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Personal Best Pizza

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi lwood,

    I agree with Jay - there are heaps of options here and they have various outcomes that will not suit everyone. In particular, this method produced very few bubbles - so if you like crust full of bubbles, this is not it. Also, results will vary depending on the flour used. But the combination of this method and the specific flour produced dough that was really great to work with and tasted good.

    That said, I'll summarise the recipe that I made this week. I used 1000g of flour, which makes the recipe easy to scale up or down.

    Day 1: Make the biga, which will form about a quarter of the final dough:
    - 300g flour
    - 180g water
    - 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
    Mixed by hand, autolysed (left to hydrate for between 5 and 20 minutes), kneaded on the bench by hand for about 5 minutes. Then put straight into oiled container in fridge.

    Day 2: Make the final dough:
    - The biga as above, cut into pieces
    - 700g flour - bringing total to 1000g
    - 490g water - bringing total to 670g or 67% hydration
    - Salt, amount determined by preference, perhaps 20g
    - Olive oil, 4 tablespoons

    Mix, autolyse, knead, then divide into dough balls and put straight into fridge or freezer.

    I take my dough balls out onto an oil-sprayed bench, spray the top with oil, and cover with plastic wrap. Each dough ball gets dipped in a bowl of flour at the time of shaping.

    Hope this helps,
    Mick

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  • lwood
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Ahhh...that's what I was missing, Reinhart's dough. Your right, it's what ever works for you. Thanks Jay
    Last edited by lwood; 07-03-2010, 05:43 AM.

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  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi lwood!

    Ultimately everyone has to find their own answer for what works for them. Having fuzzy guidelines can actually be helpful for if even if I or they tell you exactly what they do the fuzziness of thermometers, temperature, flour, water, and undocumented idiosyncracies mean that the doughs come out different. All they are really doing essentially a variation of Peter Reinhart's dough techniques with less yeast. And it seems to be working for them - but that doesn't mean that it will for you or that everyone will agree it is the best dough...

    Hang in there!
    Jay

    Leave a comment:


  • lwood
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco and Mick, just wondering if one of you could summarize your latest recipe and methods. This thread is very interesting and as a novice am a little confused as to where everything stands as far as the recipe goes. This thread is certainly a candidate for a sticky posting on dough making instead of hiding all of your secrets down under in the Aussie regional forum,,,just joking

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco,

    I fired the WFO last night and made 10 small pizzas with the frozen dough balls. Had the oven really hot this time.

    The dough was made with Superb flour, using a biga with very little IDY, and basically following your recent method of putting the biga straight into the fridge. Next night I formed the dough to 67% hydration, balled it and froze for a week.

    Defrosted over night in fridge and then onto bench (oil, plastic wrap covering) a couple of hours before baking.

    I found the dough to be really easy to work. It stretched out really thin and I didn't get a single hole. Still had reasonable oven spring and tasted good. Really impressed with it It also didn't seem to suffer at all from being frozen.

    Next time I think I'll experiment with some other techniques, maybe a poolish.

    Cheers,
    Mick

    Leave a comment:


  • heliman
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Look forward to seeing next week's results Mick. Sounds positive so far.

    Just a footnote to my last batch - with no bench proofing with either the biga or the final dough. This is now my preferred approach as I noted a small amount of overproofing in the previous batch which I allowed 1 hr proofing of both big and final dough.

    I'll only be able to get the WFO cranked up next weekend now as I have an urgent matter to attend to today...

    Leave a comment:


  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Looking good Rossco!

    I made my first dough balls tonight with the Superb flour and the biga I made last night. The whole thing felt so different to the other flour I was using - the biga was funky, kind of like tofu.

    Looks like we're not baking until next Friday, so I've put 10 small dough balls in the freezer for the week.

    Cheers,
    Mick

    Leave a comment:


  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco!

    I went back and looked at the late balled dough in #33. These look distinctly more relaxed and "happy". They should be great when they warm up! If the bubbles get too big just push them out in forming. You will have plenty of gas to get good oven spring on the cornicione no matter what you do (even including rolling them with a rolling pin)(which of course is not recommended but is an interesting experiment with good dough to prove that dough does contain lots of gasthat is in tiny bubbles and dissolved).

    Looking forward to seeing the results!
    Jay

    Leave a comment:


  • heliman
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Doing a test run this evening in the electric oven. Intend firing up the WFO on Sunday.

    Note the small bubbles in the dough (just removed from the fridge).

    Leave a comment:


  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Balling early will make a big difference in character of the dough. Bread flour dough can get downright ornery when worked a the last minute. I vividly recall a very relaxed ball that got stuck a bit and misshapen and I tried to recreate a ball with it. It was like an angry, stubborn teenager. No way it was going to cooperate in any way. Two hours later we could have probably played baseball with it - except it wasn't very round. It got thrown away!

    Good Luck!
    Jay

    Leave a comment:


  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Sorry Jay, should have mentioned the oil. 4 tablespoons to the 1kg of flour. But it still felt like working with rubber at first. I'll try it again soon, forming the balls sooner in the process and see how we go.

    Thanks once again,
    Mick

    Leave a comment:


  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi BYP!

    Given it was bread flour and you don't indicate you used oil it could have easily been overworked/unrelaxed. I tend to put some oil in bread flour to make it a bit "slipperier" and relaxed. Straight bread flour can be almost like working with rubber!

    Good Luck!
    Jay

    Leave a comment:


  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Yes, Defiance brand indeed Although Woolies didn't have any today so I'm all out of flour.

    I do have pizza stones - just those widely-available thin ones, but I do have them. Having recently finished my WFO I'm probably keener to do pizza in there at the moment though. I've got a long list of friends that I've promised to have over for WFO pizza. Thinking of taking a pizza stone to work - would love to crank out a quality fresh pizza in the lunch room!

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  • heliman
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Is that the Defiance brand perhaps?

    I will make another batch of biga and dough next week and will give you the extact ingredient measures - yeast by teaspoon, after I have measured it on the scale (will send pic).

    This should allow you to do a test run for 3 pizzas and we can compare notes. Once you are happy with that, then just upscale with Baker's percentage and you should be good to go...

    If you have a pizza stone - just bake in the electric oven as it will give you a good indication of the dough's suitability.
    Last edited by heliman; 06-19-2010, 07:26 PM.

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Jay and Rossco, thanks for the interstate and international dough coaching!

    I'm using a bread flour that comes in 5kg bags at our major supermarkets - 11% protein.

    Definitely should have been balled on forming - will try to do so next time, family dramas permitting

    My next attempt will involve:
    - Less IDY in the biga (although I don't have "drug dealer" scales with decimal points like Rossco)
    - Keep the biga out of the direct blast of the hot airconditioner
    - Ensure 67% hydration (I'm 99% sure it was)
    - Ball the dough early

    Thanks again - will try soon.

    Leave a comment:

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