?_Lehmann:

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

Hello Mr. Lehmann,
How can I make the best dough without bubbles while cooking? What is wrong?
Do you recommend round machines?
Thank you soo much

2

wil,

you might need a dough docker or your dough is still not warm enough for slapping

3

There are a number of things that can cause bubbles during the baking of a pizza. Here is a list of them. See if something looks familiar and take the corrective action.

  1. Insufficient dough fermentation. The dough should be fermented in the cooler overnight or at least 2 hours at room temperature (assuming a finished dough temperature in the 80 to 85F range).
  2. Use of cold dough straight from the cooler. Allow dough balls to warm AT room temperature for about 1.5 hiurs before shaping, dressing and baking.
  3. Most thin crust pizzas should be docked to control bubbling.
  4. If you pre-make the dough skins and store them in the cooler be sure to allow them time to begin warming at room temperature (about 20 minutes) before using them.
  5. Excessive yeast level. Most pizzas doughs are made with yeast levels around 1.5% as compressed yeast/0.5% as IDY/0.75% as ADY.
  6. A good finished dough temperature is 80 to 85F for most pizza doughs, doughs that are colder than this may exhibit bubbling tendencies.
  7. In rare cases, baking pizzas in an excessively hot oven might cause bubbling. If you are baking at oner 500F in an air impingement oven or at over 550F in a deck oven, try reducing the oven temperature by 25F to see if the bubbling can by reduced or eliminated.
    Note: The number 1 cause of bubbling is a cold dough going to the oven.
    Please let me know if you stil have a problem.
    Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
4

I almost forgot to answer the second part of your question. A-M Manufacturing makes a great dough rounder. Fast and easy to clean, but you need to have a need to make enough dough balls to justify its cost.
If you’re a “one man dog and pony show” it is like having another employee that is very adept at dough rounding, so it is easy to justify, but if you have another person to work with in the shop, I’d say you can easily handle up to about 100 or 150 dough balls manually without any problem. I’m betting that you are rounding the dough balls one at a time. They can be easily rounded two at a time for quite a time savings, but you need to learn hoe to do it. If you will be at our next show in Orlando, please stop by to see me and I’ll be glad to show you how its done. Otherwise, if you have or know a local retain bakery/baker in town, trade him a pizza or two for showing you how to round up dough balls two at a time. Any retail baker should be able to show you how its done in just a few minutes. Take a look in the PMQ film library, we might have included this in our film on pizza dough perparation.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

5

Hi, Dr. Lehmann
Do you know a portable cheese aplicator, like some Domino’s are using? Or something more cheap, but able to spread cheese around the dough? What is the correct measure for cheese, if exist, and if you know the best brand in cheese in Florida. I know in Wiscousin has a excelent cheese, but is impossible to get it here. Thank you and I really appreciate your job and everithing you to for small pizzarias.
Best regards
William

6

William;
If I remember correctly, Domino’s cheese applicator is specially built for them, but you might look around on the I-net to see if you can find one there. Otherwise, I am not aware of any other manufacturers, and I would question the ROI (return on investment) if you did find one since it is so easy to use a cheese cup and apply the cheese manually. As for the amount of cheese to use, that is an issue of personal preference.I will use anything from 3 to as much as 7-ounces of cheese on a 12-inch pizza, with most coming in at about 6-ounces. This figures out to 0.05309-ounces per square inch of surface area. To find the equivalent weight for other sizes, just multiply the surface area of any size pizza by 0.05309. The formula for finding the surface area of a circle is 3.14 X R squared. R = half of the diameter, and to square it, just multiply it t5imes itself. So, for a 14-inch pizza it would look like this: 3.14 X 49 = 153.86 (call it 154-square inches) 154 X 0.05309 = 8.175-ounces (call it 8-ounces of cheese). Repeat this for any size pizza.
Rather than looking for “the best” cheese, I’d suggest using the type of cheese that the people in your area are accomstomed to, as my main cheese, then introduce a special cheese option, say, either a whole milk mozzarella, or a provalone, as a requested topping.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor