Homemade Dough Conditioner

[norma427]

I mixed the blend and made the two Lehmann dough balls early this evening, one with the blend and one without the blend.  I also measured 1/8 cup of blend and it weighed 16 grams on my kitchen scale and then I divided that by 6 to get the weight of 2.666 for one teaspoon.

First picture is what the blend looks like.  Second picture is of the Lehmann dough ball with the blend and and the third picture is of the Lehmann dough ball without the blend.  Both dough were almost the same final dough temperature.  The blend dough ball was 77.1 degrees F and the Lehmann dough ball without the blend was 77.6 degrees F.  I mixed both doughs the same.

Hopefully there will be some difference in the Lehmann doughs when they are baked, whether good or bad.

Norma

[norma427]

These are what the Lehmann dough balls looked like a little while ago, one with the blend and one without.  The dough ball with the blend feels much denser and isn’t fermenting as fast.  At least it doesn’t look like it to me.  I weighed both dough balls in the plastic container this morning and the one with the blend is 379 grams and the one without the blend is 377 grams.  I did weigh an empty container, like the ones I used for both dough balls and it weighs 56 grams.

By the looks of the Lehmann dough ball with the blend it doesn’t look like it is doing as well.  

Pictures first of Lehmann dough ball with blend and next pictures are of Lehmann dough without blend.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Can you tell us how much of the dough enhancer blend you used, either in grams/ounces, as a percent of the total formula flour, or as a volume measurement?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Can you tell us how much of the dough enhancer blend you used, either in grams/ounces, as a percent of the total formula flour, or as a volume measurement?

Peter

Peter,

This is the formula I used.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Did you use the Baker's Non-Fat Dry Milk entry in the expanded dough calculating tool as a proxy for the dough enhancer blend (at 2%) and, if so, did you weigh the dough enhancer blend you used (3.82 grams?), or did you convert it to a volume measurement?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Did you use the Baker's Non-Fat Dry Milk entry in the expanded dough calculating tool as a proxy for the dough enhancer blend (at 2%) and, if so, did you weigh the dough enhancer blend you used (3.82 grams?), or did you convert it to a volume measurement?

Peter

Peter,

I did use the Baker’s Non-Fat Dry Milk entry in the expanded dough calculating tool as a proxy for the  blend at 2%.  I did weigh the blend at 3.82 grams or almost, because my home scales can weight that amount.  I usually go to the next highest number which would be 4 grams and then take a little out.  Did I do something wrong again?

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I did use the Baker’s Non-Fat Dry Milk entry in the expanded dough calculating tool as a proxy for the  blend at 2%.  I did weigh the blend at 3.82 grams or almost, because my home scales can weight that amount.  I usually go to the next highest number which would be 4 grams and then take a little out.  Did I do something wrong again?

Norma,

LOL. No, you did fine. I often ask questions that I think other member are wondering about, even when I think I know the answers. In your experiment, if you used 4 grams of the dough enhancer blend, that comes to 4/2.666 = 1.5 teaspoons.

Since you are not really adding much dough enhancer blend to the basic Lehmann dough, it is somewhat puzzling why that dough is not keeping up with the other Lehmann dough without the dough enhancer blend. It is perhaps best to just see the final results before doing a postmortem or autopsy if called for.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

LOL. No, you did fine. I often ask questions that I think other member are wondering about, even when I think I know the answers. In your experiment, if you used 4 grams of the dough enhancer blend, that comes to 4/2.666 = 1.5 teaspoons.

Since you are not really adding much dough enhancer blend to the basic Lehmann dough, it is somewhat puzzling why that dough is not keeping up with the other Lehmann dough without the dough enhancer blend. It is perhaps best to just see the final results before doing a postmortem or autopsy if called for.

Peter

Peter,

Thankfully I didn’t make another mistake in using the blend.    If you or anyone is interested in what the blend Lehmann dough looks like today, this is what it looked like a little while ago.  The top of the dough ball with the blend feels softer than yesterday and on the bottom of the dough ball looks like it is fermenting well.  I didn’t take a picture of the regular Lehmann dough ball because it is cold fermenting like I thought it would.  At least if this blend is or isn't going to work, I am letting it cold ferment for a few days to see if the dough changes over the few days.

From this blend experiment it makes me more curious how yeast and other ingredients work in flour.  I would think each constant (room temperature, flour brand, salt, water hydration, etc.) all do affect dough, even with one variant.  The way regular IDY performs in dough is also interesting to me.  I would think that if any dough could be compared at one temperature level (keeping the temperature something like 60 degrees F) with just one variant there could be seen if a dough balls performs differently.  I would at least think how the yeast performs in two different constant temperatures would be interesting.  Maybe that is another experiment for someday.

