Anyone making NY style with Organic flour?

[AnnieK]

Just curious if anyone on the board has had any luck doing a NY style pie with an organic flour?

I’ve had several disappointing attempts at using an organic flour so far, so am curious to hear from folks who have been successful with it.

Currently we do a high gluten, 64.4% hydration dough using All Trumps non-bromated flour.

I tweaked our recipe about a year ago to compensate for the non-bromate thing after we switched flours, but would love to eventually hit the nail on the head with an organic dough that gets the taste and rise and bake as our current one.

With our organic trial and error, I have kept everything else the same in my recipe, just swapped the flours. The result has had much less oven spring, much less ‘chew’ and has not browned the way I want it to. It’s been a bit lackluster so to speak.

I imagine of course that by using an organic flour and thereby removing all the nice little additive goodies thrown in to the AT, that the dough may need some additional ingredients to boost it. So I’m curious what some of you have had to do differently to make organic work for you?

So far the research I have done has led to mostly folks doing a Neapolitan with organic, not NY. I’d love to hear some input!

Thanks!

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Annie;
We make a N.Y. style pizza using organic flour all the time. We use the General Mills brand organic flour and hand stretch. This flour comes in at nearly 13% protein content and it the pizzas bake up the same as pizzas using any of the other regular flours. I can’t say that we have ever seen a difference, and we have been doing this for several years now.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[AnnieK]

Hi Tom-

Thanks for the reply. You haven’t had to change anything? I noticed such a huge difference between the flours…

I was looking at Rocky Mountain milling’s Boulder organic, which is listed at 13% protein, + or - .5 %. I’m not too worried about the 1% difference in protein from the AT, but man the dough felt and behaved differently!

Looks like it is time to experiment some more…

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Annie;
Every flour is different, and I do mean “every”. For example, every bag of flour that you receive is different from the last one you received. The blend of wheat that goes into making the flour is coinstantly changing as are the wheat varieties from different regions, months and years of production. It is really quite amazing that the flour millers are able to do such a great job as they do. Considering all of this, it does not surprise me that one type of organic flour varies from a regular bag flour. Toss into the mix the fact that for the most part, organic wheat is extremely hard to come by, and you can see why there are differences. Possibly, all you need to do is to experiment with adjustments in the dough absorption to get it to perform closer to your regular flour. Have you done this yet?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[system]

Hey Annie, I am far from an expert, and Tom knows more in his little finger than I know totally, but I will say two things. First I have played around with at least 24 types of flour just to see how they react. Then I have mixed small batches with different hydro rates and yeast levels…kept salt and oil consistant because I saw such little differences while changing them. I do not recall brands but I did 2 organic flours, both 12% +/- protein and some changes in yeast but did notice big difference with water. Try a batch with around 58% water and up your yeast 20% or so over current rate. Just try and let me know what happens. I also uped the salt a little on that one and I am just a trial and error person but this one worked. Baked a little longers at 500 or so and got a great 18" NY pie with a little rolled edge and thin but foldable large pie cuts out of it. I guaranted nothing but dough is cheap to play with. Good luck and keep us informed. :idea:

 

[AnnieK]

Hi Mike- Thanks for that. I’m curious about your comment about the hydration; did you notice a better result when you lowered your hydration levels?? Our dough is currently at 64.4% hydration, which with the AT has been great.
Can I ask what your mix times and proofing times were?

Thanks!