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dry pizza

I use a hobart electric oven it makes my pizza crispy when they are freash from the oven i am happy with my pizza when the pies stand the dough gets dry and when i reheat them they are borderline disgusting is their anything i can add to my pizza dough to keep it moist i allready use copius amounts of water. Should i cut back on the oil
 
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Tom, my dough recipie is about 15 quarts of water 2.5 cups oil 2.5 cups salt 1/4 cup suger 1 oz yeast and a 50 pound bag of flour i am cooking in a hobart electric oven and my pizza is not standing well at all once the cool they become rubbery and dry. i am using a hobart electric oven i cook on a peel right on the metal deck. my oven is about 500 degrees. Adding the extra water seems to help what should i do
 
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Tom: I’m being pushed for a solution to the black spot problem. What causes oxidation of the bran? What steps do you recommend for troubleshooting? From what I understand, this is a symptom of older dough but our dough is under 3 days old. The internal temperature of our dough balls are 35.3 degrees in our walk-in and 37.7 degrees in our prep tables. New dough is put away quickly and has an internal temperature below 42 degrees within 2 hours of production.
 
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Pizza dough recipe for bussiness

Hi Tom,

I am hoping to start my own Pizza business, the problem I have is that I dont know how to make the crust
Is there any way you could give me a good commercial pizza dough recipe or tell me where to find one
The recipes I am after are for a deep pan and thin crust

Many Thanks
 
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Selling frozen pizzas in grocery stores
Tom Lehmann:
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Tom, I am planning on selling frozen pizzas in one of the speciality stores here in town. Do you have a sample label that I can use as a technical guide as I develop my label?
 
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Tom
I have attended your pizza school in Manhattan and absolutely loved it.
My question: I realize that one can develop gluten either by kneading, or by letting dough set and letting time help. If I am in the process of laminating a low hydration dough (36%)…can you tell me the differences you would expect in the following scenarios.
  1. The dough is mixed. It is set out to double in size. The dough is then laminated, skins are cut, stacked and refrigerated for use tomorrow or later.
  2. The dough is mixed. It is set out to double in size…and then it is refrigerated overnight to be laminated, cut into skins and used later that day or later.
I’m wondering specifically about the second scenario in that one is further developing a dough (by sheeting) after gluten has been developed by the overnight rest.

I need some knowledge Tom…by the way, I have used scenario one for 35 years with great success but was just wondering about the mechanics of dough.

Thank you
John
 
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hello tom,

I have the following issue with my dough
  1. Dough is made with
    flour - 100%
    water - 57%
    sugar - 2%
    salt - 2%
    Oil (sunflower) - 4.17%
    idy - 0.44%
after the dough is mixed, it is balled and then put in the cooler cross stacked as per your advice and then retarded overnight. The following day the dough balls are removed from the cooler, by now they are slightly swollen and have spread in diameter. after about 2-3 hours at room temperature 90F (it gets pretty warm here) the dough balls have risen considerable easily more than double and are almost “bursting” i also do detect a very slight odour of beer (only Slightly)
by the above i assumed that the yeast levels were too high. so then i made another “test” batch with 0.20% idy, this time the dough balls hardly rose in the cooler and after 2 hours at room temperature the dough balls rose a bit maybe a little more than double (although not as much as the 0.44% batch)
i then proceeded to roll out the dough and bake it, the crust seemed quite good with an airy crust.
My question is How must yeast is enough considering my formula above. would the 0.20% yeast level produce eough oven Spring for the dough?
also what sugar & Oil levels would you recommend?
my target pizza is one that would travel well so be suited for delivery option.
I tried a test batch with no sugar & no oil, which produced a crust with a exceptional crunch, however the crust quickly became tough and caused eating fatigue.
what in your opinion would be a good formula considering my target application for Delivery friendly crust.
regards
ravikoth
 
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Mr Lehmann,

My wife and I are in the planning stages of a mobile WFO pizza business and from what we have been able to discern after many hours of research is how critical dough management is for creating a consistent product. We have been impressed with Jeff Varasano’s NY/Neopolitan recipe however will his dough management apply to larger batches? Will we be able to produces 100 - 300 nine ounce balls with the consistency needed to be successful? We also like the idea of using sourdough for its flavor and we have noticed that most people use imported starters from Italy…what about King Arthur’s classic starter?

Once again thank you for your generous and helpful perspective. 😃
 
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Any idea where I can find metrics such as what the average amount of pizza’s sold per restaurant would be?

Is it realistic to sell 50 to 100 per night?
 
