I recommend the use of bags quite a bit, especially when space is a premium or when reach in coolers are the only coolers available to work with. You can use either bread bags or “food” bags which come on a roll. To use bags all you need to do is to lightly oil the dough ball immediately before placing it into the bag. This is the important part: To close the bag, twist the open end into a pony tail and tuck it under the dough ball as you place it onto a sheet pan leaving about a 1-inch space between the dough balls. By doing this you will allow the dough ball to expand to some extent without bursting the bag. Don’t worry about the dough ball being restricted in expansion, this will have essentially no impact upon the fermentation of the dough/dough ball. The advantages of using bags are that you don’t need to cross stack dough boxes followed by down stacking several hours later. This means that you can make dough just before you close up shop without the need to come back later to down stack the dough boxes. To use the dough, while I recommend allowing the dough to warm to 50F before opening it into pizza skins, many like to use it directly from the cooler, which ever method you use, just open the bag and invert it allowing the dough ball to easily fall out onto a dusted bench for opening. I like to say that the bags can be reused several times if handled in a sanitary manner, but your local health department will have the final say in the matter.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
