Problem: Floppy 14" pies when cooked after changing recipe
We changed cheese and our cheese was browning before the crust so I decided to reduce the amount of yeast by about 20% hoping it would have lower acidity and therefore a nicer browning effect which seems to have worked however now I have floppy pies coming out.
I am assuming that the reduced yeast makes for less bubbles and less dough structure? Should I mix longer?
Any suggestions would be helpful
recipe:
64.5% Water
1.3% yeast (after change) 1.5% prior - Fresh packed yeast
2.2% oil
1.6% salt
1.6% sugar
Mix sugar/yeast with small amount warm water to bloom for 2-5 minutes
We mix for 5 minutes after 3 minutes we add approx 20% old dough
add oil and mix another 5 minutes
You were spot on with lowering the yeast to decrease the acidity of the dough for enhanced browning but in doing so you now probably don’t have sufficient yeast to support the weight of the toppings thus resulting in a more dense crumb structure which allows heat from the bottom of the oven to more readily pass through the crust and into the toppings where it is dissipated as steam. My advice is to go back to your previous yeast level and increase the sugar level slightly in the dough formula. This will not impact the flavor as you will need to get the sugar level up to about 5% before you will be able to begin picking up a sweet taste in the finished crust. For starters, I’d increase the sugar level by 1%.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
If you liked the crust before changing cheese, perhaps switch to a cheese that doesn’t brown as quickly.
Some shredded cheeses brown way too fast for us, I think due to the type or quantity of anti caking agent they use.
We dice our cheese in a vcm so we are able to control the size of the cheese pieces. When dicing we leave the cheese in bigger chunks so that it takes longer to melt the cheese this allows us to cook a cheese pizza for longer without killing the cheese or browning it too fast. Not sure how you dice or shred your cheese but this helps us a lot. We are in Ca and everyone here wants there pizza well done and on the crispy side so we need our cheese to not die.
Hi there, sorry for the late reply as I was out of town.
@pizza99 - I really like our current cheese to be honest that’s why I am trying to change the crust up a bit to compensate as I think there is more room to work with dough than there is variety of cheese in my area.
@Georgiascp - We prefer shredded so that it browns on the crust as we have more of a pan-style pizza.
@Tom - I will change up the recipe and try it out for the next few days, thanks!