substituting king Arthur for caputo

[SCChris]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

OK Binford time!

Pull the air compressor out of the garage.
Unplug the fridge.
Blow off the condensor coils up front
remove the panel off of the back
Blow off the condensor coils in back
Blow off anything else that looks like it'll help.
Put it all back together and reset the temp dial a bit up from the bottom.

Oh and vacuum and scrub the kitchen to remove all dust.

My bet is I can get to 34 now.. after removing the dust bunnies from the condensors.
At least I'm giving the fridge a fighting chance.

Chris

PS Update a few days later. After the full cleaning and a few days the fridge is down to 37. The morning after the second, deeper, cleaning I was at 40 and noted some frost at the cool air inlet in the fridge. The frost cleared later in the day. I wonder if some of what I'm seeing realted to dropping temps is the frost clearing in unseen parts of the fridge. Time will tell.

PSS after a few more days the fridge was down to 33 plus or minus depending on where in the fridge I measure. I bumped the temp just a bit and things are right where they should be.

[SCChris]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

It looks like 38 is where it want to drop to before digging in deeper. Jay, my son is 11 and my wife is French. Milk moves pretty quick around here, so its the other stuff that I worry about. We have been socked in with what we call June Gloom, a thick seasonal marine layer, Tuesday everything changed. We went from 65 at night to 70 for a daily high to 65 at night to 85. I'm glad I found out before having to buy a new compressor. Time to go and vacuum a bit more.

Chris

[texassourdough]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Like Splat! I was thinking about your milk figuring you must drink it awfully fast!

40 is still a bit high IMO but is within norms. The scarey part is you don't have much reserve (i.e. you put something warm in and the whole fridge warms...

[SCChris]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Splat,
I was thinking the same thing. I've been unhappy about where my last batches have been relative to over proofing. Obviously I need a seperate fridge and the heck with that other stuff..


C

[splatgirl]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

That you are worried about your pizza dough and not your milk clearly shows you have your priorities in order

[SCChris]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

I think the fridge has been warmer than I'd have liked for some time, and since we're just getting our first warm weather here the temp was even warmer. I turned the fridge down to it's coldest setting last night and it's still hovering just above 40. :-(
I'll pull it out again this afternoon and see if I've missed somwthing additional that needs cleaning.

Thanks for the info as to where you have your fridge's set.

Chris

[texassourdough]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

My refrigerator is at 35. At that temp my sourdough is really close to inactive. It makes a little progress while cooling and then while warming but it really doesn't do much for a couple of days. At 50 with commercial yeast you should be proofing at barely less than half the normal room temp rate - say 1/3 the rate at 74 degrees. So, if you use full yeast you will get significant proofing overnight.

As a former cat cohabitant (is there such a thing as a cat "owner"?) I am well familiar with hairballs, fur balls, and assorting matts of lint and detritus! which may include everything up to remnants of captured prey. A good warning to all of us with pets to check our coils!

Stay cool!
Jay

[splatgirl]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Mine is set at 36F. When we were comparing notes in another thread I think I recall Jay said his is 34F.

SO familiar with the cat fur blanket.

[SCChris]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Jay, Splatgirl
What temp is the fridge that you're parking the dough in? I found that my fridge is running warmer than I'd like and it explains the over proofing that I've seen in my last batch.

Chris

PS I'm pretty sure that the condenser isn't suppose to include a blanket of cat fur and other un-mentionables so I've removed it.

PSS It was at 50 and should be below 40. I'll keep my eyes on it for a while.

[splatgirl]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Thanks guys. That was my pie of vindication following the tragedy of WFO pizza at that place in D.C. the week before.

I think what was/is nice about Caputo is that it gives a good balance between chewy and tender. Too far on the tender side of things for me, but that part is all in the eye of the beholder..er...eater. And it's also much easier to push Caputo over the edge into tough. From my kitchen, a KA bread flour dough gives a wee bit more chew without being tough, which I like.

Honestly, I think the idea that only certain types of flour work/brown properly in a WFO is mostly a big bunch of nonsense. That piece is 99% about heat management, dough hydration and method, IME. I can and have gotten just as lovely looking a pie from any number of flours including whatever generic stuff I've found on the grocery store shelf in a pinch.

[texassourdough]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Great looking pie, S.G.!

I too use KA bread flour most of the time. I have used Sir Lancelot for bread and did not find the extra gluten beneficial in my limited tests - too chewy in my recipes. I never made pizza crust with Sir Lancelot but at 14.2 percent protein vs 12.7 percent for KA bread flour, it would certainly invite some recipe modification if you didn't want super chewy crust.

Bake On!
Jay

[Dino_Pizza]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

Fantastic coloring on that crust splatgirl! Proof positive that KA bread flour (at least when made in you sourdough procedure) colors up and cooks just fine at high pizza temps.

I've done your sourdough procedure twice with KA bread flour in 700-800 deg with results as fine as Caputo. I still mix it and do both. I still have half my 50 lb bag of caputo to finish off before it gets old. When the bag is finished, I'll probably only occasionally buy a small bag of Caputo and stick to KA. We'll see...

[splatgirl]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

pictures seem to be broken. here is a link:
July5th2010pizza on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[splatgirl]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

I use KA exclusively, the bread flour. I have not tried Sir Lancelot. I found that I actually preferred KA to Caputo.
IMO, hydration and handling are much bigger pieces of the puzzle than flour.
Until I went sourdough, I used the "standard" IDY dough recipe found on this site with excellent results. I like my oven/hearth AT LEAST 750F for pizzas. That is on the cooler end of where I like things, actually.
I outlined my sourdough procedure here: http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f10/...ust-12653.html
There are several other great threads on the subject in the pizzas category as well.

Here's one from my last firing...carmelized onion, chevre, rosemary, yum. With my sourdough crust as described in the link above.

Keep cooking and experimenting and be the keenest observer you can at all stages of dough and pizza making. I still learn something every time I do dough and fire my oven.

[bigred]

Re: substituting king Arthur for caputo

seriously ...would you mind sharing recipe( flour type) and procedure as well as oven temp
thanks ...still plenty of time to experiment during this hot summer weather in the north east
I will send pictures of my results