Increasing the flavor of dough

[MWTC]

PizzaNerd,

4% sugar, no change. Rim still not increasing in color.

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC,

It’s possible that using the Caputo 00 flour has lightened the overall coloration. You would have to go back to your original flour combination without the Caputo flour to test that thesis. If you decide not to do that, then I would leave out the added sugar and go back to what you used in the way of sweetener in the original formulation. In lieu of the sugar, you might think about using about 3-5% dried dairy whey (baker’s grade) by weight of total formula flour. I have used it with both the Caputo 00 flour and high-gluten and other flours, even at lower levels, and it worked out well. If you decide to use the dairy whey, I think I would add it as part of the final mix.

 

[MWTC]

OK.

The starter is activating right now. I will go to the dairy whey at 4%. And go back to the 1 tbs. of honey.

Lets see what that produces.

MWTC

 

[MWTC]

PizzaNerd,

The results of the use of the Bob’s Red Mill Sweet Dairy Whey were less than expected. The browning didn’t really improve at all. The texture was slightly different, a very slight pasty effect. Not an improvement, a move in the wrong direction. I have one more batch using the All Trumps and Caputo Pizzeria, the first was KASL and Caputo Pizzeria. I’ll be baking that round tomorrow. I’ll report back with the results.

I assume that we move to the diastatic malt next.

Please advise.

MWTC

 

[lilian]

MWTC:

OK.

The starter is activating right now. I will go to the dairy whey at 4%. And go back to the 1 tbs. of honey.

Lets see what that produces.

MWTC

pizza nerd your views on the following statment

the main factors in producing excellent bread is amount of yeast / temperture/oven every thing else (flour brand /amount of water /oil /conditioners/suger etc) play small role

 

[pizzanerd]

pizza nerd your views on the following statment

the main factors in producing excellent bread is amount of yeast / temperture/oven every thing else (flour brand /amount of water /oil /conditioners/suger etc) play small role

lilian,

I do not consider myself an authority on bread making, but even if I narrow your question to pizza crusts, I think you still have to differentiate between an artisan product and a mass-produced one.

If I were an artisan pizza maker, I might choose to use an organic flour or one that is at least unbleached and nonbromated. So, this alone markedly narrows the brands and choices of flours. I might then rely on using a modest amount of yeast and rely on long fermentation times and proper fermentation temperatures to develop better crust flavor, color and texture. Of course, the amount of yeast used and the fermentation times will differ for fermentations that take place at room temperature as opposed to a cooler or refrigerator. Whether one chooses to use sugar and/or oil is largely a matter of personal preference or a matter of whether one is trying to emulate a particular style, such as the Neapolitan style, which classically omits sugar and oil from the dough. