Dough

I am frustrated with my dough after we sheet it. The recipe is 13 1/2 lbs of 65-70 degree water, 8 oz. of Garlic butter sauce, 6 oz of sugar, 3 oz of salt… then add 25 lbs of flour and turn mixer on… sprinkle in 2 1/2 oz of Active dry yeast and mix for 11-13 minutes. We ball it and crossstack in cooler for 20 - 30 minutes before stacking boxes. Now the frustrating part… for example,on Fridays we remove the dough from the cooler and sheet several racks (between 10 am and noon), cover with plastic and put back in cooler for use later that evening. When we go to use the dough that evening it is extremely wet on the pans and comes out of the oven thin and has little white spots all over it. Also, it does not seem to have any “life” to it when we cut it (it just lays there like a wet rag). But, if we were to sheet it and use right away it has more life to it and is crispy when we cut it and seems a lot better. How can I go about getting the dough to have this kind of life to it in the evenings? It seems as though the dough soaks up too much water while under the plastic in the cooler (like being in a green house). HELP :frowning:

I’m no expert, but it sounds like you have created a dough with a shelf-life of 2-4 hours. Nothing wrong with that, many places that make their own dough the same day have the same issues. You just have to make a smaller batch for lunch, then another one before the dinner rush. That is how the dough works at my place, you can’t use the same dough you prepped at 9AM for the dinner rush.

What’s your finished dough temp? What is the temp when you take it out to ball?

My recommendation from get go is to ball and let it ferment overnight before opening it up to get best results. You aren’t getting any cooling from the 20 to 30 min stacking and cooling. Even if finish temp is 80F or less, your dough would be, as I see it, overfermenting and blowing out between noon and, say 6pm. It is almost like putting it on the counter for 3 or 4 hours.

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Your recipe looks like an fast dough that is useable within a few hours, but not much past. I am sure a dough wizard will appear with real answers, but comparing your recipe to Tom’s recommendations, your yeast is a bit higher than his and salt a bit lower. With the lack of cooling and conditioning, the yeast may be more active than you want (salt inhibits the yeast).
Tom’s recommendations from previous posts
flour 25 lb 100.00% 100%
water 13.5 lb 54.00% 58%
sugar 0.375 lb 1.50% 2%
fat 0.5 lb 2.00% 4%
yeast 0.15625 lb 0.63% .50% IDY
salt 0.1875 lb 0.75% 1.75%

I’ve always thought active dry yeast was supposed to be rehydrated before adding to dough mixture. It seems to me the process you are using would call for instant yeast which can be added right to the flour because it rehydrates so easily…that would be the first change I would make.

John

Jay;
It looks like your ADY is not performing up to standard due to the way you are adding it. The ADY must be prehydrated in warm (100 to 105F) water and allowed to set for about ten minutes before you add it to the dough/bowl. This would explain the soft dough and lack of rise. Also, if your dough wasn’t cross stacked in the cooler for about 2-hours before nesting the dough boxes, this would explain the wet dough condition.
Immediately after mixing, scale the dough and form into balls, place in dough boxes and wipe with salad oil, then immediately take to the cooler and cross stack for 2-hours, then down stack and kiss the dough good night. On the following day, remove about 3 hour quantity of dough from the cooler, leaving it in the sealed boxes. Allow the dough to temper AT room temperature for 90 to 120-minutes, then begin opening the dough into skins for use. The dough balls will remain good to use for about 3-hours. Any dough balls not used within this perio9d of time should be opened and placed on screens in the cooler where they can be held for several hours. To make pizzas from these refrigerated skins, just remove them from the cooler, make sure they’re covered (plastic bag works well) and allow them to temper for about 30-minutes, then use them as you would use your regular dough skins.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Tom,

Thanks, I'll give it a try

Uncle Doug,
Thanks for the help

Nick,

 Thanks for the input...... I'll try some different things.

Jay

John,

 Thanks for the help..... I'm gonna try hydrating the yeast first.

Jay