Pete-zza's Papa John's Clone Pizza

[Pete-zza]

Was anyone able to save the document from here? Looks like you now need to login to see the doc   

djTaroBaap,

Unfortunately, it looks like the document is no longer available without having to log in. I also checked the Wayback Machine to see if the document was archived there, and, unfortunately, it is not.

Peter

[jsant09]

Decided to take a try at this. Used the measurements for a 2-day cold ferment, but really ended up being about 60 hours. Came out fairly well for my first attempt at this recipe and only 5th total attempt at making homemade pizza. My wife still says she prefers actual PJs lol, and she's right in that it did not quite have the same taste. I didn't attempt to clone the sauce or cheese, so that definitely had something to do with it. But dough wise, it was missing the depth of that even browning, could use just a bit more crunch, and actually tasted just a tad too sweet by my recollection of PJ dough, but could be wrong of course. To try and get it closer to PJs dough, I'm thinking I should try using soybean oil instead of olive oil, but not entirely sure how to get more browning on the dough using this pizza steel. As for my method, I did: 1 minute on middle rack topped with sauce only, then 3 min on middle rack with the rest of the toppings toppings, at this point it wasn't browning at all so I took it out and tried dusting off the excess flour from the crust, put it back in for another 3 min on the most bottom rack (now the crust started looking better and cheese was still not burning), then I decided to finish it off for 1:30 min on broil and that really brought it all together for the finished product pictured below.

Flour (100%): 508.94 g
Water (56%): 285 g
ADY (.42%): 2.14 g
Salt (1.9%): 9.66 g
Olive Oil (5.55%): 28.25 g
Sugar (4.2%): 21.37 g

Dough temp was 73.2F and weighed 566 grams (19.96 oz).

[Pete-zza]

jsanto09,

All things considered I think you did reasonably well. However, can you tell me which of the versions of PJ clones I came up with you used to make your pizza? Also, can you tell me what type and brand of flour you used? And did you prehydrate the ADY in a small amount of water at around 105 degrees F for about ten minutes?

It is also important to know that many of the versions of the PJ clone doughs that I came up with were intended to cut short the amount of time it takes to make pizzas. My goal with these versions was to try to come as close as I could to the real thing but there are likely to be some differences. If one wants to try my "closest" clone, the dough formulation to use is the one given at Reply 2 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg58197#msg58197

The version given in Reply 2 calls for several days of cold fermentation. Also, I later learned that PJ uses more sugar than soybean oil but if you do not like sweetness in the finished crust, the sugar quantity can be reduced. But you can see that sugar is before the soybean oil in the ingredients statement given at the PJ website at https://www.papajohns.com/company/papa-johns-ingredients.html, which means that there is actually more sugar than soybean oil in the PJ dough. This was confirmed to me by an employee in the PJ R&D department. This led to me altering one of my clone dough formulations at Reply 585 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg273667.html#msg273667

You will also note that the oil that PJ uses is soybean oil. For a while, PJ used a bit of olive oil but it was last in the ingredients statement, which meant that there was less olive oil than any other ingredient by weight. I wrote about such use at Reply 1193 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg484591;topicseen#msg484591

It looks like PJ stopped using the olive oil. It is also possible that other changes have been made since Papa John's has recently undergone major management changes.

As you know, I have used a pizza screen to make my PJ clone pizzas in my standard electric home oven. That is because PJ uses pizza screens (or perforated disks in some of its stores). There have been a few members who have used baking steels but that method is likely to produce different results that I achieved with my pizza screen and home oven.

In your case, if you decide to try a PJ clone dough again I would go with soybean (vegetable) oil if you are striving for a credible clone.

Peter

[naval2006]

Hi,

Last night I finally made the reply 20 recipe to a t with AP flour.  Overall I'm pleased with the outcome even though I personally felt the high amount of oil effect on the pie.  I baked straight on the steel plate and the weight of the dough and cheese were exactly as in the recipe.  No pepperoni this time.  I think it was a bit too much time on the steel (like 6 min) plus 5 minutes on upper rack at 500 in gas oven.
 
