Baker's yeast quantity prediction model - please compare to your results

[TXCraig1]

You guys are too kind.

[quixoteQ]

All right, this post probably won't mean anything to anyone, since I used more IDY than any of the figures in this model, but I would really like to see more photos of people's dough and how they match up with the predictions.

From mix to bake, this batch sat for 75 hrs: bulk, 24 hrs, CF at 39-40F; balled, 47 hrs, CF at 39-40F; 4 hrs, room temp. at 70F.

KABF
Room temp. water 61%
IDY .2%
Total weight: 1543.16 grams
Ball: 385.79 g

Pics: fridge temp., two dough balls after 71 hrs CF, and 4 hrs later before opening.

[juniorballoon]

Your dough looks very similar to mine at each of those stages. Very little activity in the fridge. Nicely risen after 4 hours at room temp.

jb

[quixoteQ]

Your dough looks very similar to mine at each of those stages. Very little activity in the fridge. Nicely risen after 4 hours at room temp.

jb

What's interesting to me is that when I used the final two dough balls today (five days), I took photos again: once when I took them out of the fridge, and again four hours later right before the bake.  There was certainly more activity in the dough, but much less than I expected given the two extra CF days.

The pies were great. The flavor was tasty but the texture was nearly perfect.  The bite had a great crisp to it but the crust itself was extremely light.  Opening the dough was a pleasure, too.

First pic is just after removing the dough from the fridge, the other four hours later after resting at room temperature.

[TXCraig1]

What's interesting to me is that when I used the final two dough balls today (five days), I took photos again: once when I took them out of the fridge, and again four hours later right before the bake.  There was certainly more activity in the dough, but much less than I expected given the two extra CF days.

Experience is key to great pizza. There are probably many recipes that make OK pizza without much effort - but if you want great pizza, you will have to tweak and experiment. There are way too many important variables that differ meaningfully from personal situation to personal situation.

It's entirely possible that the table in this thread predicts too few fermentation hours at cold temps. The refrigerated fermentation data I had to work with is wildly inconsistent. I'll take a look at it again in the coming weeks.

[quixoteQ]

Experience is key to great pizza. There are probably many recipes that make OK pizza without much effort - but if you want great pizza, you will have to tweak and experiment. There are way too many important variables that differ meaningfully from personal situation to personal situation.

It's entirely possible that the table in this thread predicts too few fermentation hours at cold temps. The refrigerated fermentation data I had to work with is wildly inconsistent. I'll take a look at it again in the coming weeks.

No doubts about that . . . my experience level would be generously titled "rookie" and the few tweaks I have made to my recipes and work flow have very little in the way of variable control.  Heh.  Room temperature is a case example.  I just wanted to post what my dough looked like in the hope of encouraging others to do the same.  I was reading through a few of Jackie Tran's threads, and I saw some pics of what his dough looks like right before opening the balls.  Pretty beautiful.  In the particular thread, he was working with shorter ferment times, but it made me want to see how important those ferment times were.

Hopefully more people will post here.  Thanks again for all your work, Craig.

[ChristianVerschaeren]

Divella 100%
Water 63%
Salt 3%
Cake yeast 0,05% (That's what I went for anyway, might be a bit off)

24 h bulk
25 h balled

[Johnny the Gent]

Dough prepared at 4:00 pm with a RTB (ready to bake) time of 9:00 pm. A couple more hours to go.  I used just a smidgen more CY than suggested because what I have has been in the fridge for about a week, and I was afraid the yeasties may have lost some potency 

Looks good so far. Thanks Craig for the awesome model!

[Johnny the Gent]

Pies came out great! Photos look like they were snapped with a Coke bottle, not sure what's up with my cell phone these days 

[TXCraig1]

Beautiful - love the pepperoni and onion combo.

[cupcake]

This thread is very informative. I just acquired a proper food scale and I now realize that I'm grossly over-fermenting my dough.

Attached is my ball after 46 hours in the fridge with around 1.2% IDY.

My only concern now is that in order to do my 2-pie doughs with the percentages on this table, I have to measure down to fractions of a gram. Which is tricky.

[orangeman1]

I ended up getting a milligram scale and then converted as closely as possible to fractions of a teaspoon which is much easier to use than always weighing on such a sensitive scale.

[TXCraig1]

Say you want 0.1g of yeast and you scale only measures to 1g resolution, dissolve 1g yeast in 99g water and use 10g of the mixture to get 0.1g ~+/- 0.04g

You can increase the accuracy to ~+/-0.004g by using a scale that measures to 0.1g resolution or by dissolving 10g yeast in 990g water and use 10g of the mixture.

Be sure to subtract water in the mixture from formula water.

[cupcake]

Sigh. So many years in university and I still couldn't figure that one out.

Thanks!

[TXCraig1]

Sigh. So many years in university and I still couldn't figure that one out.

Thanks!

Iron sharpens iron.

