Blowing dough

in my 30+ yrs I have never experienced my dough doing this. Not sure what is going on. my routine is as follows:
dough made every other day. We have never temped the water except in winter due to how cold it gets, so summer we always use cold water, I never use the dough right away it always sits in walkin cooler for 24-36 hrs before using. NOW all of a sudden this past month our dough is blowing up after 24 hrs-36 hrs, the cooler temp is maintaining a temp of 38-39 somedays around 36-37.

I was thinking at first its the yeast so bought a new yeast pack, not the issue its still blowing ???.
We ball the dough and get it into the cooler within 30 minutes after its made???

Should I try putting ice in water to make colder???

The temp of my dough after 10 minutes of mix time is right around 75-80

ANY SUGGESTIONS ???

daisy,

I used to have the same problem! I live in Florida and when making my dough it would be 75 - 80 degrees after mixing. By the time it was in the walk in, it was taking it too long to cool down and it was blowing.

Now (I make my dough at night), in the morning I fill my water and put it in the cooler to get cold. This allows my dough to be at a cooler temperature when handling. Once rolled, I put in the walk in and cross stack the open trays and leave them in over night. This allows them to cool quickly. The next morning I cover the trays and allow them to sit an addition24 - 48 hours, and will get 2 - 3 days beyond that for use.

Hope that helps!

I did think about that, putting my water in the walkin at nite. I was just wondering if using ice would make the water way to cold?? I will have to try your way and see if it works out better. I have never seen anything like this, my dough has always been very consistent, I always do my dough in the morning before we open, way to busy at nite to do dough, even after closing all I want to do is just get out of here & go home LOL…

Daisy;
Most cases of blown dough can be traced to either of two things;

  1. The dough temperature is too high. You should be using a thermometer to check the finished dough temperature. If it is taking you 30-minutes to cut and ball the dough I would be looking for a finished dough temperature of 75 to 80F, probably favoring 75F.
  2. Failure to cross stack the dough boxes as you place them into the cooler. The will trap the heat in the dough boxes allowing the dough to continue fermenting/rising longer that desired with the end result of a blown dough.
    The rule that we work with is that your dough should always be residing in the cooler not more than 20-minutes after it comes off of the mixer. After that, the dough density changes to the point where it is much more difficult to get it to cool down efficiently.
    Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

I leave a 5 gal plastic bucket in my walk in cooler. When we pull out some for dough, we immediately replace it with more water. I have found that with 3 gal of cold and 2 tap water, it does not take long to cool down.

Daisy, how confident are you in the readings of your walk in thermometer. A faulty thermostat might be giving you a false reading as well as not calling for cooling when it needs it. What about the evaporator fans? Are they all working and have any of them been changed out right before your problem started? A change in air flow could leave your dough area a bit warmer than it used to be.

Tom, as stated our finished dough is at 75 no more than 80, I have never seen this in over 30yrs of doing dough. Thats why I am soooo stumped. We use dough racks not tubs, we ind. bag dough balls place on full trays with only min. dough per tray, they are spaced about 6-7 inches per tray, after 24-36 hrs we switch trays over to our other dough rack which the trays are alot closed together, this has been the same routine for yrs.

paul7979: I always keep 4-5 thermometers placed a various spots in cooler, all temps are within 1 degree of each other. My unit in cooler is new only less than 2 yrs old, nothing has changed in cooler,

This issue only started last month. I did put water in bucket last nite before making dough this morning, so will see how the dough looks in 24-36 hrs.

Thanks all for the input

Are you using the same yeast. We typically use ADY and mistakenly used IDY causing the dough to blow.

Been using the same yeast no mistaking that…IDY for years…we have been buying our yeast at Sams Club for yrs…They only carry IDY they never have carried ADY, soooo there is no mistaking of picking up the wrong package, we have never ever used ADY yeast

According to what I know idy needs to have warmer water, than your typical ady, so if we are using cold water vs warm water the yeast (idy) should take longer to activate and therefor the dough should not blow.

