100% White Whole Wheat Margherita

[jurgie54]

I took a shot at making 100% white whole wheat dough with the following formulation:

500 gram Kroger white whole wheat flour (100%)
400 gram water (80%)
16 gram Morton's fine sea salt (3.2%)
2 gram Fleischmann's Bread Machine Yeast (0.4%)
18 gram Hodgson Mill VWG (3.6%)

I used Jim Lahey's no knead method with a little extra hydration to compensate for the VWG.  After mixing by hand I let the dough rise overnight for ~12-14 hours.  After the intial rise I punched down divded the dough in to two (2) balls -- one was frozen for future use, and one was left to rise in the fridge for 3 days.

The dough pretty easily stretched to a 14" disc, which I then topped with garlic-infused EVOO, mozzarella, roma tomatoes, and fresh basil.  It was cooked for 7 minutes in a 550F electric convection oven with the broiler, oven rack in the middle position.  The cooking dish was a Emile Henry pizza stone.  The cooked dough turned out pretty light with what I believe is a decent rise for whole wheat flour.  The next time I may leave it in for a minute longer for slightly more crust browning and may attempt to leave out the VWG and see if i get comprable rise.

[barryvabeach]

Looks good to me.  While there are conflicting opinions,  I have read the main benefit of VWG is it keeps  dough from collapsing as it proofs -   and while it is baking, so I don't think it would be of much help with pizza.  I don't use it in pizza dough, but use it on occasion on long fermentation breads.

[skmoreno]

I noticed you freeze your dough for future use. How do you thaw/prep your dough from the freezer before baking?

thanks!

[c0mpl3x]

imo you can let the dough rest longer, use 1/4 the yeast, and skip the VWG. do some stretch and fold (think of folding the dough on the lines of a tic tac toe grid, rest 20-30min, repeat 2-3 times. ball, proof or freeze. continue as normal. i think you'll get the crust and crumb you are looking for.

and lastly, try scaling down that recipe 20% to 400g flour and you should get a thinner, not so 'brick' crust.

[barryvabeach]

I am not Jurgie, but I freeze pizza dough pretty regularly.  I take it out of the freezer the day before I plan to use it and put it in the refrig.   By the next day, it is at refrig temp, and I take it out of the fridge an hour or two before I want to bake.