NicksPizza
New member
I am here to bear witness as a recovering owner/pizza guy. We’re like Marines in one way: Once a Piizza Guy, Always a Pizza guy. That said, home kitchens are almost insanely different. I finally decided to make my 1st dough in my home using my Kitchenaid Mixer. Holy Hoping Moses!! How do people work with just 1kg of four??
The handling and visual cues are ‘familiar’, but different. The dough doesn’t gyrate in the bowl as much and mix quite as well quite as quickly. The fermenting and handling are still spot on, but adjusting the recipes is far more sensitive. The percentages at 1000 grams need far more precisions than at 25 kg (25,000 grams). Temperature management is more sensitive as well. you don’t have the mass, so temps check quicker. Sure, the mixer muscle is different as well, and the sound cues have to be relearned.
All this is for the new guys working up recipes in small batches at home in preparing to open shops one day. It is valuable experience learning how to mix and handle dough, and how to use bakers’ percent formulas. Invaluable experience. The lesson is that no matter how perfect you get your formula, you may need some adjustments at scale to get it to handle the way you are expecting. Time, water temp, and/or hydration may change . . . prepare for them to change.
It should be simple enough to zero in . . . and the question came to my mind whether it would be simpler to tinker with a 1 kg recipe up to 25 kg, or adjust an existing 25kg recipe to what one wants. I just dealt with scaling down to micro level.
Made dough 2 days ago, and stretching for pizzas tonight. Using home electric oven @475F with a pizza stone below . . . and a preheated cast iron skillet on the rack above to try to approximate the pizza oven better. that 16" skillet is MASSIVE. Need a good while to preheat . . . maybe on stovetop to start it out. An idea for home baking who are doing testing.
The handling and visual cues are ‘familiar’, but different. The dough doesn’t gyrate in the bowl as much and mix quite as well quite as quickly. The fermenting and handling are still spot on, but adjusting the recipes is far more sensitive. The percentages at 1000 grams need far more precisions than at 25 kg (25,000 grams). Temperature management is more sensitive as well. you don’t have the mass, so temps check quicker. Sure, the mixer muscle is different as well, and the sound cues have to be relearned.
All this is for the new guys working up recipes in small batches at home in preparing to open shops one day. It is valuable experience learning how to mix and handle dough, and how to use bakers’ percent formulas. Invaluable experience. The lesson is that no matter how perfect you get your formula, you may need some adjustments at scale to get it to handle the way you are expecting. Time, water temp, and/or hydration may change . . . prepare for them to change.
It should be simple enough to zero in . . . and the question came to my mind whether it would be simpler to tinker with a 1 kg recipe up to 25 kg, or adjust an existing 25kg recipe to what one wants. I just dealt with scaling down to micro level.
Made dough 2 days ago, and stretching for pizzas tonight. Using home electric oven @475F with a pizza stone below . . . and a preheated cast iron skillet on the rack above to try to approximate the pizza oven better. that 16" skillet is MASSIVE. Need a good while to preheat . . . maybe on stovetop to start it out. An idea for home baking who are doing testing.
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Nick said: “once a pizza guy, always a pizza guy” and all I could do is remember ppg2270’s comment… “once a delivery driver, always a delivery driver” :roll: Nick has fallen even closer to the dark side! Kim has obviously sold off all of his chef pants and now he wears a cap and has a magnet on his car…even though he does not deliver. I have tears in my eyes once again… as for a second time we have lost our friend Nick!