Whole Wheat Dough

Are there any tricks to get a similar type dough using whole wheat flour? I would like to keep the same style crust but I did not know if certain ingredients should be adjusted when replacing regular flour.

Also, what ratio of whole wheat to regular should be used? 30% wheat 70% regular? Anybody do 100% wheat and is it too grainy?

I tried the par-baked frozen crusts from Rich’s but was not thrilled so I need to make my own…do those of you who make it sell enough to keep fresh or freeze and thaw? How long does it keep fresh?

Thanks!

I added in 8 and 1/3% whole wheat when I did my dough. It changed the color and the taste enough for what I was looking for. You will need to add more water though.

My dough was much better, taste and workability wise when I mixed the whole wheat flour and water well ahead of the dough making process.

By definition, whole-wheat dough/crust should be made from all, 100% whole-wheat flour (no white flour). Wheat dough/crust can be made from a blend of whole-wheat and white flour in any amounts you care to use. Most commonly, we see a blend of 25% whole-wheat flour and 75% white flour used to make a wheat crust. This is pretty straight forward. Put the whole-wheat flour in the mixing bowl and add 70% of it’s weight as water, mix to wet the flour and allow to hydrate for 60-minutes, then add the white flour and 55% of the weight of white flour as additional water. Add the remaining ingredients, except for the oil, and mix for 2-minutes at low speed, add the oil, and mix for 1-more minute at low speed, then finish mixing in your normal manner. If you want to do something a little different, add honey to the dough to replace any sugar you might have. The amount of honey to add is 3% of the total flour weight. Then, to take it another step further, replace any oil/olive oil with butter on a pound for pound substitution. Making a whole-wheat dough is a little different, but be fore warned, it typically isn’t the most popular type of crust.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Famouspizza, I think that your 30-70 ratio is good. The problem is that technically you cant call it whole wheat because its not 100% wheat flour ( although many do). But you can call it wheat crust. Also on my Chicago style deep dish I used 50-50 ratio and it came out great. This is something Ive been experimenting with lately because we too will be adding it to our menu.

Good luck,

That’s why we call it “wheat” crust. To be correctly called whole-wheat, it should be made with 100% whole-whaet flour.
The key to making a wheat/whole-wheat dough/crust is in the soaker. If you don’t get the absorption right, the resulting dough will tighten up as the bran in the whole-wheat portion of the flour hydrates. This will reduce the volume/height of the resulting crust making for a heavier than desired crust/eating characteristic, plus a dough that is short on water will also have a somewhat dry, crumbly eating characteristic, this is especially so with wheat/whole-wheat crusts.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor