Dough Pro Plrobems

Hi, I bought a doughpro on ebay recently. It works great and heats up fine but when I try to press dough it just does not work. The dough does not want to spread and springs back when i lift the press handle. It also stick to the plates like crazy ;-(
We are using a standard receipe with 00 flour, water, real yeast and olive oil.
Is there some glaring error Ive made or am i just dumb ;-D

Thanks in advance,

Cathal

Tom Lehemann has a recipe(s) at the recipe bank at PMQ for doughs that are pressed. I think they gave more oil, there may be some other difference also, maybe dough conditioner like PZ-44

  I am faced with a similar situation in that I am opening soon and have decided to do 7" indiviual pizzas instead of slices.

I hand toss my larger pizza and am concerned about hand tossing the 7".
I like my dough formula and do not want to change it just for the 7".

Otis

Thanks for the tip, ill have a look now :wink:

Cathal

we use dough pro at our shop .
1,we use frozen dough balls have used fresh though same results
2,make sure not over profed
3,make sure top plate is clean.
4,use some type of oil we a pan release spray or pam oil cooking oil in a bind wiped on with rag top and bottom
5,put dough on plate kind of mash it around a little spray with pam or etc.
6,now press it out now on a 16" pie i press it till it overhangs all around let off pressure slowly it will shrink back pretty close to 16" pie if not i press it again slowly. trial and error till you get the hang of it. but its got to be oiled. :smiley:
7, we run ours at 140 degress

I use a dough pro as well. I use hi-lo canola spray on it. Yes ours springs back as well. We have spent alot of time trying to figure out how to get it to work for us. The solution we have come up with will not work for you because we are a take and bake and we arent putting the dough in pizza pans but on cardboard disks with a piece of parchment paper.
But, that said, flatten the dough ball into a disk, spray bottom of press with oil. place disk of dough on bottom, spray top of dough with a little more oil. and press. I am short so i have my dough press on a lowered counter and jump up onto the handle. ugh, yes i know it looks funny, but works. The NUMBER ONE reason dough springs back is because there is dried dough on the top of press, every press you have to scrap the top of the press, a total pain yes, but when you get into the habit of it it gets done quickly. THE TOP OF PRESS MUST BE CLEAN, you notice a HUGE difference when you clean the top constantly. The other thing is to keep the bottom hot, the only way to do this is to close the handle while preparing the next dough to press.
Hope this helps you, believe me this was found out with MUCH trail and error over the last month.
Naida

when I was @ CiCi’s Pizza a while back, we used a press…

1st trick is to use dough @ room temp…if dough is straight from the cooler, it will shrink back quickly…we never used and dough conditioner…

2nd trick, is after the dough is pressed, the way it is placed/streched on the screen takes practice…we kinda “pull” it to the edges…

CiCi’s used oiled sheet pans to store their dough…we turned the DB over into the oil, so the platen was well lubed…

keep the dough temp around 120-130…have one in the press while you are placing another on a screen…it won’t hurt to rest them for 15 min either…

You can get quit fast on a press, but the time is the same to hand toss, IMHAO…

cgarrad,throw that dang machine in the trash,stretch and toss your dough it is so much better.those presses make a horrible crust in my opinion.

                              Niccademo

Re: Dough Pro Problems

I want to use the press to prevent problems if staff dont turn up or are still learing to throw, just gives me a failsafe :wink:
Thanks for all the feedback, im going to try all these and see what works for us, Ill keep u informed if I have any revelations ;-D

Thanks again

Cathal

Re: Dough Pro Problems

we used to handtoss and sveral years ago I demoed doughpro and a sheeter. didn’t like doughpro, more trouble than it’s worth and I didn’t like the finished product. We use a sheeter, 2 passes and it’s mostly open. Finish off with a few tosses. Finished product looks just like handtossed and it’s much easier to train someone. Mine is a Somerset, but Anets and acme are fine too. Close to 3K new though, but it’s been extremely reliable over 7 years. IMO doughpro made shell look processed, you still get that handmade look with the sheeter.

The key to getting a good press with any of the pizza presses is to make sure you have 3 to 5% oil in the dough formula, this lubricates the dough so it can be forced out to the desired diameter without tearing, add some PZ-44 to the formula to prevent snap back, and begin by oiling the top and bottom press plates, then after pressing the first dough piece, lightly oil the bottom platen with each press, and wipe a little oil on the top of the dough ball just before pressing. We use the Dough-Pro, Hix, and AM Little Toro presses all with good success by following this procedure.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor