Definitive Closest Giordano's Clone as of 6/12/13?

[pythonic]

Perhaps the top skin thickness is as simple as who as making the pizza.  I'd bet that the locations in FL are not making them the same as Chicago.  As for the lamination, Giordanos crust has 6-10 layers on the rim of their crust.   Those aren't close enough pics to see and some are blurry as well.  I will try to find a few.  The sheeter is one key, another may be butter or shortening in the dough. 
This dough is completely different then all the rest. 

Ryan:  Are you able to spin your dough like this?
The guy also clearly is using multiple doughballs through the sheeter as well. 

We're you aware that this pizza was adapted from their mother's Easter Pie recipe.  That may be a big clue as well.  Until you actually have the real thing it's gonna be impossible to see what I'm talking about.

[pythonic]

This one isnt close enough either and a little blurry but u can clearly see lines every in that dough and too crust is at least 1/2 thin as bottom.  Now the top crust will be thicker near the edge of the pizza because it goes vertical in the pan.

[pythonic]

And a few more.  First pic shows it the best.

[pythonic]

Can u even see the top crust here?  Melded with the cheese because of its thinness.  This is how most of them look in Chicago.  The ones that pop up are the ones that have green peppers beneath it.

[Aimless Ryan]

Man, I hate to be what you probably see as obstinate, but something the video shows very clearly is that Giordano's does not use any procedures that could possibly create 6-10 laminates. Yes, this guy does use more than one piece of dough (almost certainly two pieces because more than two pieces wouldn't make it through the sheeter), which does create some lamination, but I haven't seen anything yet that shows any evidence of more than two laminates. Neither in video nor pictures. In fact, all the evidence I've seen says Giordano's dough (bottom skin) never has more than two laminates.

What you see as lamination is what I see as lots of little elongated gas pockets, which is what happens when you sheet relatively stiff, bready dough to medium thickness. Except in the cases where there is obviously two laminates, such as the pic in Reply #74 (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,25774.msg275723.html#msg275723). But in those cases, the obvious lamination looks completely different than the look of the slice in Reply #81.

Another thing that's very clear in the video is that he never changes the thickness setting on the sheeter, nor could he possibly have time to constantly change the thickness setting. He clearly sheets top skins and bottom skins, yet he never changes the sheeter's thickness setting, nor does he ever fold the dough and re-sheet it (which is how lamination is created).

The dough spinning is all for show.

[Chicago Bob]

Man, I hate to be what you probably see as obstinate, but something the video shows very clearly is that Giordano's does not use any procedures that could possibly create 6-10 laminates. Yes, this guy does use more than one piece of dough (almost certainly two pieces because more than two pieces wouldn't make it through the sheeter), which does create some lamination, but I haven't seen anything yet that shows any evidence of more than two laminates. Neither in video nor pictures. In fact, all the evidence I've seen says Giordano's dough (bottom skin) never has more than two laminates.

What you see as lamination is what I see as lots of little elongated gas pockets, which is what happens when you sheet relatively stiff, bready dough to medium thickness. Except in the cases where there is obviously two laminates, such as the pic in Reply #74 (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,25774.msg275723.html#msg275723). But in those cases, the obvious lamination looks completely different than the look of the slice in Reply #81.

Another thing that's very clear in the video is that he never changes the thickness setting on the sheeter, nor could he possibly have time to constantly change the thickness setting. He clearly sheets top skins and bottom skins, yet he never changes the sheeter's thickness setting, nor does he ever fold the dough and re-sheet it (which is how lamination is created).

The dough spinning is all for show.

I was just going to say the same thing....it takes some imagination, make that, if you stare at the crust long enough you can sort of imagine that there might be 6-10 layers of lamination. But all these crusts simply look like what one always hears about what is so great about Chicago DD...."a flaky pastry like crust". All the oil and under mixing is the classic crust I'm seeing.....YMMV.

[Jdurg]

I just made another batch of dough. I was almost ready to use my standard flour (Pillsbury bleached AP) when it occurred to me that I have some other flours that might be worth trying for this style. Even though I've read in a couple places that Giordano's uses high gluten flour, I remain skeptical. So I want to try some high-protein flour for this style and find out if it works better than AP.

I have several different kinds of high protein flour available right now because someone far, far away (where flour options are very limited) sent me these different kinds of flour and asked me to try them out for NY style and let him know what I think. I have Morbread, Mondako, Power Flour, and All Trumps unbromated (as well as All Trumps bromated, which has long been my go-to flour for NY style).

