Gumbawill's N.Y. style sourdough saga 2019

[GumbaWill]

Y
Can I ask you your formula, fermentation time/temp? How do you achieve your consistent roundness and thinness?

Thanks for my next inspiration

Sapp

Good morning, sapp.

 This is the formula I have settled on, I changed the amount of C.Y a couple of times. Other than that it is still pretty much the wild yeast formula. If you know bakers % you can scale it to as many balls as you wish. Alternatively, plug the numbers into the pizza calculator. Using the Bosch universal and a one-hour flour and water autolyze. I mix it up for around ten minutes. By then it has some good gluten development, but not fully developed. The fermentation is easy. I scale by weighing the dough then I divide by the number of balls. once scaled and balled, as fast as I can I wrap in plastic wrap and then a freezer bag and into the freezer. The night before baking I put the ball in the refrigerator. In the summer, I was shaping right out of the refrigerator. Now I am giving it one hour bench rest at room temperature. For shaping, I watched this video about 10,000 times so far. (I still go back to it now and again, if I start getting sloppy.) Perfect roundness I do the final shaping on an 18" pizza screen. Even a blind man could get it round.
I hope that is helpful for you.
P.S. the instant Dry Yeast is .25%

 Best,
 Will F.

[Sapp]

Will,

That video is awesome and thanks for taking time to pass on your knowledge. Love that you still add a little whole grain. Im a masochist so I will probably up the % just to make my dough harder to make.

 A few more questions when you get a chance:
1. You didn’t mention any particular fermentation time other than the autolyse period. Is that correct? Can I follow the Forum charts for varying yeast for time and temperature fermentation?
2. If you use All Trumps do you skip the DM ?
3. I’ve never used a screen. Do you cook in the oven right on the screen? What temperature and what rack?

Can’t wait to try this when I get back from visiting latest granddaughter in Ohio

Thanks,
Sapp

[GumbaWill]

Will,



 A few more questions when you get a chance:
1. You didn’t mention any particular fermentation time other than the autolyze period. Is that correct? Can I follow the Forum charts for varying yeast for time and temperature fermentation?
2. If you use All Trumps do you skip the DM?
3. I’ve never used a screen. Do you cook in the oven right on the screen? What temperature and what rack?


Thanks,
Sapp

Hi sapp.
 
1. The procedure I gave you is exactly how I prepare my dough. Some fermentation happens on the bench while I am weighing, separating, and wrapping. Then continues until the dough drops below 39 F in the freezer. (at a slower and slower rate until frozen)
My refrigerator is at about 41F, so fermentation will begin again at a slow rate when the dough warms to 41F. This is my procedure, it works for me under my specific circumstances. Your results may vary and need to be tweaked.
2. Sorry not sure what DM stands for? I only used the All Trumps this last time, worked a treat. Not sure I will go out of my way to get non-bromated. I will stick with K.A.
3. I have a 16" round steel on the lowest rack in my oven. I shape and cook on the screen centered as best I can on the 16" steel.
My oven temperature is set as high as it goes 550. This is a brand new oven, I have not checked the actual temperature it reaches. It is way hotter than my old oven.  Where it would take 12 minutes or so to cook a well-done pie. Now takes a flat Ten minutes. I am certain the difference is in the insulation of the new oven.

 Edited to add.
I just add the diastatic malt. I am 99% all the flour I have been using is already malted. I just 1% anyway. It started bak in the sourdough days when I was having trouble with the browning.

[Sapp]

Thanks Will. I will invest in some screens and a steel.

The DM was Diastatic Malt, I didn’t know if it was redundant given the use of a bromated flour.

Thanks again for all your help. I’m ready to start experimenting!

[GumbaWill]

Thanks Will. I will invest in some screens and a steel.

The DM was Diastatic Malt, I didn’t know if it was redundant given the use of a bromated flour.

Thanks again for all your help. I’m ready to start experimenting!

Yes, I figured that out and edited it above. I am pretty sure all the flour I use is malted. I  add 1% anyway.

