Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza

[norma427]

This is a different way I started making pinwheels from the preferment Lehmann dough at market.  I used to cut a roll and then placed the cut pieces face-up on a parchment paper in a baking pan (so they would look like pinwheels), but started a few weeks ago to place the cut pieces different.  There are still called pizza pinwheels, but don’t really look like pinwheels anymore.  A regular preferment Lehmann dough ball is first floured, then rolled out with a rolling pin into a rectangular shape, then one side of the skin is brushed with herb infused garlic oil, then a little sauce is applied to the other side, pepperoni are placed on top of the sauce, then some mozzarella is sprinkled before rolling a cutting. The tops of the pizza pinwheels are then cut with a scissors, and brushed with the same herb infused garlic oil before the bake. I don’t have the pizza pinwheels uniform in shape yet, but am working on it.

I am also working on long breadsticks from the preferment Lehmann dough, but don’t have them right yet, so I will post about them later.

Norma

[norma427]

I decided Friday to make a little extra dough for tomorrow because it is supposed to be nice weather in our area.  I have noticed before when making enough preferment for one dough ball, or even five dough balls, the preferment never bubbles the same as a larger batch of preferment over a three day period.  I decided last Friday to take pictures today just to show how a large batch of preferment ferments in the same time as a small batch of preferment.  It can been seen on the pictures that the large batch does get a lot more big bubbles than the smaller batch.  I guess even a preferment does cold ferment better than a smaller preferment something like the mass effect in larger dough amounts.

Norma

[norma427]

Two pictures to show the one pizza made Tuesday at market.

Norma

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I had wanted to take a video of slicing the preferment Lehmann dough pizzas on Tuesday but my batteries were too low.  This is a bottom crust picture.

Norma

[norma427]

Two more pizzas from Tuesday.

Norma

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Some heart pizzas made with the preferment Lehmann dough today.  The little hearts sold well.

Norma

[norma427]

A few pictures of the pizzas made yesterday.

Norma

[norma427]

I was kind of disappointed that my customers couldn’t tell any differences when I changed from the preferment Lehmann dough to the regular Lehmann dough.  I have been thinking about it some and decided to try out another preferment dough, but to try and cold ferment for 4 days.  I don’t know if I am going about it right, but guess I will see what happens. 

I have also thought over about moving sodas out of my deli case if a preferment dough gives me a better taste in the crust.  I would need that space if I wanted to try and cold ferment dough balls for 4 days.   

I know I probably didn’t go about this right, but used the preferment calculating tool to first get the preferment amount I wanted to try.  The preferment amount I used was 25% of the total flour weight.  I used an IDY amount of 0.25%.  I mixed the preferment (poolish) and put it in my oven with the light on.  It sat there for almost 2 hrs. and looked like it was ready to incorporate into the final dough.  I then used cold water from my refrigerator so the final dough temperature might stay down some, since I want to try and cold ferment the dough ball until Tuesday.  I never thought about the preferment being warm, so I really didn’t get a low final dough temperature.  My final dough temperature was 78.3 degrees F.  I think that was too high for a 4 day cold ferment.  I probably should have used some ice also.  I used 0.36 grams of added IDY in my final dough.  I also think I should have used less IDY in my final dough.  I did use 1% sugar in the formulation.  Kyrol flour was used in the formulation.

I will see what happens, but don’t think this experiment will work out.   

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Essen1]

A few pictures of the pizzas made yesterday.

Norma

Norma,

Kick-ass pies, as usual! They look fantastic!! 

[norma427]

Norma,

Kick-ass pies, as usual! They look fantastic!! 

Thanks Mike!    Those pies were made awhile ago. 

I really don't know if I will be able to make 4 days cold fermented preferment dough balls in a market situation with all the swings in temperatures.  I thought I would give it a go since the weather is getting cooler.  I would like to do a 2 or 3 day cold ferment, but that isn't possible.  Four days is a stretch, especially since I won't be able to watch what happens with the dough balls for two days.

Norma   

[norma427]

If anyone is interested, this is the work sheet for the dough I made yesterday.  The pictures of the dough ball are when the dough ball was about 21 hrs old.  I really don’t think this dough ball will last until Tuesday. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

This is what the preferment dough ball looks like after about 48 hours cold fermentation, if anyone is interested.

Norma

[norma427]

The preferment dough ball that was mixed on Friday still looks okay at 12:05 pm today.  Hopefully, it will still be okay tomorrow.  I didn’t think about it when I formed the dough ball, but should have used the “poppy seed trick” to see how much it really fermented.  I took the temperature in my fridge where the dough ball has been cold fermenting this morning and it was 41.8 degrees F.

Norma

[norma427]

The four day old preferment Lehmann dough worked out okay, but I think I added too much yeast to the final dough, or either my final dough temperature was too high.  There was a bubble starting to form in the top of the dough ball before it was left to warm-up.  The dough ball was then left to warm-up for 2 hrs at room temperatures.  The dough ball was very easy to open. 

The taste of the crust was very good from the 4 day cold ferment, but I didn’t think there was enough rim crust browning and there was a little to much bottom rim crust charring.  The rim crust was moist.  The bottom rim crust charring wasn’t noticeable when tasting the pizza, but I don’t like that much edge rim crust browning.  Also the pizza wanted to bubble a little in the middle of the pizza during the bake.  I don’t know why that was since the dough ball was warm-up enough.  I also didn’t think the rim was brown enough in some places, even though I did add some sugar to the formulation. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

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Norma