Norma

[November]

Lactic acid is something that Norma might want to consider some time. Can you recommend a good source for that product?

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4517.msg48066.html#msg48066

To better approximate lactic acid, an organic acid (like citric or ascorbic) would need to be combined with the calcium lactate.  Calcium lactate is much of the flavor of lactic acid without all the sour.  If you want a mostly pure lactic acid, it usually comes in liquid form.  It is usually expensive.  There are lactic acid and calcium lactate powder blends, which are cheaper and easier to work with.  I received my supply from Purac.  Galactic is another brand which has recently entered the baking additive market.

http://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Formulation/Galactic-develops-lactic-acid-powder-for-bakery-mixes

[norma427]

November,

Would you suggest I buy calcium lactate to be combined in the blend for a slightly sourdough taste?  I don’t want to spend a lot of money when experimenting with the blend, because I don’t know what the results will be.  By looking over the ingredients I am using for the blend, what ingredients would you delete?  Can anyone purchase lactic acid and calcium lactate powder blends from Purac?

Thanks,

Norma

[norma427]

The first two pictures are of the dough ball  top and bottom with the blend in the Lehmann dough.  The second two pictures are of the regular Lehmann dough ball top and bottom.  The first set of pictures after those four, are of the Lehmann dough with the blend steps and final pizza.  Then the next set of pictures are the regular Lehmann dough steps and final  pizza

The dough balls looked about the same (the one with the blend fermented differently on the bottom of the dough ball) and both had a bubble on the top of the dough balls, but the dough ball with the blend didn’t rise as much.  Although neither pizza had good oven spring, the pizza made with the blend tasted better in the crust.  I can’t explain how it tasted different, but there was a better flavor in the crust.  Both pizzas were crisp on the rim and bottom.  It can be seen in the picture of the bottom of the crust with the blend, it looked like kinda warts on the bottom.  That didn’t detract from the taste of the crust.  Steve also agreed that the pizza made with the blend was better.  Both pizzas reminded Steve and me of regular Lehmann dough pizzas.

I don’t know what to try in the next experiment with the blend. Maybe I should subtract something from the blend or up the percentage of the blend.  Any thoughts what to try?

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures..last picture is after Lehmann dough pizza with blend cooled off.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

It's really hard to know where to go next with this project. If you had hit the ball out of the park, we would perhaps be resting on our laurels or else just tweaking the dough enhancer blend to get even better results. Unfortunately, at this stage, we don't really know which ingredients, or combination of ingredients, or biochemical events produced the particular combination of positive and negative results you got (good crust flavor but reduced oven spring). We can only speculate based on what we know about the function and purpose of each ingredient and what it might do in a dough if used all by itself.

At this juncture, I think I would be inclined to try increasing the amount of dough enhancer blend to see if the effects are more pronounced or exaggerated--or even different--than what you got with your latest experiment. For this reason, I think I would use a lot more dough enhancer blend, possibly 6-7%. I would also stick with your basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation as the control dough. I would then use the results to consider what might be a logical next step--if one can be identified--to take with the project.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

It's really hard to know where to go next with this project. If you had hit the ball out of the park, we would perhaps be resting on our laurels or else just tweaking the dough enhancer blend to get even better results. Unfortunately, at this stage, we don't really know which ingredients, or combination of ingredients, or biochemical events produced the particular combination of positive and negative results you got (good crust flavor but reduced oven spring). We can only speculate based on what we know about the function and purpose of each ingredient and what it might do in a dough if used all by itself.

At this juncture, I think I would be inclined to try increasing the amount of dough enhancer blend to see if the effects are more pronounced or exaggerated--or even different--than what you got with your latest experiment. For this reason, I think I would use a lot more dough enhancer blend, possibly 6-7%. I would also stick with your basic Lehmann NY style dough formulation as the control dough. I would then use the results to consider what might be a logical next step--if one can be identified--to take with the project.

Peter

Peter,

What fascinated me most about this experiment, is I got about the same amount of oven spring with the dough with the blend and also the regular Lehmann dough.  As many times as I have experimented with the regular Lehmann dough, I would have thought at 63% hydration and knowing what I have learned so far about handling different doughs, I would have gotten more oven spring in the regular Lehaman dough, even if the blended dough didn’t get more oven spring.  This has me curious what happened with the regular Lehmann dough pizza and the amount of oven spring.  I could see the blend dough with the added blend might have been drier, but the regular Lehmann dough should have had better results.

