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When I was at AIB we had to have a sink large enough to fit a Hobart 80-qt. bowl into it in our shops. All health inspectors are different, the problem is that you might have one right now that has no problem with the smaller sink but the next one might have objections…that’s the good news, the...

Since you do DELCO I suggest maximizing the baking time if you are not already doing so. Next, allow the pizzas to steam-off for a minute or so before cutting and boxing (nothing ever good came from putting a steaming hot pizza into a closed box). Use ripple sheets or Pizza Savors under the...

Air impingement ovens control both top and bottom bake by adjusting the amount of air flowing to the top or bottom of the oven through the “fingers” which George has provided pictures of. By limiting the airflow through the top fingers you will lessen the top bake. There are a multitude of...

I would suggest stepping down in protein content to address the toughness issue, then you have two options to achieve a more open crumb structure in the dough skin. Option #1 is to include 2 to 3% WRISE (fat encapsulated chemical leavening) in the dough formula. Option #2 is to allow the pressed...

Anon; TNT Crust/Port City Bakery, Drayton Foods, and Little Lady Foods are three of the major players that immediately come to mind. Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

When pressing the dough balls into skins, what type of press are you using? Hot press or cold press? If hot pressed is the die heated on one side only or both top and bottom? What is the protein content of the flour you’re using? How much fermentation does the dough ball receive between the time...

Ohhhh, love the kimchi! I refer to it as Korean sour kraut! Good stuff 🙂 Big Dave (Ostrander) used to make a great Ruben pizza using sour kraut so with a little finesse I would think that it would make a great background flavor on the right presentation. Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Luke; If I’m making the dough for use after 24-hours I will use 80 to 85F, but if I’m making the dough to use from 24 out to a maximum of 72-hours (which is the case with most pizzerias) I use 70 to 75F. Remember, these numbers are based on a walk-in cooler, if a reach-in cooler is used those...

Most hoagie rolls are made using a very short fermentation process, usually in the 60 to 90-minute range, I would have a hard time believing that anyone would see any benefit from using a bromated flour (today’s bromate level) in this type of dough unless it was made using one of the high speed...

In the baking industry we use 2.5 X the ingredient cost as the minimum cost for the “product” out of the back door. By this I mean 2.5 X the ingredient cost will cover what it costs to make the product, it does not include packaging, distribution or profit margins. Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

That’s a new one for me too. Dare I ask how??? The only thing that comes to mind is to heat the deck just enough to soften the plastic, maybe add a hand full of corn meal to help bind it, then scrape and wire brush to get as much out of the stone as possible then burn off any remainder as you...

The most effective and accurate way to find the actual weights for your ingredients is for YOU to portion out each ingredient three times into a suitably sized container, do this for each ingredient, then weigh each container and subtract the tare, now you have 3X the ingredient weight. Divide...

A typical cross-stack time is in the 1.5 to 2-hour range. Insert a thermometer into one of the dough balls in the center of the box and measure its temperature, it is not ready to be down-stacked until the temperature is in the 50 to 55F range assuming not more than 48-hours refrigerated storage...

Can you provide any pictures of your “flat” dough balls? Additionally, keep in mind that the tighter you round the dough balls the better they will retain their round/ball like shape. Cross-stacking as well as cross-stack time and the temperature of the cooler/retarder (36 to 40F) are also...

If it’s a spiral mixer he’s stuck with what he has as there are no provisions that I’m aware of for installing a smaller bowl. If the bowl is on a dolly we usually wash the bowl and pull it over to where there is a floor drain and remove the drain plug from the bowl allowing it to drain directly...

Steve’s approach might be the cheapest and fastest as well as easiest to implement BUT remember with a smaller bowl you will also need the appropriate mixing attachments for the new, smaller bowl size. The part you will be looking for using this approach is called a “bowl adapter”. A single...

Back when we were doing the AIB Pizza Seminar we had par-baked crusts for our students to work with as an instructional tool and if I remember correctly, depending upon the size, the cost at that time seemed to be running at $0.75 to $1.00 each for par-baked crusts. Maybe someone else can...

A spiral design mixer will effectively mix doughs as small as 25% of stated bowl capacity. Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

It could also be a characteristic of the wheat that the KASL flour is milled from (lower fermentation tolerance). Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Break out you calculator as you will be using it. To change a formula into bakers percent divide the weight of the ingredient by the weight of the flour and multiply by 100. Note: Flour weight and ingredient weight must be in the same weight units (pounds, ounces, grams, etc.). Example: flour is...