Author Topic: Preferment for Lehmann NY Style Pizza (Read 300442 times)

norma427 · « **Reply #1060 on:** December 16, 2011, 08:22:57 PM »

I am trying this experiment one more time with using ADM Gigantic flour in the preferment and final dough. I mixed the batches of preferments at market again today, and want to see if the preferment becomes watery on the bottom again. The reason I am doing the experiment again is I want to see what made the preferment watery on the bottom, and also to see if less mixing time is a good thing.

Pictures of one preferment after it was mixed today and another picture of the preferment after it was in the Hatco unit at 110 degrees F for 26 minutes. This is usually the way the preferment looks, before it is cold fermented for 3 days.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1061 on:** December 19, 2011, 06:25:22 PM »

The preferment was watery on the bottom just like last week. I don’t know why the preferment would get watery on the bottom, except I am using the ADM Gigantic flour. I had timed the preferment in the Hatco unit the same as I always time the preferment with KASL. I wouldn’t know why a preferment would act different with a bromated flour, but it seems like it did, just from my limited experiments.

I also timed the two mixes of the final dough the same way I did last week. The timed of mixing after the olive oil was added was 5 minutes and then 3 minutes. The final dough doen’t look much different.

The picture are of the preferment how it bubbled until today (it was smaller bubbles than last week), couple of pictures of watery bottom of preferment, the final dough with 5 minutes mix time, one dough ball from the 5 minute mix, 3 minute mix final dough, and 1 dough ball from 3 minute mix.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1062 on:** December 19, 2011, 06:30:31 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1063 on:** December 19, 2011, 06:32:00 PM »

Norma

JimmyG · « **Reply #1064 on:** December 20, 2011, 10:06:06 AM »

Norma,
I may have an answer for you about why the bromated starter is acting up and releasing a lot of water. I dont want to get too biochemical but potassium bromate (KBr) is an oxidizer under standard conditions. Preferments in general have a lower pH than your standard dough, which will speed up the reaction with the KBr, creating water as a byproduct.
BTW love the KABF pie. Looks great.

scott123 · « **Reply #1065 on:** December 20, 2011, 04:15:56 PM »

Jimmy, I'm not sure I agree with you. The acid in preferments, at the beginning of fermentation, is generally gluten strengthening, as is the bromate. The more chemically induced gluten development, the more water is trapped, not less.

If I had to pick a theory, I'd go with the slightly lower protein in the Gigantic is creating a wetter preferment, which, in turn, is driving faster fermentation. Norma, no promises, but I'd try a lower hydration for the preferment. You also might check it at intervals in the Hatco to see if less time might prevent separation.

JimmyG · « **Reply #1066 on:** December 20, 2011, 05:22:16 PM »

Scott,
I am going to have to disagree with you on this point. While it does strengthen dough when it is used straight in regular dough, under more acidic conditions, as with preferment and sour starters, the hydrogen ion concentration will increase and begin to form water as shown by the reaction, 4BrO3 + 6K+ + 6 H+ → 2Br2 + 6K2O +6H2O.

scott123 · « **Reply #1067 on:** December 20, 2011, 05:32:15 PM »

Jimmy, if flour contains 10 parts per million (.001%) bromate, how much water will that yield?

JimmyG · « **Reply #1068 on:** December 20, 2011, 06:20:50 PM »

Scott,
Good question. Do you have any more information as to the quantity they are measuring and I maybe able to work work out a predicted gram amount. Parts per million is kind of a dimensionless unit of measurement e.g. 10 parts per million... per kg of flour, per 100kg of flour, per 10^99 kg of flour, per picogram of flour, etc. However I would need a starting pH value as well. While ten parts per million doesn't sound like much, the amount of water being produced for a given ionic concentration can add up faster than you would think.

norma427 · « **Reply #1069 on:** December 20, 2011, 10:59:45 PM »

Quote from: JimmyG on December 20, 2011, 10:06:06 AM

Norma,
I may have an answer for you about why the bromated starter is acting up and releasing a lot of water. I dont want to get too biochemical but potassium bromate (KBr) is an oxidizer under standard conditions. Preferments in general have a lower pH than your standard dough, which will speed up the reaction with the KBr, creating water as a byproduct.
BTW love the KABF pie. Looks great.

Jimmy,

Interesting that you may have an answer why the bromated starter is acting up and releasing more water. I didn’t know potassium bromte is an oxidizer under standard conditions. I know preferments can have a lower pH than standard doughs. I have done some experiments with my pH meter. I don’t understand all the technical information, but appreciate your help in understanding more.

Thanks for your kind words about the KABF pizza!

