dough never got freezer burned, was cool to the touch when first placed in freezer (did not take temp, sorry).  Any thought would be appreciated.  Adam

[Pete-zza]

Adam,

The basic problem is that you did not follow the proper steps to make a frozen dough, and your dough management after defrosting the dough was not correct.

To begin with, you perhaps should have used a higher protein flour, one with a content above 13%. Your bread flour perhaps has something around 12.5%. Second, you should have used considerably more yeast, perhaps close to 1% ADY. Freezing dough causes ice particles to form and, as they expand, they destroy some of the yeast cells. As a result, the leavening power of the yeast can be reduced by up to 10% or more. Hence, the need to compensate for the lost leavening power by increasing the amount of yeast. Third, you perhaps should have used a lower hydration than 65% to limit the weakening of the dough during fermentation. Fourth, it is usually recommended that the salt be increased (to improve the stability of the dough) and that both sugar (for food) and oil be used (the oil helps with the gas retention capacity of the dough). You used fairly low salt levels and no oil or sugar. The purpose and logic of these changes is discussed in somewhat greater detail under the Frozen Dough article link here:
http://www.lesaffre.fr/Eng/default.asp?cible=Services/s_Ressources.htm.

As far as your dough management is concerned, you should have used the defrosted dough the same day. As noted in this Tom Lehmann reply, http://www.pmq.com/cgi-bin/tt/index.cgi?noframes;read=8342, defrosted doughs don’t usually perform well after one day. I think what may have happened in your case is that there was an excessive amount of alcohol produced, which can be toxic to yeast at high levels. Maybe the salt also had an unintended effect because of the chlorine smell/taste you noted.

I wrote on the subject of freezing a Lehmann dough at Reply 272 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg17428.html#msg17428. Since I posted on that subject, I have gotten a bit smarter. Now I would increase the salt and rehydrate the IDY I normally use. And maybe I would increase the amount of oil a bit.

Peter

EDIT (4/29/16): For a corrected link to the Lesaffre article on frozen dough, see the Wayback Machine link to the article at http://web.archive.org/web/20071013164854/http://www.lesaffre.fr/Eng/default.asp?cible=Services/s_Ressources.htm

[SemperFi]

Hi Peter,

Believe it or not, I actually read your article prior to making my frozen dough attempt, but did not follow it due to past positive experiences.  Granted, prior to using my scale, I was using a ton of yeast (over 3x what the T.L. recipe called for)and included sugar and salt in my doughs, and had pretty satisfactory results.  But once I followed the T.L. recipe verbatim, I achieved negative results, with the freezing and thawing process.  Thank you so much.  I will make another attempt, following your post #272 results and T.L recipe.  You gotta love the science behind pizza making!!!!  Adam

[Pete-zza]

Today, I posted the results of my most recent experiment with a Lehmann NY style dough using the new KitchenAid dough making method, at Reply 57 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3985.msg40092.html#msg40092. The aspect to the Lehmann dough that I was testing was the addition of the oil at an early stage of the dough making process. As I have reported many times before on the forum, and in this thread, Tom Lehmann advocates that the oil be added toward the end of the dough making process so that it doesn’t interfere with the hydration of the flour. In a home setting, I have not noted any particular difficulty in adding the oil toward the end of the dough making process although it has occurred to me that with my simple and basic KitchenAid mixer with a C-hook perhaps the incorporation of the oil into a dough that is fairly solid and not batter-like might be less than optimal. So, the most recent experiment tested the idea of incorporating the oil earlier in the process. In my case, I added the oil to the dough while it was in a batter-like state, while I was using the whisk attachment, so that the incorporation would be more uniform.

The photo below shows the finished pizza. I saw nothing at any stage of the dough preparation or of the dough management or the finished pizza to suggest that it is imperative to add the oil toward the end of the dough making process. Maybe that is still sound advice if one is using a commercial mixer to make a large dough batch, but it does not seem to be mandatory in a home setting using a standard KitchenAid mixer. I might add as a footnote that the dough was used after 15 days of cold fermentation. Certainly, it does not appear that the early addition of the oil curtailed the useful life of the dough. In fact, I concluded while handling the dough that it perhaps could have lasted another few days and perhaps even longer. I’m sure that I will experiment from time to time with the oil to confirm my findings to date.

Peter

[petesopizza]

Is there a chart that has temps for example if the flour is 62 degrees the water should be ?? degrees to achieve 80-85 degrees dough

I think this would be helpful to all us math challenged folks

[itsinthesauce]

Pete, I've never added the oil later in the process, unless I forgat to add it initially and I think it's better added initially, but it's a matter of taste, I guess.

Pie looks great, as usual!

[Pete-zza]

Is there a chart that has temps for example if the flour is 62 degrees the water should be ?? degrees to achieve 80-85 degrees dough

I think this would be helpful to all us math challenged folks

petesopizza,

The only place I have seen that offers a chart is on page 6 of this General Mills document: http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/PDFs/Website%20A49104%20Just%20Crust%20Brochure.pdf. You will note that the chart makes certain assumptions, like friction factor and finished dough temperature. Some time ago, I read something by Tom Lehmann that said that the yeast companies had charts like you are looking for, and that they were often made available to attendees at trade shows. I tried calling a couple of the yeast companies and the people I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about.

Peter
EDIT: I found the Lehmann article, at http://www.pmq.com/mag/2003spring/tom_lehmann.shtml. See the last few paragraphs; for an updated lnk to the General Mills document, see http://www.professionalbakingsolutions.com/water-temperature-chart

EDIT 2 (3/22/13): For the Wayback Link to the article referenced in the first EDIT, see http://web.archive.org/web/20090728230927/http://www.pmq.com/mag/2003spring/tom_lehmann.shtml

[November]

Some time ago, I read something by Tom Lehmann that said that the yeast companies had charts like you are looking for

I find that it's more exciting to perform the calculations manually. 

- red.november

[petesopizza]

240 – (st +ft + bf) = H2O temp

Shop Temp   = st
Flour Temp   = ft
Bowl Friction = bf

Note: I tried mixing dough with a food processor using the plastic blade last night and the finish temp was over 140. I threw it away im thinking FP might not be the way to go ....