I decided after one pizza that Morbread is nasty; the one pizza I made with this flour tasted like canned biscuits. All Trumps unbromated seems to have a weird taste, too, so I don't really want to try it, either. (Also, it's nothing like AT bromated.) Power Flour has been my favorite of all the flours I was sent, at least for NY style, but Mondako hasn't offended me yet. So I decided to try Mondako with this batch of dough. I might also make a batch with Power Flour sometime tonight, using the same formula.

Here's the formula for this evening's dough, which I don't intend to use for at least two days (or preferably 3 days minimum):

100% Mondako flour
48% Ice cold water (with unmelted ice cubes still in it)
0.86% IDY
0.9% Salt
6% Shortening

This dough was very cold after mixing for 4-5 minutes in a KitchenAid with a spiral dough hook. In fact, a couple of the ice cubes didn't melt until the last minute or two of mixing. (I don't have any kind of thermometer that can read dough temperature, but the dough felt like it was about 60 degrees after mixing.) I immediately bagged the dough and put it in a fridge to bulk ferment until shortly before I use it.

With regards to the high gluten flour, have you tried to make a few batches with different proportions of AP and Bread flour combined?  This way you won't have a very huge amount of gluten in there, but the presence of the small proportion of bread flour in place of 100% AP flour could provide exactly what you are looking for.

I've only had Giordano's pizza once, during a business trip to Chicago a few years back, so I can't really provide too much input here.  (I just remember loving that pizza, along with the Lou Malnati's pizzas which I've only had of the frozen variety). 

I'm also pretty certain that they use unbleached flour as I have a batch of deep-dish dough sitting in the fridge for use tomorrow which has that "goldeny" color to it that all the videos show the dough to have.  (Sorry I don't have any photos right now or the recipe I used).

[pythonic]

Man, I hate to be what you probably see as obstinate, but something the video shows very clearly is that Giordano's does not use any procedures that could possibly create 6-10 laminates. Yes, this guy does use more than one piece of dough (almost certainly two pieces because more than two pieces wouldn't make it through the sheeter), which does create some lamination, but I haven't seen anything yet that shows any evidence of more than two laminates. Neither in video nor pictures. In fact, all the evidence I've seen says Giordano's dough (bottom skin) never has more than two laminates.

What you see as lamination is what I see as lots of little elongated gas pockets, which is what happens when you sheet relatively stiff, bready dough to medium thickness. Except in the cases where there is obviously two laminates, such as the pic in Reply #74 (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,25774.msg275723.html#msg275723). But in those cases, the obvious lamination looks completely different than the look of the slice in Reply #81.

Another thing that's very clear in the video is that he never changes the thickness setting on the sheeter, nor could he possibly have time to constantly change the thickness setting. He clearly sheets top skins and bottom skins, yet he never changes the sheeter's thickness setting, nor does he ever fold the dough and re-sheet it (which is how lamination is created).

The dough spinning is all for show.

Have you ever achieved layers like these in any of your attempts?  I never have.  The crust isn't bready at all.  The best way I can describe it is like a croissant but drier and less airy.  I think the layers come from all the scraps they sheet together like you previously said.

[Garvey]

sheet relatively stiff, bready dough to medium thickness.

Yeah, and Giordano's is very much on the stiff, bready style.  No bench flour needed during sheeting is telling, too.  Low oil, stiff dough.  The end crust alone is much more of a bread bomb than DD. 

The crust isn't bready at all.  The best way I can describe it is like a croissant but drier and less airy.

Haha--maybe it's a semantic difference.  I think of it as bready because it is just a crapload of bread.  When you get to the last bite of pizza and are left holding the end crust, you've got a 14-oz loaf in your hand.  Sure, it's not soft like bread, per se, so I hear what Nate is getting at...but it's still a fistful of baked dough...

[Aimless Ryan]

No bench flour needed during sheeting is telling, too.  Low oil, stiff dough.

Exactly. That's a huge point, which needs to be remembered by everyone who ever hopes to clone Giordano's. When I used 49-50% hydration (plus 6% fat), I needed to use a little bench flour to roll the dough. Not a lot, but some. Just by watching them handle the dough in the Pizza Paradises video, I knew I shouldn't have to use bench flour. Now that I've seen video of them sheeting dough at Giordano's (at the top of this page), no bench flour is pretty well confirmed.

So everyone: If you have to use bench flour to roll what you hope will become a Giordano's clone, your dough is too wet/soft.

Thanks for backing me up on the low oil, too (at least low compared to deep dish dough). My best-yet Giordano's clone dough contained 8% oil, and I've been trying to make 6% oil/shortening work. So I feel pretty confident that I'm in the ballpark with 6-8% fat. Looking at the older Giordano's threads, everyone seems to want to make deep dish dough for stuffed pizza. But Giordano's dough is obviously nothing like Malnati's or Uno. I know it's tempting to think stuffed dough should be similar to deep dish dough, considering these pizzas all come from the same city, they're baked in very similar pans, they have basically the same shape, and they have a ton of cheese below a ton of sauce. But that's where the similarities end.