[GumbaWill]

I finally had some time to make a batch of sauce. For a hot minute, I toyed with the idea of adding copious amounts of sugar. Then I rethought. The last thing I need is more sugar in my diet. I stuck what we like, Basil for sweetness, anchovy in lieu of salt, and for a touch of depth. The next bake will be Friday Margarita. The yield from the #10 can, 13 8oz. servings.

 

[GumbaWill]

Friday night/pizza night.

Tonight we have, Margareta pizza pie with fresh mozzarella from Murry's cheese, (gift certificate) Parmigiano black olives roasted red peppers with fresh basil and dried oregano. You know reading these comments about is or is not oregano a NY slice herb, I remember oregano flavor very well, from back in the day in Canarsie. Nowadays, not so much. Times and tastes change I guess.
 Now without further ado, I submit, one heck of a nice pizza!

[GumbaWill]

I don't think too many would argue with the convenience of having a couple of 4 or 6 pizza dough balls in the freezer.

 This dough ball has already defrosted cold and slow for 24 hrs. Some evidence of fermentation activity is evident. Tonight's bake is scheduled to start at 5:00 PM. At 3:00 PM the dough ball will be removed from the cooler, for two-hour bench rest. I have noticed a slowing of the cold pizza dough fermentation, now that I was able to drop my refrigerator temperature to 41F. I may have to consider, A. Longer bench rest. B. 48 hour cold defrost/ferment. I was not 100% happy with the oven spring of my last pie.

[GumbaWill]

Meat lovers pizza.
This one came out over the moon good! I think this could be my signature pie!

[billg]

Great Pie!!!!!!

[Sapp]

Today was going to be my first attempt at creating the “Gumbawill Home NY pizza”. My plan was to replicate your results and then start dialing up the whole grain to 20% and eventually trying natural starter. 

Bought a small quantity of rebagged AllTrumps (unbleached/unbromated), followed the recipe with the important exception that I was not planning on freezing and dethawing. My most common pizza process is 48 hours at 55 degrees because my wine room is like my walk in fridge. I dialed back the IDY from 4g to .5g per the usually reliable CY fermentation table. I ordered screens and a steel. Of course, the seller chose USPS and they are delayed. The real issue is that my dough is a flat  and sticky manhole cover. I did the 1 hour autolyse and cumulative mixing time as I added dry ingredients and final mix was 10 minutes. The resulting dough ball was pretty nice... fully hydrated and well developed gluten. I did a 1 hour RT rest, balled and into the wine room.

I don’t know where I went wrong but I am going to try to rescue it with a reball this afternoon and cook it anyway to see what happens.

The two pictures attached are a common dough following my yeast adjusted 48 hour fermentation versus  the current effort.

Advice appreciated.

[Pete-zza]

Sapp,

It might have been the one hour autolyse and the one hour rest period that were responsible for the slackness in the dough that you experienced. In making this statement, I am assuming that you used only the flour and water in the autolyse and no yeast (unless it is a small amount of wild yeast) and no salt, both of which are added after the autolyse period in the classic sense as contemplated by Prof. Raymond Calvel who was the father of the autolyse method.

By way of background, classic autolyse periods in a professional environment, such as making bread dough, the autolyse periods are very short, in the order of minutes, even for amounts of dough that can weigh 75 pounds and maybe even more. During the autolyse period, protease enzymes in the dough work to dismantle the gluten structure. And, a lot of degradation of the dough can take place if the autolyse rest period is too long. The additional one hour rest period before putting the dough into your wine unit will also allow the inception of fermentation to shorten the intended life span of the dough.

You might find these two posts of interest in connection with the above brief discussion:

Reply 15 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=3220.msg74624#msg74624, and

Reply 7 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=8576.msg74242#msg74242

If all of the above applies to your dough, you might try shortening the autolyse and rest periods or possibly use less yeast, or maybe a combination of both. Adding the yeast very late in the process of kneading the dough, or using colder water, may also work.

I look forward to your final results.

Peter

[Sapp]

Thanks Pete. I’m going to start a new thread to get out of Will’s swim lane.

[GumbaWill]

Friday night at the Falzon House.