I didn’t expect to hit the blend dough out of the ball park the first time.  It never usually happens that way for me.  Should I for my next attempt, use the same base Lehmann dough formula for both dough balls, one with the blend and one without?  I know the numbers would change if I do two formulas on the expanded dough calculating tool. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

When I first started playing around with the basic Lehmann NY style dough, I thought that the finished pizza was supposed to have a large, puffy rim. I was later told that an authentic NY street style pizza did not have a large rim. I was also told that an authentic NY street style pizza did not have a lot of crust color, or char. If you look at the original Lehmann NY style dough formulation at http://pmq.com/tt2/recipe/view/id_151/title_New-York-Style-Pizza/, you will see that it is a basic, no-nonsense, straightforward recipe without any pretenses to artisanship. The recipe calls for a modest amount of yeast, no sugar and a small amount of oil (1%), kneading just to the point of slight underkneading, paying close attention to achieving a finished dough temperature of 80-85 degrees F, getting the dough into the cooler as soon as possible and cross-stacking/down-stacking, etc., and proofing for a short period of time upon removal from the cooler. The maximum hydration is 65% but that value is not a common one for the NY street style, and I can't ever recall Tom Lehmann recommending such a high hydration value to pizza operators. Although the recipe does not say anything about bake temperatures, Tom usually recommends a bake temperature of anywhere from 450 degrees F to 525 degrees F for a deck oven, depending on the desired finished pizza characteristics and other factors that vary from one oven and one situation to another.

I suspect that there is a way of introducing artisan methods into the Lehmann NY style, such as using a much higher hydration, and using autolyse or similar rest periods, and stretch and folds, much as you have done with the Reinhart dough recipes. I would expect that you would see an increase in rim size but I have never tried modifying the Lehmann recipe that way to confirm my suspicions.

For your next experiment, I would use the same basic Lehmann dough for both dough balls. The numbers will change a bit, as you noted, but the weight of the dough enhancer blend should still be quite small in relation to the total dough weight.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

When I first started playing around with the basic Lehmann NY style dough, I thought that the finished pizza was supposed to have a large, puffy rim. I was later told that an authentic NY street style pizza did not have a large rim. I was also told that an authentic NY street style pizza did not have a lot of crust color, or char. If you look at the original Lehmann NY style dough formulation at http://pmq.com/tt2/recipe/view/id_151/title_New-York-Style-Pizza/, you will see that it is a basic, no-nonsense, straightforward recipe without any pretenses to artisanship. The recipe calls for a modest amount of yeast, no sugar and a small amount of oil (1%), kneading just to the point of slight underkneading, paying close attention to achieving a finished dough temperature of 80-85 degrees F, getting the dough into the cooler as soon as possible and cross-stacking/down-stacking, etc., and proofing for a short period of time upon removal from the cooler. The maximum hydration is 65% but that value is not a common one for the NY street style, and I can't ever recall Tom Lehmann recommending such a high hydration value to pizza operators. Although the recipe does not say anything about bake temperatures, Tom usually recommends a bake temperature of anywhere from 450 degrees F to 525 degrees F for a deck oven, depending on the desired finished pizza characteristics and other factors that vary from one oven and one situation to another.

I suspect that there is a way of introducing artisan methods into the Lehmann NY style, such as using a much higher hydration, and using autolyse or similar rest periods, and stretch and folds, much as you have done with the Reinhart dough recipes. I would expect that you would see an increase in rim size but I have never tried modifying the Lehmann recipe that way to confirm my suspicions.

For your next experiment, I would use the same basic Lehmann dough for both dough balls. The numbers will change a bit, as you noted, but the weight of the dough enhancer blend should still be quite small in relation to the total dough weight.

Peter

Peter,

When I did both attempts yesterday with the basic Lehmann dough with and without the blend, it reminded me of many NY style street pizzas I have eaten in NY.  Even though I tried to be gentle with the way I opened the dough, I saw there was not too much oven spring, as there is supposed to be.  Both pizzas reminded me of better NY style pizzas eaten at different pizza businesses in NY. The lighter rim and bottom crust reminded me of those NY style street pizzas. There was flavor in the crust of both pizzas from the longer cold ferment, which was good.

I believe there would be ways to make changes to the Lehmann dough to achieve more artisan results.  That would be an interesting experiment to try at some point in time.  You did help me achieve those artisan results with the preferment Lehmann dough, the Lehmann Ischia, and the milk kefir Lehmann doughs.

By your posting that I should try the same formula again with the blend, should I do two calculations on the expanded dough calculation tool, one with and one without blend?  The last time I only added the blend to one formula done on the expanded dough calculation tool.

Norma