Giordano's dough is obviously different than Malnati's dough in about every possible way. It's much stiffer, much more lean, uses much more yeast, contains salt, is sheeted, etc. That much was easy to figure out, thanks to Peter's detective work and every video that shows more than a few seconds of Giordano's kitchen footage.

Haha--maybe it's a semantic difference. ... Sure, it's not soft like bread, per se, so I hear what Nate is getting at...but it's still a fistful of baked dough...

Good point. When I say 'bready,' I'm thinking of something more like a baguette than white bread.

Even though I was originally very skeptical about using high gluten flour for this kind of pizza, I'm starting to think it might be the right thing to do. When I look at the picture in Reply #81 (and similar pics), the pizza just seems more bready than any of the pics of my pizzas (on the previous page). The crumb in Reply #81 does not come from AP flour. In fact, it reminds me of the crumb in one of my NY style pics (the third pic in this post). I'm not saying my crumb looks just like the Giordano's crumb; just saying it reminds me of it. I'm saying if my dough had been a little stiffer, then sheeted to a medium thickness, I can envision those bubbles becoming elongated, thus resembling layers in a way.

The crust in my pic was made of All Trumps flour. I'm pretty sure it was 58% hydration and 1.58% oil.

Nate, I don't put much stock in the Easter pie story. It's a nice story, but the information I remember reading in the other thread says the Easter pie is nothing like pizza. My guess is that the Easter pie story is all about marketing (or at least 90% about marketing). Because when you're in the pizza business, you know what's almost as important as the quality of your pizza? The quality of your backstory; even if your backstory is made up or altered to appeal more to prospective customers, which is probably the case with most companies' backstories.

[pythonic]

I whipped up a batch of 48% hydration/6% oil dough last night.  This is only my 2nd Giordano's attempt.  My first try came 2 years ago when I was very amateurish in my pie making so I expect much better results this time around. 

Nate

[Aimless Ryan]

When are you gonna make the pizza(s), Nate?

I made another batch of dough yesterday, with Power flour, using the same formula I used the previous day with Mondako. Both of those doughs are in the fridge. I don't intend to use the Mondako dough until at least tomorrow (3 days), and I don't intend to use the Power flour dough until at least the following day. I'm really curious to find out how the Power flour dough turns out. They're both fermenting in a bag, in the same condition as when I took the dough out of the mixer bowl. Even though neither batch of dough has noticeably risen so far, I'm debating whether I should punch down the dough and agitate it a little before I scale it into dough balls, in an effort to create a more complex gluten structure (or to kinda simulate scrap dough). Even though I now know I was off on my ADY-to-IDY conversions the first few times I used IDY, and even though my latest conversion should be accurate, I'm still not real confident that my IDY is in the best condition. At least I know it works, though.

I made a pseudo deep dish pizza last night, using four different pieces of scrap dough for lamination. I think two of the pieces of dough were scraps of scraps of Giordano's style dough (yes, scraps of scraps), and I think the other two pieces of dough were Tommy's scraps (which I thought were Giordano's style scraps when I took them out of the fridge). I flattened each piece of dough by hand and dipped one side of each piece into a bowl of flour, then stacked the pieces in this order: Tommy's/Giordano's/Tommy's/Giordano's (or possibly the opposite order). Rolled without bench flour until the dough was about TF=0.105, then formed it to fit the pan and trimmed. Cheese, pepperoni, sauce. Baked 25 minutes at 450.

I took some pictures, but I haven't processed them yet. Not sure if the pics show anything relevant, but I'm sure Nate will probably want to see them, since I used four laminates.

Also, I received a little gift from someone yesterday. It was a message that contained some information about Giordano's dough and sauce from the mid-70s. I have every reason to believe it's real/reliable. The information suggests that the hydration for their dough, at least in that era, was around 58%, rather than the 48% I've found seems to work well (which is based entirely on contemporary Giordano's videos). Also, the cake yeast percentage was very low (like 0.22%), which translates to about 0.07% IDY. That's tiny, and it suggests to me that, if correct, they probably used to make dough in the evening and let it ferment at room temperature all night for use all day the next day.

Aside from those two things, the formula is very similar to what I've been using. One notable exception: The info I received suggests there was about 1.25% sugar in the dough. And even though the list of ingredients Peter received from Giordano's a few years ago doesn't list sugar, it's not hard for me to believe that there is sugar in their dough. All you have to do is compare the color of my crust to the color of their crust. Excluding my first one (which contained 2% sugar), my attempted clones have been much whiter than most pictures of Giordano's pizzas.