The dough weighed 512 grams.  I thought it was going to be focaccia thick on a 14" pizza, since my pizza balls are usually 380 grams.  But in fact I found out that thickness was ok and center to edge there was an evenness not so frequent in thin pizza stretched by hand.

  If I may, I would cut down on the oil and went down on TF from the 0.12 I applied to 0.10 and I think I could have a total winner even though I'd be departing from the original goal. 

Thank you very much Peter for sharing so much info and teaching us all along.

Cheers,

Alex

[Pete-zza]

Alex,

All things considered, I think you did a very nice job.

As for the oil, I originally was given non-public information by Papa John's that led me to believe that there was more sugar than oil in their basic dough. But I could not confirm the fact from my analysis of PJ nutrition information and other public information. It was only much later that I was able to confirm that there was in fact more sugar than oil in the PJ dough. I learned this in a conversation I had with a gal in the PJ R&D department on an unrelated matter. Armed with that information, I then proceeded to revise the dough formulation that I originally posted in Reply 20 (https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg59217#msg59217) that you used as a basis for making your pizza. I edited Reply 20 to refer to the post at Reply 585 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg273667.html#msg273667

As you will note from Reply 585, I reduced the amount of oil and increased the amount of sugar. I also made a few other changes, including lowering the thickness factor. It is possible that because you used all purpose flour rather than a high gluten flour you may have detected the oil more so than if you had used a more flavorful flour such as a higher protein flour that would have muted the oil taste somewhat.

You should of course feel free to modify the dough formulation at Reply 585 to reduce the amount of oil even further. Some have mildly complained that there is also too much sugar in the formulation, and if you fell likewise, you can always lower the amount of sugar also. You can also reduce the thickness factor even further. However, to be consistent with what PJ does, you may want to maintain a dough ball weight of 20 ounces for a 14" pizza. But even that is up to you.

Peter

[naval2006]

Alex,

All things considered, I think you did a very nice job.

As for the oil, I originally was given non-public information by Papa John's that led me to believe that there was more sugar than oil in their basic dough. But I could not confirm the fact from my analysis of PJ nutrition information and other public information. It was only much later that I was able to confirm that there was in fact more sugar than oil in the PJ dough. I learned this in a conversation I had with a gal in the PJ R&D department on an unrelated matter. Armed with that information, I then proceeded to revise the dough formulation that I originally posted in Reply 20 (https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg59217#msg59217) that you used as a basis for making your pizza. I edited Reply 20 to refer to the post at Reply 585 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg273667.html#msg273667

As you will note from Reply 585, I reduced the amount of oil and increased the amount of sugar. I also made a few other changes, including lowering the thickness factor. It is possible that because you used all purpose flour rather than a high gluten flour you may have detected the oil more so than if you had used a more flavorful flour such as a higher protein flour that would have muted the oil taste somewhat.

You should of course feel free to modify the dough formulation at Reply 585 to reduce the amount of oil even further. Some have mildly complained that there is also too much sugar in the formulation, and if you fell likewise, you can always lower the amount of sugar also. You can also reduce the thickness factor even further. However, to be consistent with what PJ does, you may want to maintain a dough ball weight of 20 ounces for a 14" pizza. But even that is up to you.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks a lot for your feedback. Next week I’ll go with the 585 recipe again to a T. I remember from my times in NC that Papa Johns dough was way sweeter than the pies I baked last night. I’ll bake a couple of spare pies to try out oven time and temp. And my sister who lived in Wichita, KS is so keen on my baking Papa Johns or Dominos for an American pizza revival that I’m now running out of excuses LOL.

Alex

[naval2006]

Hi,

This was las night’s 585 recipe. Baked 5 minutes on steel plate, I brushed rim with sunflower oil and back on top rack for another 5 minutes. Gas oven at 515º. 3 day CF. This attempt was better than the first one I think. I didn’t dare to make the sauce so sweet. I should have LOL.

Alex

[Pete-zza]

Hi,

This was las night’s 585 recipe. Baked 5 minutes on steel plate, I brushed rim with sunflower oil and back on top rack for another 5 minutes. Gas oven at 515º. 3 day CF. This attempt was better than the first one I think. I didn’t dare to make the sauce so sweet. I should have LOL.