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1070 on:** December 20, 2011, 11:10:07 PM »

Quote from: scott123 on December 20, 2011, 04:15:56 PM

If I had to pick a theory, I'd go with the slightly lower protein in the Gigantic is creating a wetter preferment, which, in turn, is driving faster fermentation. Norma, no promises, but I'd try a lower hydration for the preferment. You also might check it at intervals in the Hatco to see if less time might prevent separation.

Scott,

I appreciate your help in telling me to try to lower the hydration of the preferment, but don’t think I will be using the ADM Gigantic flour for much longer. I only wanted to compare how the preferment Lehmann dough would change or not change when changing flour from KASL to Gigantic flour. I will go back to KASL shortly. The preferment is a poolish.
The formula Peter set-forth took a long while to figure out and I am not going to have him figure out more formulations for the preferment Lehmann dough.

The preferment is not separating in the Hatco unit. It only separated while cold fermenting for 3 days.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1071 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:24:42 PM »

These are a few pictures of the regular pizzas made with the preferment Lehmann dough that had the watery preferment and had mix times of 3 to 5 minutes in the Hobart. Both dough balls opened well and the pizzas turned out okay. I also made some Greek style pizzas out of the dough balls and they turned out okay too. I tried one dough ball for a “Detroit” style pizza, just to see what would happen with the same amount of dough baked in a 8”x10” steel pan. It is interesting to me how versatile this dough is, in that it can be used in many applications for different styles of pizzas and other products like breadsticks, garlic knots, and others.

Steve, Randy, and I were busy and forgot about one pizza that was in the oven. It doesn’t take long for a pizza to get to dark. The resulting pie turned out too brown. I was going to throw it away, but Randy said he does really like dark pizzas, so he ate the dark pizza. It is interesting that some people do like darker pizzas, but most people would think that they are burnt. I don’t like dark pizzas.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1072 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:26:30 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1073 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:27:44 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1074 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:28:57 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1075 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:31:24 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1076 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:32:34 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #1077 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:33:59 PM »

Norma

Pete-zza · « **Reply #1078 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:50:14 PM »

Quote from: JimmyG on December 20, 2011, 06:20:50 PM

Scott,
Good question. Do you have any more information as to the quantity they are measuring and I maybe able to work work out a predicted gram amount. Parts per million is kind of a dimensionless unit of measurement e.g. 10 parts per million... per kg of flour, per 100kg of flour, per 10^99 kg of flour, per picogram of flour, etc. However I would need a starting pH value as well. While ten parts per million doesn't sound like much, the amount of water being produced for a given ionic concentration can add up faster than you would think.

JimmyG,

I have not seen any specs on the ADM Gigantic flour beyond what is shown at page 31 at http://www.adm.com/en-US/products/Documents/ADM-Food-Ingredient-Catalog.pdf, but you can get a rough idea as to how much potassium bromate is used in a typical high-gluten flour from the General Mills spec sheet for All Trumps flour at http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/ALL%20TRUMPS%20BL%20BR%20ENR%20MT.pdf. As you can see from those specs, the potassium bromate is used at 12-16 ppm and falls weight-wise between the iron (4.40mg) and the thiamin mononitrate (0.64mg). For another GM flour that uses less potassium bromate (8-12 ppm), which embraces the value that scott123 mentioned, see the specs for the GM Full Strength flour at http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/FULL%20STRENGTH%20BL%20BR%20ENR%20MT.pdf. For that flour also, the potassium bromate falls between the iron and thiamin monitrate. I don't know if any of this will help you with your calculations, but since GM apparently uses less potassium bromate for its higher gluten flours (another example is the GM Remarkable flour at http://www.gmflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/REMARKABLE%20BL%20BR%20ENR%20MT.pdf) than its lower protein flours, maybe some proration can be done for calculation purposes if the amount of potassium bromate for the Gigantic flour is 10 ppm.

Peter

EDIT (4/15/14): For the most recent link to the GM All Trumps flour, see http://professionalbakingsolutions.com/product/all-trumps-enriched-flour-50-lb/50111000; for the current Full Strength link, see http://www.professionalbakingsolutions.com/product/full-strength-flour-bromated-enriched-malted-50-lb/53391000; for the current Remarkable link, see http://www.professionalbakingsolutions.com/product/remarkable-flour-bleached-bromated-enriched-malted-50-lb/57122000

JimmyG · « **Reply #1079 on:** December 21, 2011, 06:16:22 PM »

Peter,
Based off the sheet I am going to most likely have to make a few assumptions with the math e.g. 10 mg of bromate per kg of flour = 10 parts per million concentration. I wasn't sure about pH of this variety of starter. I know yourself and Norma have worked with pHs and starters before, would a pH of 5.5 sound about right or would that be a little low.