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Hi Mr. Lehmann. First, I’d like to thank you for your help in the past - seems I was having a temperature problem with my dough months back. I’d like to further describe my work surroundings and get your advice. A lot of independents dream of being the only pizza shop in town, but in my small town there are several - in addition to two gas station/convenience stores that do a good job with pizza. Because of the number of options the locals have, we have very large swings in business from day to day - some days it seems the whole town is in the mood for us, and the very next it seems we couldn’t give them away for free.

Putting me on track with proper dough temperature has allowed me to stop trying to predict which days will be the great ones, because I can always be prepared for such a day, and any remaining dough will still cook great the following day. But due to the great variance in business from day to day, we do not pre-make our pizzas. I have a (possibly justified?) fear of the any unused pizzas losing a lot of quality sitting overnight in a cooler with sauce/cheese already on them.

I prepare my dough very similar to the dough making video that is/was posted on PMQ’s mainpage. I use ADY and am following your advice of suspending it in 100 degree water for around 10 minutes before use. I am also using All Trumps high-gluten flour, and as I become more comfortable with the product, I find myself questioning everything - I don’t want to fall into the trap of doing something a certain way just because that’s “how I was shown” or “that’s how the previous owner did it”. Our pizzas are traditional New England thick crust - we put nothing unusual or exotic into the dough, our large pizzas (16 inch), for example, are made from 24 ounce dough balls. And we make the entire pizza after it is ordered - literally taking the refrigerated dough ball from the cooler, stretching it immediately, saucing/cheesing/topping and straight into the oven. Our ovens are older propane run deck ovens (a '85 Blodgett and an '88 Peerless).

Obviously, on this busy nights it can get pretty hectic, because we’re not doing much to shift some of the workload from the busier evening to the quieter afternoon. I’m thinking (and daydreaming) that there is better way. Perhaps a slight adjustment to the dough itself would allow us to premake the pizzas with no fear of having to throw out the unused ones at the end of the night? Is high-gluten flour the way to go in my situation? I’m hoping by the end of the year to be able to replace the Peerless oven with a Marsal double deck, so I am fond of the deck ovens, but I’m willing to change just about anything else.

Thank you very much.

-Jeff.
 
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Hi Tom,
I have been following the chat groups for sometime now. I am always impressed with your quick and all knowing answers. Here’s one you can help me with. I’m on the edge about to jump into a pizza and pasta place of my own. I have been around sampling different pizzas and have run into many NY style regular pies but only one Sicilian pie that I love. The finished dough is about 1 1/2" thick, a well oiled crispy bottom crust but, it’s not heavy. It’s a nice light fluffy dough with that great crunchy bottom. I’m gettin hungry thinking about it. I have asked some pizza guys that work else where, and they all say they use the same dough as the regular pie , they just use two ball of dough , one on top of the other.
But I can tell you that their Sicilian pies are more like lead sinkers, very heavy. Please , if you have any thoughts on this or a recipe to help steer me in the right direction I would be greatful.
All The Best, Mangia Beni
 
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Whole white wheat question

Hey Tom-

I just purchased a WFO and was wondering if you could recommend a good recipe for a neapolitan and/or ny style pizza dough with 100% whole white wheat flour(KA to be exact). Thanks so much

izzi
 
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Mr. Lehmann

I’d like to find a more convenient method to create the crusts that I now form by hand and then freeze.

We’ve started a mobile wood fired operation.

Is it reasonable to use a top and bottom heated dough press to create the crust for freezing? If not, what do you suggest?

Thank you

Ned Windnagel
MamaDivaPizza

[email protected]
 
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Coal Oven

We are opening a restaurant in two weeks and are using Woodstone’s Coal Oven. I have studied and made dough using your formula as well as Reinhart formulas in my home kitchen. I have not been able to test my dough results in the actual oven. We fire up the oven next weekend and then I will have only two weeks to perfect the dough.

What I really want for this crust is to have a thin crispy outer layer that crackles and breaks apart when you put pressure on it. The inner dough is light and airy with a creamy custard like crumb. It should have big irregular bubbles yet have a little chew when you take a bite. A puffed cornicione giving way to a thin, yet crispy crust, all the way to the edge and does not droop. It will have maximum flavor in the dough and I would be willing to put a sourdough starter (I am cultivating one), a poolish/biga, long ferment, etc to get the dough where I want it. All this using a local mill for a hard spring wheat flour at 12.9 protein. Can I get there? Is there a starting recipe that I can use to get the ball rolling and then be able to tweak as I experiment?
 
