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Dough help

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adamhersh

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Does anyone have a 30# dough recipe? With my 30# of flour I am using 220 oz of water(45%) and 172 grams yeast (.0125%). I think that I am using way to much yeast because my dough balls are blown out within hours. I started by temping all my water to about 105 degrees and adding yeast and 1 cup honey. After reading PMQ I have switched to room temp water and only using about a quart at 105 to activate the yeast. This has seemed to help. I live at 9,000 elevation and in a very dry climate. My dough balls seem to dry out very quickly, so I coat each one in oil. I am proofing my dough balls in the refrigerator overnight but it does not seem to retart the proofing process enough. any ideas?
 
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We had a similar problem, at first we used as a marketing gimmick, ‘Our dough is so fresh, we make it hourly’. But it is a headache to manage your dough, especially on busy nights when you should be making pizza not dough.

We increased the salt and oil level a chilled immediately which has now given us two or three days in the chiller, which I am happy with.

I would have thought removing the honey will be the solution to over rising problem.
 
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Others will sing out as well, but it sounds like your ,most likely fix is adjusting your finished dough temp in mixer. You want your dough to end up no higher than 75 to 80F. That usually means using 70F water or so.

Portion out the dough balls, lightly brushed with oil and cross-stack the dough boxes in the cooler for 2 hours before downstacking for the rest of the night. This gives the cold air a chance to circulate and start the chilling. If not crossed to start, then definitley the ones in the middle of the stack will never get cool.

Ferment overnight. Then temper balls at room temp for an hour before opening and making pizza. cold dough will be difficult to work, and will bubble/blister a lot.
 
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Nick/Adam;
I think you “nailed it”.
I agree totally with Nick, I think the finished dough temperature has a lot to do with the problems cited. Also, even a quart (2-pounds) of water is a lot to activate the yeast in. It only need to be about 4 to 5-times the weight of the yeast for proper hydration. At 9,000-feet elevation, I would suggest a yeast level of 0.25% for IDY or about 0.3% to 0.35% for ADY. This is a little lower than the normally recommended levels of 0.375% for IDY and 0.5% for ADY at elevations up to about 5,000-feet. You might also want to increase the dough absorption by 2% to compensate for the increased evaporative loss, and increase the baking temperature by 25 to 50F to correct for the lower boiling point of the water.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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We are at 7000 feet and use a batch based on 25 lbs of dough. Not knowing what kind of yeast you are using it is hard to say, but it sounds like a lot of yeast to me. We use 56 grams of fresh yeast in our 25 lb batch.

We also use water as cold as we can get it. In general, we make our dough in the morning and use it the following day in the evening. In between, the dough stacked in the walk-in where the temperature is in the mid to high 30s. In my experience the challenge has been to get the dough cooled off as fast as possible unless we thought we were going to need it that evening.
 
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Tim, I have a question about your response. you said “You might also want to increase the dough absorption by 2% to compensate for the increased evaporative loss.” What does it mean to increase the dough absorption?
Thanks all for the feedback, it has been helpful. The lowered temp on my water seems to be the ticket.
 
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Amount of dough absorbed into the dough, basically. You have 45% . . . . so go to 47% or 48%
 
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Thanks for all the helpful advise…my dough has improved greatly! I am still having an inconsistant problem with dough balls blowing out or drying out. I am adding a cup of honey to my water before adding my activated yeast and flour. I’m wondering if the honey is neccessary. I am coating all my dough balls with olive oil before they go into the walk-in reefer to keep them from drying out. I am experimenting with different stacking, ie. I was only stacking 3 trays to help them cool more quickly. I thought this was the ticket, but I still am getting the random blown out balls. I am also having very inconsistant results when I make my dough. Sometimes it is very dense, sometimes very dry when it comes out of the mixer. I am doing everything I can think of to be consistant with my dough recipe, but am getting very inconsistant results. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially anyone in arid mountain towns who might have experienced anything simular.

Thanks,
Adam, Elevation Pizza, Fraser CO
 
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Adam, are you cross stacking your trays so the dough cools in the walk-in? If you are nesting the trays, that traps the heat and can lead to blown dough.

BTW, I am in Steamboat so if you ever come up this way message me here first and stop in for a visit and I will do the same.
 
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Tom, I use am using a 30# flour blend, I do not weigh each bag to make sure they are indeed 30#. I do weigh my yeast to 46 grams. My water and honey I measure by volume.

Steamboat, I did try cross stacking but was my dough balls were drying out severly, even with oiling each ball. I did not have enough lids for my dough trays to cover each one, but am getting more and will try the cross stack again. I appreciate the offer to check out your pizzeria, next time I have a chance to get to steamboat I will look you up.
 
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adamhersh:
I do not weigh each bag to make sure they are indeed 30#.
Click to expand...
In weighing my flour I have found a variance of up to + or - 1/2 # in 45# bags. This means one bag could be 1# heavier than the last one I used. I picked up a scale on ebay that will weight 80# for $30. Since I started weighing my ingredients I have had very good consistency.
 
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Adam;
It surprises me that your dough is drying out during the cross stack period even with a light coating of oil on the dough balls. What is your dough temperature as it comes off of the mixer? Am I correct in assuming that you are taking the dough directly from the mixer to the bench where the dough is scaled, balled, and placed into the dough boxes and then directly into the cooler for cross stacking?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Tom, Sorry for the delayed response. To answer your question yes, my dough comes immediately from the mixer to the cut table where it takes us maybe 20 minutes to portion, ball and oil them before going into the walk-in. I do live at 9,000 feet and it is VERY dry here. I assumed that was the reason for the drying out. I do have more lids now and am cross stacking everything for at least the first 4 hours in the walk in. It seems to be helping, HOWEVER, last week for a period of probably 3 days every dough ball was blown out. We were a bit slower and my dough was living in the walk in for up to 3 days. Could that be the problem? The only other thing I changed was my olive oil, not the quantity but switched brands. I didn’t think that could affect my dough this drastically.
 
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Adam;
No, the brand or even type of oil will not impact the dough in that manner. But both time and temperature will. The length of time needed to get the dough from mixer to the cooler can/will impact the life of the dough in the cooler. The longer it takes to get it into the cooler, the shorter the potential life in the cooler is. Same thing for temperature (this is why I ALWAYS stress how important it is to always measure the temperature of the dough immediately after mixing), the warmer the dough, the more heat there is to be extracted from the dough to stabilize it in the cooler, at dough that is warmer than normal can have a significantly reduced shelf life in the cooler, or it may exhibit a propensity to “blow”.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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