Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Shuboyje, if you take a look at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that the advice you're giving Rossco is the same advice I've been giving him all along. If he's getting burning in 90 seconds, regardless of the temp, then he needs to work at a lower temp. Once he gets the dough dialed in and can produce reliable 90 second pies, then he might want to push the heat envelope.

Rossco, for an overnight fermentation, windowpaning is too much gluten development. Windowpaning is only effective for same day doughs. If 6 minutes is giving you windowpaning, try 5 or maybe even 4.

Although the common way to start a fire in a WFO is to begin with a roaring fire in the middle, with embers that drive up the heat of the hearth and then pushing it to the side, I don't see any drawbacks to either moving the fire to the side sooner or even starting the fire on the side. A roaring fire on the side shouldn't drive up the temp of the hearth that quickly.

[shuboyje]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

400C is only about 750F, so really not very hot in terms of wood fired pizza. In my experience you want the oven 900F+, about 480C, for really good leoparding. If the flour you have access to is burning at those temperatures the best solution is to up the hydration. I used to make and 80% hydration dough from bread flour and cook it on a 1000F hearth, never burned and leoparded great, but obviously takes some learning to handle.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Ok tks for the feedback Scott..

In relation to the fire - the problem I have is that if I make a fire with a lot of flame DM style, the result is that i get a very hot floor. Difficult to keep the floor temp under 400 for that reason.

I think i am kneading for around 6 mins. I did the windowpane test and the dough looked perfect. Haven't checked pre and post temps - i will do for the next batch however to narrow down the possible causal issues of poor performance. I have some good, cool spots in the house to store the fermenting dough so will check temps and then use the coolest one.

Will the use of cold water not just delay the yeast activity for about an hr or so until the mix reaches room temp - or does the cold yeast have a longer term effect on the dough?

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Rossco, I know I've been pushing you towards a higher hearth temp, but, when you tell me that 400 is more than enough heat for the bottom of the pizza, I believe you. Firebricks tend to be somewhat similar in their composition, but there are variations. Alumina is conductive, so high alumina firebricks will deliver more heat to the pizza faster than lower alumina firebricks. Stick to 400 and below.

Start with refrigerated water and find those cooler parts of the house.

I just noticed a few posts back that you were kneading 8 minutes with the KA. C and spiral hook mixers generate a lot of heat- heat that could be accelerating your fermentation. You're running the KA on the lowest setting, right? Also, are you measuring the temp of the dough post knead? Neapolitans, with their fork mixers, don't have to worry about the friction of the mixer heating their doughs, but we do.

Overnight ferments develop a lot of gluten on their own. I don't think you need 8 minutes. For overnight dough, I might try 5 minutes. For an overnight dough, you really want to take to a point where the dough is fully mixed/forming a ball, and then give it about a minute more. It might look a bit rough after kneading, but by the time you bake it, it will be perfectly smooth and easy to work with.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

I was using cool, filtered water from the tap.

The overnight temp was about 24 - 26 and the day time temp about 36. I could find cooler spots in the house so maybe will give that a try.

The other concern is the fire burning the underside of the pizza. I started cooking about 5 mins after getting the thing roaring. Did a quick temp check and found that it was 420 and likely still climbing. The bottom burned in seconds. May try using a cooler burning wood like peppermint or bottlebrush and see how that goes or else cook on a peel..

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Rossco, what temperature water are you using? Earlier I had recommended using 'cool water.' If you are using cool water, then, next time, use cold refrigerated water.

Also, what temperature are you proofing the dough at? In Naples, I believe it's common to ferment the dough in cellars, which tend to run a bit cool. Before trying no yeast, try colder water and a colder proofing spot.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Feedback on the latest batch...

Bulk fermentation for 12 hours using 2 square mm fresh yeast (750 g flour) after which time the dough had trebbled in size. This was way too much activity and to be honest I don't think I can use any less yeast. I balled the pizzas early this morning and they felt reasonably firm. After proofing on the bench for 6 hrs they had trebbled in size and were really puffed up. I made them into pizzas with some difficulty but they had thin spots just like I had used too much IDY. I cooked 2 of the 3 with the last one tearing after sticking to the peel.

I made a roaring fire that sent the base up to 420 C and the bottoms burned and the dough was undercooked after 90 secs.

This is a strange outcome. My thinking though is that the dough would only stand a 4 hr proofing max - thereafter it would be unusable like today's batch. Don't really want to try with NO yeast at all but that may be necessary to see the reaction.

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Sounds good, Rossco. I look forward to hearing about your results.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Armed with a new 25 kg bag of Perfection flour and the rest of my 12.5 kg bag I have just made a new batch of 60% hydration dough and a miniscule amount of fresh yeast. It looks very interesting I have to say - nice texture, quite firm yet pliable. It's in the proofing container and resting on the bench at the moment. I will crank up the oven tomorow and make a roaring fire and put it to the test. There may be some further tweaking needed but so far it's looking pretty good.....

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Thanks ... Will aim for 60 next time then and see how it goes. Going to the pizza supply shop on Friday afternoon and grab a 25 kg bag of perfection and will make a batch of dough that evening. Will bake a few pizzas for lunch the following day - hopefully with very near Neapolitan results....

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Rossco .3 to .5 is much more reasonable. I don't think the Perfection is going to produce dramatically different results than the Superb, but I think you're going to see a marked improvement.

Regarding the hydration, regardless of how well the Perfection managed at 58%, I still think it's a bit too low. I'm not ruling out 58% percent completely- the sweet spot is most likely going to be in the 58-61 realm, but I would still shoot a little higher this next batch- maybe 60.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Just got some clarity from the Allied Mills Sales Manager regarding the protein variance of Perfection flour. Evidently it is only a small amount - probably .3 to .5 (+/-) as an estimate ... but overall the average is 12.5 %. It seems to be close enough to Caputo then so I will continue to use Perfection flour for the time being and experiment with different yeast amounts.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

No it was used to make a rather tasty loaf of bread so it didn't go to waste. It was well puffed and looked a bit rough so i didn't bother making a fire to do the pizza bake. Will make another batch tomorrow.

As far as the protein range goes - Caputo is 11.5 - 12.5 so it also varies quite a bit. Ref: Latest Caputo 00 Flour Distributors List

Just found a data sheet for Caputo pizza flour suggesting a .5 tolerance but listed as a firm 12.5 protein so it is pretty low: http://brickovenbaker.com/docs/pizzeriatech.pdf
I think the previous reference of 11.5 - 12.5 protein was to the range of Caputo, from red to blue.

[scott123]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

Rossco, I'm not sure if you've tossed the dough yet, but you might have gotten away without damaging the gluten too much. You should be able to tell if gluten has been damaged because the dough will have lost it's smoothness. My caution was really for future reference.

That's great news about the malt, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about the specs.

Protein (N x 5.7)% 11.3 – 12.7%

Are they throwing darts at a dartboard to get these numbers? I could drive a truck through those. I guess, for replicating Caputo-ish results, this range is fairly acceptable, but it still doesn't install a lot of confidence. A quality flour should really only have a margin of error of +/- .3%, at most.

[heliman]

Re: Leoparding - The Discussion Continues...

The dough was very puffed up when I got home so I turned the dough into a loaf of bread. I will continue the experiment tomorrow. Having felt the strength of the last batch of dough I will go and buy a 25 kg bag of the 12.5 protein flour plus a few more ingredients to tide me over the Xmas season. The remaining Superb Bakers flour I have will be used to make bread.