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Hello Tom,
My name is Patrick Schaetzle and I’m a transplant from Paramus, NJ to here in Denver Co. I’ve always made my own homemade pizza but the altitude and dry climate has really been messing with me. I use high gluten flour, a baking stone and an oven that can reach 555. I’ve tried altering my recipe but the crust always seems to come out thin and dry. It is tasty but not the soft airy goodness I made back east. I’ve lowered the amount of yeast to counter the lack of atmospheric pressure, I’ve done a warm proof, a cold proof and added additional water but I still get a thin , dry crust. I would really appreciate any advice that you could give me to bring NY a mile high.
Thank you in advance for all your help,
Pat
 
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BURNT PIZZA BOTTOM
by Tenorio74 » 16 Mar 2011 09:52

Hello all, ok I’ll try to explain as best I can

I am doing dry-runs, have cooked 7 nights about 15 pizza per night, and the last 3 nights I have had burnt pizza bottoms/dough problems (I am making Neapolitan pies).

Dough formula:
flour 100% (80-90%pastry-10-20%bread)
water 66, 63, 60, 61%
salt 2.7%
fresh yeast 0.2% (average)

All room temp rise, 2 hour bulk followed by 6-8 hour balled until cooking time. First day was over-proofed but had no burning problems. I hand mix with three 5-min rest periods at the end.

Cooking in a wood fired oven, first night I slid pizza in at a 440ºC hearth temp, steam escaped, turned at 30secs, again at 60 and out at 90. Perfect pizza, leoparding and all (pic attached)

Did that routine happily for 3 more days, then I got burning day 4-5-6, having to cook the pizzas at the oven opening where the floor is around 370ºC.

The best I can describe it is like this. When I have proper dough, you get tiny air bubbles that fill up on the pizza bottom, effectively “raising” the pizza off the cooking floor, sort of like bubble-pack or a waffle grid. This allows only the little bubbles to be in contact with the floor, and you have airflow to reduce burning. You only get black spots where the tiny bubbles are, the rest is golden.

Last three nights, those little bubbles burst and therefore the pizza lay flat on the floor, and had massive burning (burnt halos where the bubbles burst), and burnt where the pizza was flattest on the floor (anyone ever noticed this?). The nice bubbles that don’t burst probably have a tighter gluten structure?!?:confused:)

The gluten development hasn’t been good either; the dough has become watery when stretched out (thin parts will shine), and toppings will wet it and have it stick to the peel or create holes when in the oven (this is a mess).

Can this all be a mixing problem? I changed my technique ever so slightly (but then again I work by feel usually not being a machine mixer).

We can’t afford a mixer right now, and truth be told, I have never had this problem this persistently. I though first it was yeast freshness, then too little bread flour in my mix (but my first four days were fine with my flour formulation - can’t get caputo here), but now I’m at a loss.

We’re in the final stages of testing, opening in about two weeks and now I’ve gotten nervous.

Any help and/or ideas will be greatly appreciated. Sorry for rambling on, but for the third night I have lived out my nightmares with no way to fix them (and with patrons expecting great pizza).

Tenorio
 
Cheese Struggles

Hi Tom,
I am having some difficulty finding a cheese that I am satisfied with. Our current cheese is a low moisture, part-skim 50/50 shred blend from GLC. I don’t like the way it melts, or rather the inability to melt very well. I am looking for a cheese that melts well and stays soft for awhile after baking. We are currently using a small Ultra Max conveyor oven. We bake at 480 for 7 minutes approx. Should we be using a cheese with more moisture content? We buy from most of our products from a local distributor as well as from Sysco. Is there a certain cheese that Sysco sells that you would recommend?
Thank you in advance!
 
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Hello, my name is Joni Wilbanks. My husband and I own Geno’s Pizza by the Slice in Alma, Arkansas. We came to your session at the Pizza Expo in Las Vegas. In the session you talked about a tray that you could sit the pizzas on in a conveyor oven that would make the crust crispier. After that we searched the showroom floor for that product and could never find it. Could you tell me the name of the product and who makes it?
We really enjoyed the class.
Thank you,
Joni Wilbanks
Geno’s Pizza
 
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Hello Mr. Lehmann:

I hope you can help me with my problem. The company I work for uses an Apache dough press machine to press out 5 inch pizza crusts. The problem is that we have a lot of dough that sticks to the presses, resulting in a ton of wasted dough We also have a problem with the dough popping once the press lifts. We use a formula with flour, water, instant yeast, cornmeal, potato starch, cal-pro, shortening, and garlic. We don’t have a proof box; the processed dough balls usually sit on racks and develop a light crust. Also, since the instant yeast rises so quickly, they do expand about 1 1/2 times larger than originally rolled. We apply a light coating of oil to the doughballs prior to pressing. Our dough press machine is not in mint condition. The die plates are not teflon coated. I would like to ask you, based on the ingredients I listed, is there a type of dough I can develop that can go through the die press without sticking so much? We use about 52 percent water in our dough. Also, can the potato starch in the dough be a factor in making it stick to the press? Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated, sir. Thank you…

Alan Hamilton
 
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