I usually let the tap run for about 15 minutes, make sure its cold, never have temped it, add to bowl with sugar & salt, wish together, add flour, start mixer, add yeast wait another 2 minutes then add oil & mix for 8 minutes longer, once done mixing and on table it never takes more than 30 minutes to get balled & in cooler, our dough has always acted the same for many yrs up until this past month, for a few weeks or more it was blowing after the next day. Yesterday I let a bucket of water sit in walkin cooler over nite then did dough yesterday morning, from what I see today, the dough looks good not blowing, which is a good thing soooo far

Daisy,

We have had the same problem with blown dough for the past couple weeks as well. I am stumped as to what it could be. Have recalibrated thermometers, checked temps, etc. Not sure :?: :?:

Dan

This is interesting, because I’ve had a blown dough problem this week as well. Our Wednesday night batch came off at our normal 85 degrees. We rolled it and had it in our walk-in within 25 minutes (the normal time for us). On Thursday morning, less than 15 hours later, all of the 16" dough balls were blown. Ordinarily an 85 degree batch of dough will be at it’s peak for us about 48 hours later.

It was weird. A common link with Daisy is that we also buy IDY at Sam’s Club, and it’s interesting to note that the packaging changed this week. Are we maybe getting a different product than before?

Very interesting, I also noticed the packaging changed as well. Im willing to bet this yeast from Sams Club is not correct, I think I am going to pick up some yeast else where at try it and see if results change

I just sent Fleischmanns an email regarding the product and hope to hear from them to see if there has been an issue, I think that it is strange that others are having the same issue & purchase it from the same place I do. Will see what takes place over the next week, if they contact me back, in the mean time I will either switch brands of yeast or continue to put my water in the walkin cooler over nite prior to making dough, seems that the dough I made Friday morning is still in good condition, although it is taking a little more time for it to come to life, but would rather do this than have my dough blow up on me within a day of making it.

Despite whats going on, Im glad I am not losing my mind & there are others with the same issue

Daisy;
You said that you made a dough with cold water that you had held in the cooler overnight, and that it didn’t look like it was going to blow. How did that dough perform for you and what was the finished dough temperature?
BTW: The best temperature to hydrate ADY is 100 to 105F while it is recommended that IDY be hydrated at only 95F. Our test resulta indicated that this is a very specific temperature for this type of yeast. If the temperature is off by as little as 5F there will be a difference in yeast performance. Adding IDY directly to the dough or to the flour is still be best way to add IDY.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

A long, long time ago, I, too, got some yeast from Sams…seemed to have issues as well…

I normaly used SAF yeast then & now, and never had the issues again…

Tom: I never have used ADY, as stated above, I have always used IDY for many many yrs, and have always added my IDY to the batch of dough just after I start the hobart on top of the flour,

The dough I made Friday morning with water held in cooler over night, I have about 36 dough balls left and looks great, the dough performed well over the weekend. I did not get the finished dough temp.

Today I stopped into GFS and picked up a different brand of yeast Saf-Instant Dry Yeast, I made my dough as normal, temp of finished dough was at 76, I will see tomorrow morning if the dough is blown, IF NOT, this will positively tell me that the yeast from Sams Club was bad

Daisy;
What brand of IDY were you getting from Sam’s Club?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

"Fleischmann’s

Daisy;
Normally, when we see a problem with yeast it’s related to slower than normal/expected activity, not faster activity. Yeast is such a competative product that we seldom see any significant differences when used on an equal weight basis. In all of my years working with IDY I can only think of one case where there was a problem withthe yeast, and the yeast manufacturer was trying to contact us as we were trying to contact them (they picked the problem up in their routine quality control). I still keep coming back to a temperature issue.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Tom, Im stumped that there are others with same issue using this yeast from Sams Club, also after we both noticed the change in packing, mainly they changed their vacuum sealed bag design. Im not disagreeing, just in 30 yrs I have never seen this and as stated NOTHING has changed in the way we do the dough, and temps in walkin cooler are all within 1 degree, I have 4-5 thermometers in different places in cooler, we keep dough in back of cooler away from the door, I am the only person who does the dough with the exception of my GM who will do dough maybe once every other week, so I know its not a difference in the way we do the dough, she did the dough once in the last month and had it blow on her within 12 hrs, and all other times I have done it and it did same thing.

Even when I was in Montana the last week of May & first week of June when my father passed away, my GM was the only one doing the dough & it never acted this way