Confused

[dmun]

Re: Confused

Doesn't Chicago have GREAT tap water, right out of lake Michigan? Bottled water is only indicated if your tap water is nasty.

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Re: Confused

Chicago's water is not that good at all. I got swimmer's ear from swimming in Lake Michigan. They shut down the beach every other day because of bacteria. The reason I ask is because its like I follow the recipe with super good flour but no matter what the crust ends up tasting the same and its NOT like the crust from a restaurant which I want. It all has this taste to it I can't really describe it, so I just thought that changing the water would help. Since I was was using 2 tablespoons of yeast for 4 cups of flour, is there a chance my pizza had a "yeasty" taste? THanks.

[texassourdough]

Re: Confused

Timmy!

First, there has to be something fundamentally wrong that you are doing - or not doing. Commercial yeast and flour and water do not NOT rise unless something is very wrong. Given you haven't had much rise it is hardly surprising you don't get much/any good flavor though there are enzymes in flour that do work even if the yeast is dead that do contribute flavor.

One observation is that you seem to always want to make dough in a couple of hours. The longer you take within reason, the better the dough will be. I spend roughly 24 hours making my dough from the time I start to baking. And it is superb (just like my 24 hour focaccia). You can't make great dough in 2 hours or 4 hours. Good dough begins at maybe 8 hours and gets better up to at least a day. To do that it will need to be retarded (chilled in the refrigerator) until about 2 hours before you want to bake. If you are using Tipo 00 or bread flour I would suggest making the balls about 1/2 hour after mixing and immediately put them in the fridge. If you use AP you can make the balls at the 2 hour mark when you take the bowl out of the fridge.

Now back to your rising problems. Proof the yeast for your 4 cup recipe in about 1/4 cup of tap water. That would be about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast and about 1 teaspoon of sugar. The water should be no warmer than 100 degrees or so. Plain ordinary room temperature is fine. IF the yeast is not bubbling in 10 minutes it is dead and all of the yeast in that batch should be discarded. And there is NO POINT in trying to make pizza with it. If it is bubbling then you should be able to make a dough that rises but if you persist on 2 hour-4 hour dough it will NEVER be GREAT!

Good Luck!

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Re: Confused

Tex, thank you very much. I can't wait to get home and make dough (for the following day of course!). You know I have worked at 8 pizza places and we always let the dough rise for a day or two but I never really thought about it. I thought it was just something we did because of the large amounts of pizza we were preparing for (to sell). NOOOW I know, and I hope that with the combination of less yeast (healthy, living, young, vibrant yeast!), and everything else I make a great pizza.

Let me ask you this, do I place the dough in ziplock bags? Do I leave them partially open when putting them in the fridge? Do I drizzle olive oil on them? Thanks Tex.

[dmun]

Re: Confused

Bags can be a mess. I use round plastic food storage containers. They can blow the tops but i poke a little hole in the top of each lid. You can oil the container, or the ball, but with a silicone spatula you really don't need to, you can scoop the dough right onto your floured work surface with minimal handling.

Other people do other things. Wooden proofing boxes are tradtional. The main thing is that once you've portioned your dough and popped it in the fridge, you want to handle it as little as possible.

[texassourdough]

Re: Confused

Hi Timmy!

dmun is right. Bags are a mess. But I use them anyway. (We all have our perversions!)

IF you form the balls before retarding they can be dealt with lots of ways. On parchment adjacent (and yes they will grow together and have to be separated). In containers as dmun says (which is a great way to go). Or... the evil way, in bags. When I bag I first open ALL the bags. Then I have a small bowl of olive oil to dip the balls into and smear all over and then they go in the bag. Adding a little extra olive oil is okay. I seal mine but I don't squeeze all the air out. They will swell as the dough rises. And they often stick in the bag but it doesn't cause me any problem.

Back to your dough. You have used oil, and sugar, and mineral water and who knows what else. In my experience the best doughs are straight doughs - no oil, no sugar (except perhaps to check the yeast!), just flour, water and salt. The other stuff is IMO fluff. (Which I am sure will bring on the wrath of the oil and sugar afficianados!)

One last comment re: deep dish which you have also alluded to. Focaccia is effectively deep dish pizza. I do it pretty regularly with REALLY WET DOUGH (about 80% water by weight and it is HEAVENLY. The best recipe I know is in "American Pie" by Reinhart. It sings!

Two things to buy - scales (as dmun suggests volumes are for people who like to fail) and American Pie!

Jay

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Re: Confused

Well last night I did a yeast proofing and the mix became very foamy and active (1.25 teaspoons). So I added it to 4 cups 00 flour, and two teaspoons of salt and 1 1/4 cup water. I kneaded it until it was smooth, I split it into two balls of dough and put them each into a ziplock bag with plenty of room to grow. I eagerly checked it this morning to see the growth. Guess what? Nothing. It hardly grew at all. ARGHGHGHG! What the heck? Are you sure only 1.25 teaspoons of yeast and not tablespoons?

[texassourdough]

Re: Confused

The balls usually won't grow much in the bags in the fridge. But it does depend a bit on the yeast. The balls can be stored up to 3 days or so. What is happening in the fridge is MAINLY enzyme action breaking down the flour into sugars so that when the ball comes to room temp it should rise pretty rapidly.

That said, I have two refrigerators - one at 35 (which gives very low growth) and one at 38 which has some growth overnight. If your fridge is below about 36 the growth overnight will be minimal.

The balls SHOULD roughly double in two hours after being put at room temp. For fun, pull one about 4 hours early (if you can) and one at two and see how they compare. They should behave well.

One last item - you still haven't said what kind of yeast you are using. Instant is much preferred over regular dry yeast - has something like 4-5X the live yeast cells and doesn't need to be proofed (can be mixed straight in the flour). If you put regular dry yeast in flour without proofing it is MUCH slower for it simply doesn't have enough cells to "spring" to life.

The salt, yeast, flour, and water are all approximately right. It should work fine - but it IS a pretty wet dough and I suspect the balls spread in the bag quite a bit which makes it harder to see the rise.

Look forward to your next report!
Jay

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Re: Confused

Wow, this site is great. I posted about an hour ago and I already got a reply with great advice. Someday I will be giving advice to a new person I hope. You know I may be overreacting. I think the dough did actually double in size, I was just expecting it to be huge and busting out of the bag. I think that it is still going to give me a good pizza. Thursday night I plan on firing up the grill and making the pizza. I'll double check the type of yeast I'm using when I get home tonight, but I'm in the food to see some baseball so I'm gonna walk across the street and watch the Cubs get slaughtered. Thanks man.

[texassourdough]

Re: Confused

If it grew at all in the fridge it is fine. The whole point of chilling it is to have it NOT burst out of the bag! It will grow dramatically when you warm it up to its happy zone of 70-80 for an hour or two.

One last comment. If doesn't rise, don't bake it. You already know what the inisipid results are!

[fxpose]

Re: Confused

I'm new to this and have been using Trader Joe's fresh dough these past several weeks with mixed results, mostly due to my cooking method, using a Lodge cast iron pizza pan either on the weber kettle or the gas grill.

But this week I picked up some SAF instant yeast and King Arthur unbleached all purpose flour from my local Smart & Final warehouse. I followed Peter Reinhart's Napoletana dough recipe and made a batch this morning for use tomorrow. I kneaded the dough by hand. Hope they come out good.

[texassourdough]

Re: Confused

I know this will sound crazy fxpose, but I strongly urge you to try Reihart's grilled pizza dough recipe. It is a bit drier and tougher but you can grill it ON the grill, no need for the pan. American Pie describes how to do it! It IS reall good!
Jay