Alex

Alex,

You did a nice job with the pizza, and since you used a steel plate that might help others who would also like to use a steel plate. I used a screen because I was trying to do the things that Papa John's did. I think that the PJ clone doughs are easy to use, and are good choices for newbies to start with. However, the hardest PJ clone dough to recreate in a home setting is the one at Reply 2 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg58197#msg58197 since that dough has to be able to survive about 5-8 days of cold fermentation. That can be hard to do with refrigerator doors opening and closing all the time in a typical home family setting.

Peter

[tennisman03110]

I made this dough last week, with KASL, as written in reply 585.

My final dough weight per ball was 13 ounces, and initially I wanted to make about 12 inch pizzas (.115 TF). As life goes, I didn't get to make these until day 3. The dough was quite bubbly (some big bubbles) and after sitting on my counter for an hour, it was practically 12" already.

Trying to actually stretch or form into a circle was difficult. I got the skin on the screen fine, but the dough got even larger in the transfer. The pizzas were all about 14 or 15 inches, very thin. No tears, but it was too extensible. Almost like strong goo(?).

Made the dough again today. Followed the formula exactly, made (2) dough balls at 15 ounces each. Plan is to cook these Friday evening. A few questions.

1) The dough balls are super soft. Even after forming and trying to pull tight, that seemed to flatten a bit. Is this normal?

2) Should I expect a little more dough strength at two days? I'd like to have some control in how I form the dough. If I watch the Papa Johns video back from page 1, there's no way I could do that to my dough (at 3 days).

3) I'll only have a pizza pan, perforated bottom this time. Not a screen. Any differences there in cooking?

I made the sauce clone also on this forum (reply 30 from the sauce topic), and while my final pie wasn't authentic Papa Johns (thickness a big factor), it was good.

Thanks!

[Pete-zza]

tennisman03110,

It sounds like you may have slightly overfermented the dough and that increased the extensibility of the dough and the skin you made from it.

As for your latest batch using two 15-ounce doughs, you might experience some flattening of the dough balls. If you made roughly 20-ounce dough balls as contemplated by the dough formulation at Reply 585 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg273667#msg273667, the flattening might have been less. You will have to see if the smaller dough balls you made also have increased extensibility.

The video you mentioned was respect to PJ's commissary based dough that was created to last from about 5-8 days of cold fermentation. So, your dough will not perform the same way as shown in the video.

As for your use of a perforated pizza pan, that is an alternative that many PJ pizza operators now use in their conveyor ovens. When I tried using a perforated pan for test purposes in my home oven, I was not satisfied. In my case, a pizza screen worked better. Remember, a perforated pizza pan has to get up to a certain temperature before the pizza can start to bake. By contrast, a pizza screen has less mass and a more open structure, so the pizza should bake faster than when using a perforated pan.

I wish you luck with your latest effort. Please feel free to report back on your results.

Peter

[Chicago Bob]

Tennis dude...I would try reballing these the night before you plan to make your pizza.   

Also, leave in frig until about about 30 min before stretching.

[tennisman03110]

Interesting, I always assumed final dough size was somewhat irrelevant, as long as you follow the formulas. Maybe I should try a 21 ounce dough for comparison.

On re-balling (which would be tonight) is that to add some elasticity and develop gluten strength? Less time on the counter also seems like it might be smart, with smaller dough balls.

To add intrigue, my girlfriend will be taking these to her parents, but I won't be able to attend. I hope to give her something good to work with.

