Personal Best Pizza

[texassourdough]

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

[heliman]

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).

[texassourdough]

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

[BackyardPermaculture]

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

[heliman]

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...

[BackyardPermaculture]

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

[lwood]

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

[texassourdough]

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

[lwood]

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

[BackyardPermaculture]

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

[heliman]

Re: Personal Best Pizza

This methodology, including recipe is an assemblage of a number of sources, plus a bit of personal experience and input from others. The biga came from Dimuzio's: Bread Baking, An Artisan's Perspective, The main recipe got some cursory thoughts from Rinehart's writings, but no specific recipe as such was used as a source. Some key elements of the preparation method were obtained from a TV documentary that was aired recently. With that as the starting point, I set about modifying the components and noted their impact on the finished result, leading to the selection of a set of preferred practices that resulted in, what I believe, was my "personal best". Most of these are well documented in this and other postings I have made.

Of course the process will continue to evolved and I will make changes to the process, but what I wanted to achieve was a consistently good pizza dough which had taste, was extensible, didn't have any thin spots and had a reasonable amount of spring in it. I believe I have reached that point now, so have shifted the focus to the sauce now as this was an area I neglected in the past as the dough took priority for obvious reasons.

It is important to note that the methodology I am using differs from other "quick" pizza preparation methods in that it requires 2 days before its ready to use. Other approaches (Forno Bravo, Rhinehart etc) seem to favour a method that is both quick and produces a reasonable end product. I am happy to allow for a bit of additional time if the results are how I like them, and that is what I have done with this methodology.

It should be noted that the smaller amount of yeast in the biga can be increased slightly to create more bubbles. This assertion is in contrast to the suggested that this "method" (as distinct from recipe) is unable to achieve that outcome.

In summary, the set of steps in this methodology should guide one through the preparation of dough that will give good results "out of the box". There are no fancy tricks or anything else that could affect the outcome if done incorrectly. I have tested it in a number of temperature conditions and the results (due to the fridge proofing component), have produced uniform results. Of course this recipe can and should be tweaked and adapted to meet personal tastes and to accommodate different flours and other variables.

The main element that I believe caused the problems with the FB and Reinhart method was the IDY. It seems to be a volatile and unpredictable substance which reacted differently under different conditions, often resulting in poor dough structure and thin spots. The new biga-based methodology addresses the IDY yeast volatility issue and allows more natural yeast activity to occur which also adds more flavour to the process.

So, it's on with the show. I have a batch of 3 pizzas which I will be doing in the electric oven this evening. Will post some shots of the preparation and finished products along the way. The learning and research continues...

[Tscarborough]

Re: Personal Best Pizza

Wow, I just mix up some flour, sugar, yeast and a pinch of salt, then eat pizza.

[BackyardPermaculture]

Re: Personal Best Pizza

Hi Rossco,

It should be noted that the smaller amount of yeast in the biga can be increased slightly to create more bubbles. This assertion is in contrast to the suggested that this "method" (as distinct from recipe) is unable to achieve that outcome.

Good point, well made

The new biga-based methodology addresses the IDY yeast volatility issue and allows more natural yeast activity to occur which also adds more flavour to the process.

Indeed - I was amazed at how consistent it was even after going in the freezer for a week - really couldn't tell the difference.

Cheers,
Mick

[texassourdough]

Re: Personal Best Pizza

Hi Rossco!

Your comments on IDY leave me with a question. Unless I am mistaken you are using IDY - just in very low concentrations in forming your biga. If so, that would tend to place blame not on the IDY but on the concentration - but since the higher concentration works for many of us without causing undue textural problems, I don't think it is that simple either. The only real reconciliation of your experience with high IDY and texture issues is that something about your process was giving you badly overproofed dough. (And given your earlier descriptions even that doesn't totally make sense!)

Preparing bread and pizza dough involves many interrelated factors with the judgment criteria being highly personal. Time, temperature, flour, hydration, salt (both amount and time of addition), yeast (both type and amount), mixing practices, forming practices, and oven management all have unique, but interdependent relationships to the, contributions to the ultimate result.

Higher yeast demands either shorter time (which is not a Reinhart mantra) or retardation (which is part of Peter's standard repertoire). While the use of bigas is certainly not original to Peter, he has gone to using bigas and soakers extensively in his most recent books in order to get more flavor into bread. When I referred to your method as a variation of Reinhart I did not mean to attribute your using this method to influence from him, I was rather using his endorsement of bigas for flavor as both validation of the biga method and (due to familiarity with his books) as a reference other bakers might find useful.

I think it will be interesting to see how your biga approach evolves.

Hang in there!
Jay

[robs]

Re: Personal Best Pizza

After reading this thread i madde a biga with the smaller amount of idy dough tastes good but even after using a rolling pin there is still lots of bubbles. The dough is formed and put in the fridge overnight and only sits on the bench long enough to become workable. How can you further reduce the size and number of bubbles?