In search of the right dough

[Nick E]

Hi All, I'm a newer forum member and I'm getting a bit frustrated. I'm sure we have all gone through this stage with pizza making.
To give you a little background....I cook pizza in 2 different ovens. One oven is at the shore house (southern New Jersey). I cook pizza in a Kamado Joe with the DoJo attachment (Hardwood lump charcoal). When I'm in the North Jersey house I have a wood burning Kutch stainless oven.  In the past I've used doughs from You Tube and the KJ recipe and I have had pretty good success. The biggest problem is that none of the doughs are for the exact type of pizza that I like.

I just can't find a recipe that I'm totally happy with. I have found several doughs on you tube that looked amazing and would have been close to what I want in a pizza. However when I try to make that dough it does not come out the same. Last night my wife and I tried to make a dough from one of the You Tube pizza makers and it was an utter failure. Either the ingredient amounts that he supplied were incorrect or both my wife and I should just buy dough from our local pizza shop.

This is why I'm turning to you for help. If I had to describe what my perfect dough it would be rustic, with a thicker crust.
Basically, a chubby Neapolitan pizza.

Now the question is....What recipe is right for me and the ovens that I use. Would I have to alter the recipe when cooking in the different locations? It has to be easy to make and something I can do with a mechanical mixer.

I want to thank everyone in advance for their input!





 
 
 

[amolapizza]

It's kind of hard to give a recipe, but some thoughts.

The oven will absolutely determine what kind of pizza you can make.  It would be good to know what kind of temperatures you reach in them.

IMO, many of the youtube recipes are just showing off skills and such a recipe might be hard going for a noob.  My recommendation is to start with a basic direct dough without any preferments or other advanced techniques.  Something like:

8-9 hours of fermentation, 60% hydration, 2-3% salt, and maybe 1-2% oil.  The amount of yeast would depend on the temperature where you ferment the dough.  You can get a basic idea of how much by using a dough calculator or by consulting: https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=26831.msg393271#msg393271

Start with mixing your pizza dough by hand, there are videos for how to do it and you will learn to feel how the dough should be.  Try 1 hour bulk ferment, then form the balls and let them ferment another 8 hours or until they have increased in volume by about 70-100%.  If you have a straight necked glass or a transparent volume measure you can put a small dough ball in it to help judge how much it's increased in volume. This is a quite good video on how to hand mix the dough (though it differs in details with what I've written here



Here is a small example of a dough for 1.5kg dough which is enough to make 6 doughballs of 250g.  It's calculated for 9 hours total fermentation at 20C room temperature.  I've calculated it on my smartphone with an app that is called calcolapizza.

Flour 920g
Water 552g (60%)
Salt 28g (3%)
IDY 0.67g

The rest is just practice, making the dough, getting the amount of yeast right, maybe you want to raise or lower the hydration slightly (depending on what flour you use and the oven temperature), etc, etc.  Just keep making pizza and make small adjustments until you zero in on making the pizza that you like.

[Nick E]

Thanks Jack. I will watch the video and incorporate it with the rest of your reply.