[waltertore]

I tried Craigs formula yesterday and wasn't sure to post this on the wall of shame or here .  I brought home all the same stuff we use at our bakery/pizzeria- grande whole milk mozz, 7/11 tomatoes, parm reg, fresh basil, and a 20" peel so I could make an 18" pizza.  I made 2 -20oz dough balls and the plan was for a 24 ferment at 70 degrees.  Once I weighed the flour out I used a small scale from work for the yeast, salt, evvo.  Well my scale went south over the summer break.  It would not register a gram until I piled enough on and it read .50grams.  So I had no idea how much yeast,salt,evvo to put in.  The dough called for .17 grams IDY.  I work with dough for pizza and bread everyday so I guesstimated a pinch worth and the same for the salt and evvo.  I finished kneading/balling the dough around 4pm last night.  When I woke up at 7am this morning the dough was already past peak rise, more than doubled in size, and bubbling like crazy.  By the time I set up the home oven with the stone it an hour more passed and the dough had lost all its strength.  I was barely able to shape the dough to get it off the pan it was rising in via very gently scraping it together with lots of bench flour.  From there just moving it to the peel was a major effort.  I very gently hand strectched/shaped it on the peel.  The oven did amazingly good.  I ran it at 525 on the convection setting and the pies came out very nice all things considered.  I ordered a new scale and will definetly try this formula again with a 24 hour rise here at home and in the bakery.  Our house is 700 sq ft.  Judy and I lived most of our life in places this size and on buses when I toured with my music so we are use to a kitchen the size of a public  bathroom stall.  But having such a wonderful space/equipment at work really has spoiled me and I lost my temper working with a 20" peel with a long handle that banged into everything on the counter space which is about as big as 2 pizzas.  It sure is easy to go up and sure is hard to go down in luxury!  The taste of this pizza was passable.  Better than an rt emergency dough but not near as flavorful as a multi day cold ferement in the fridge.  Like I said I didn't know whether to post this here or on the wall of shame   Walter

[JD]

I think a lot of people would be pretty happy with that pizza Walter, all things considered.

I too will be attempting a 24hr room fermented dough, hopefully this weekend. I'm going about it a little differently since accuracy of this tiny amount of yeast is crucial to fermentation.

I figured out the yeast required based on Craig's chart and the dough calculator, and using the yeast + water trick. I'll be using ADY, a room temperature of 75 and 21hrs fermentation. I also calculated the potential error since my scale only measures to the 0.1g. Worst case scenario, I'll be off by a couple hours off peak if I use my numbers. Looking forward to the results.

Craig: Did you develop a bakers yeast calculator similar to your sourdough calculator?

[TXCraig1]

Craig: Did you develop a bakers yeast calculator similar to your sourdough calculator?

Are you talking about this? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuvMQbzk5INUdGZScWx6U2lYSEtZVkJuVGJiR19NaXc#gid=0

Mitch created that if I remember right. I sent him the math behind my table and he converted it into the spreadsheet. To my knowledge nothing similar has been done with the baker's yeast model. The math behind the baker's yeast is a bit different and would make converting it to a similar spreadsheet considerably more difficult. It's not something I see as worth the time or effort.

[JD]

Are you talking about this? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuvMQbzk5INUdGZScWx6U2lYSEtZVkJuVGJiR19NaXc#gid=0

Mitch created that if I remember right. I sent him the math behind my table and he converted it into the spreadsheet. To my knowledge nothing similar has been done with the baker's yeast model. The math behind the baker's yeast is a bit different and would make converting it to a similar spreadsheet considerably more difficult. It's not something I see as worth the time or effort.

No need to create a calculator, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't buried in this thread somewhere already. At my room temp (75), my only options are 28, 19 & 14hrs with nothing in between. I could see myself using this in place of a 24hr cold ferment, but I can probably figure out the in-between numbers by means of extrapolation.

[mitchjg]

Are you talking about this? https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuvMQbzk5INUdGZScWx6U2lYSEtZVkJuVGJiR19NaXc#gid=0

Mitch created that if I remember right. I sent him the math behind my table and he converted it into the spreadsheet. To my knowledge nothing similar has been done with the baker's yeast model. The math behind the baker's yeast is a bit different and would make converting it to a similar spreadsheet considerably more difficult. It's not something I see as worth the time or effort.

Hi:

If I remember correctly, I created it using the math in your model and then you tweaked and cleaned it up a bit.  But, it has been a while.

I did create a similar one for your yeast model.  I use it whenever I use yeast in a dough.  It has been a while since I created it but, if I remember  correctly, it does not "exactly" follow the model but it was the same for all intent and purpose.  I also set it up to interpolate between values in your table.

I will dig it out and send it to you, probably today.  I would like you to review it, etc. before putting it out there. 

- Mitch

PS Craig: just sent you an email with a copy of a spreadsheet.  Will follow up with more for you to check out.  - M