Hi, my sauce is based on tomato puree. It contains the following:
basil
marjoram
oregano
black pepper
garlic powder
sugar
When its just mixed it has a great consistency - spreads really well, quick, easy to portion with spoodles. However, by the next morning its really thick. What’s causing this? Is it the container? We use large circular plasic bowls with lids. Could it be the reach in temperature? Its set at 35F. Or is it the garlic? It says garlic powder but is actually granulated. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
It is normal for sauce to thicken given time in the walk in. We add water to our sauce knowing we will not use it till later in the night and the next day. When mixing any quality sauce with a decent percentage of tomato solids, it will absorb water and thicken up with time. just mix batches with the knowledge of when it will be used. Tommorow, more water, today, less.
the dehydrated spice “gulp” up the H20 - you can plan accordingly and make the sauce 1 day in advance to allow for absorption…or you might try making a “slurry” w/the spices & hot water 1st…
The "plop"of the thickening sauce is easy to cure. The problem stems from your addition of garlic to the sauce. The tomato contains pectins that can thicken, set like gelatin. The garlic contains enzymes that catalize this reaction, thus causing the tomato product to set-up.
You have two options in dealing with this issue.
Put your garlic in a microwave safe bowl, add some water, and “nuke” it to a full boil. You can then add your garlic to the sauce.
Delete the garlic from the sauce entirely, and instead, add it to the pizza right after saucing. Put the garlic powder in a shaker and shake it on. I know, the portion control isn’t the greatest, but it does work. The latest twist in my own cats tail is to apply a very light coating of olive oil to the dough skin, then add about a teaspoon of minced garlic (for a 12-inch dough skin) which I randomly spread over the surface of the dough. Then I add fresh sliced tomatoes (but that’s just me) or you can add your sauce at this time, then proceed dressing the dough skin in your normal manner. No more tomato jelly going on any of my pizzas!
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
personally I like thick pizza sauce. the crust seems to hold up better to it. Pizza sauce is actually the crust’s enemy, the more you use theres more of a chance of getting soggy crust. We use a very minimal amount unless customers request more.
Adding additional water probably isn’t the best approach. When we make our sauce, it comes out at about 11.5 to 12% solids. About where you want a good sauce to be, but after thinning it back out to spreading consistency it comes in at something closer to 10.5%olids. This translates to less flavor, and a greatly increased propensity for develop0ing a gum line in the finished pizza. Just keep an eye on the solids content after thinning a sauce like this down as you might create some additional problems (like we did).
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
I thought aboutn that myself as I thinned the sauce the first night back in business. Now, we just bring the tub to room temp, stir it quickly with a which to break uop the pectin a litte, and make the pies. sure, it is still thicker than when we mixed it, but the thciker sauce give far less gum line issues for us, and the flavor is really more intense without the extra water.
You use a hydrometer for that measurement or what? After the gel sets up, I don’t think my hydrometer would sink in far enough even to register the scale.
We used a gadget that Big Dave (Ostrander) has to measure the brix/solids content. We just put a drop of sauce on the sight glass and looked through it at the light and it gave us the solids content. Quick, easy, and accurate. The only downside to the thing was the cost, about $1,000.00 or there abouts.
Tom Lehmann/the Dough Doctor