[Chicago Bob]

On re-balling (which would be tonight) is that to add some elasticity and develop gluten strength? Less time on the counter also seems like it might be smart, with smaller dough balls.

yep

[hopcrazybob]

Thanks for all the info, over the last few days I made a four day 60% dough using your basic recipe that came out well. I broke in my as yet unfinished wood fired outdoor oven for it's first run and next go'round I'll get the temp up a bit more, it took 6.5 minutes to cook and while tender I would prefer a little more crispy on the edges. I keep telling my wife to lean up the toppings but....50% 00 & 50% KABF 12.7%

[Highsinger]

I made your two-day version from Reply #20 last Friday (well, Wednesday for dinner Friday). I should have taken pictures! I had to make a couple adjustments because:
1. I needed to make three 14" pizzas, so I tripled the recipe, dividing into three dough balls when I took it out of the fridge Friday afternoon.
2. I have ADY that I need to use up, so I used the conversion rate of 133%. Then, though, I hesitated to triple this ingredient. I ended up using a teaspoon, just over twice the amount. (In hindsight, I think tripling would have been fine.)
3. I really tried to resist this one, but the dough just seemed too dry (my KitchenAid froze up), so I added 40g of water.
4. I par baked the crusts. The house we bought has a convection oven with the heat coming from the back, not the bottom. So, par baking the crusts is the only way I can get them browned. (The grill has been another option, but I'm trying to learn how to better use this oven.)
Lately, the three pizzas I've been typically making are a BBQ Chicken, a Meat Lovers', and a slightly spicier Meat Lovers', and that's what I made last week. (I could elaborate on these if anyone is curious.)
Overall, I was REALLY happy with this crust. It had just a little crunch on the outside, and was sweet and chewy inside. Judging from your pictures, mine seemed to have more oven spring. Even the center was really light and airy (very possibly from the par baking).
If I could tweak it, I might want to see if I could get a SLIGHTLY thinner version. I definitely wouldn't want it thicker than this. I don't think that just decreasing the dough would do that though, because it seemed like 14" was the max that I could stretch the dough to.
Anyway, I'm super new here and would appreciate any advice. I've been playing at this for a while and had some success, but I have you to thank for the best crust I've made yet. Thank you!

[Pete-zza]

Highsinger,

I believe that this is the PJ clone version that you used for a two-day cold fermented version:

Reply 20 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg59217#msg59217

I think that there are a couple of things that you might try. For example, you might use the chart that member Craig produced to get a good starting point on the amount of yeast. That chart is at Reply 188 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,26831.msg349349.html#msg349349 (click to enlarge)

Secondly, you might try reducing the thickness factor a bit, for example, to 0.12992. That is a value that I later concluded was perhaps a more accurate value. You might want to try two experiments, one with the adjusted ADY amount and the other with the lower thickness factor. That way, you can see what each experiment did what to your dough.

I can't speak to the issue of par-baking the crusts. So, you may have to tweak the values of ingredients until you achieve the desired final results.

Peter

[Highsinger]

Thanks, Pete! You are right on. I had seen some conversion rates, but that chart is golden! I am going to try the ADY adjustment this week, and see how that goes.
I kinda think that the par-baking is less than ideal, but a necessary compromise in my case. It's working pretty well, though. On another thread, a guy with an oven like mine has had success with a baking steel, so I may give that a shot down the road.

[medo]

is it possible to make this with 00flour and bake it on a hot oven 550F?

[Pete-zza]

is it possible to make this with 00flour and bake it on a hot oven 550F?

medo,

I do not recall anyone trying 00 flour for a PJ clone. So the only way to know if it will work is to give it a try. However, you might blend the 00 with another flour of higher protein content if such a flour is available to you.

If you decide to proceed, feel free to let us know of your results.

Peter

[brijaco]

On a whim I ended up doing about a 12 inch same day version of this dough, with a few adjustments of my own. I didn't expect it to be anything special but I was really impressed with the flavor of the dough, and everyone loved it. I liked it too, and maybe I'm just being nitpicky but I wasn't happy with how the toppings browned.

I'm always hesitant to put it on broil because the cheese gets scabby and I find it over browns and dries out the crust so in the last few minutes of cooking I just put the pizza on the top rack of my oven but that didn't do much browning. Is there a solution to this, I'd love to be able to emulate the burnt blistering you see at pizzerias and the char you get on the toppings without overcooking everything if that makes sense. Would a pizza stone above the pizza while its cooking help or would the heat not be direct enough? Any help would be appreciated. Oh and here's the pizza, again turned out good just no browning on the toppings