The fat percentage in this new information was almost identical to what I've been using (though in a different form), as was the salt percentage. Also, it mentioned Ceresota flour.

So there appears to be three main differences between my dough and Giordano's dough from the mid-70s: Giordano's apparently used considerably more water, considerably less yeast, and some sugar. I feel very confident speculating that their dough's yeast percentage has increased significantly since then, for many reasons. I also feel pretty confident speculating that their dough's hydration percentage has decreased considerably since then. I don't think the sugar discrepancy is a big deal, so I will add maybe 1% sugar to my next batch of dough.

[pythonic]

Making the pizza tomorrow night.  58%?  wow that is high.  What tips did u receive about the sauce?

[Aimless Ryan]

One thing I forgot to mention: It says unsalted butter was used to grease the pans. There's no point in me continuing to be obstinate about that, so I guess I'll use unsalted butter next time.

I haven't really looked over the sauce stuff yet, and I'm about to head out for a while (for a AAA baseball game). I'll try to respond to your question as soon as I can.

[pythonic]

I'd be interested in hearing about your source since supposedly only 2-3 people in the country supposedly know these secret recipes.  The sauce is just as important as the dough imo since again nobody's tastes like it.

[Garvey]

It's hard enough to clone pizzas as they exist now, let alone some mythical formulation from 40 years ago that is currently made in exactly zero restaurants.  Yowza.  Good luck with that!

58% is silly high.  I'm guessing that this was when they were a single location, and all pizzas were made by hand by Old Man Giordano himself?

Nate, what's different about the sauce?  Has anyone come close in reverse engineering it?

[Pete-zza]

Garvey,

I hear you and appreciate that things change with the passage of time but who is to say that the old Giordano's recipes aren't better than the recipes used today? Over the years I have seen a decline in the quality of pizzas produced by chains and independents alike. I think it would be interesting for Ryan to try the old Giordano's recipes to see what they produce. They apparently were the recipes that gave birth to the Giordano's enterprise.

I'm not sure that a hydration of 58% is necessarily a barrier to success, especially if the fat content is on the low side as Ryan has reported.  Also, the Ceresota flour, with a protein content of 12% (according to Hecker's/Ceresota), should be able to handle that combination. I don't know if dough rollers/sheeters were used by Giordano's back in the '70s, but that equipment has been around since the 1920s. I have spoken to sales people at Anets (now part of Middleby-Marshall) and Somerset and they told me that their machines can handle high-hydration and high-oil doughs if the dough balls are dusted with bench flour and the machines are cleaned on a regular basis.

Peter

[pythonic]

It's hard enough to clone pizzas as they exist now, let alone some mythical formulation from 40 years ago that is currently made in exactly zero restaurants.  Yowza.  Good luck with that!

58% is silly high.  I'm guessing that this was when they were a single location, and all pizzas were made by hand by Old Man Giordano himself?

Nate, what's different about the sauce?  Has anyone come close in reverse engineering it?

To me and many others Giordano's has the best sauce of all the Chicago deep dish/stuffed pies.  It also ties together their pizza perfectly.  I swear there is green pepper flavor in there but I guess I'll never know.  Definitely basil and garlic too.

[pythonic]

Garvey,

I hear you and appreciate that things change with the passage of time but who is to say that the old Giordano's recipes aren't better than the recipes used today? Over the years I have seen a decline in the quality of pizzas produced by chains and independents alike. I think it would be interesting for Ryan to try the old Giordano's recipes to see what they produce. They apparently were the recipes that gave birth to the Giordano's enterprise.

I'm not sure that a hydration of 58% is necessarily a barrier to success, especially if the fat content is on the low side as Ryan has reported.  Also, the Ceresota flour, with a protein content of 12% (according to Hecker's/Ceresota), should be able to handle that combination. I don't know if dough rollers/sheeters were used by Giordano's back in the '70s, but that equipment has been around since the 1920s. I have spoken to sales people at Anets (now part of Middleby-Marshall) and Somerset and they told me that their machines can handle high-hydration and high-oil doughs if the dough balls are dusted with bench flour and the machines are cleaned on a regular basis.

Peter

The dough is spinnable.  Can u do that with a low hydration dough?  That was my reasoning for pointing that out.  I wanted people to think about the hydration level more.

[Chicago Bob]

The dough is spinnable.  Can u do that with a low hydration dough?  That was my reasoning for pointing that out.  I wanted people to think about the hydration level more.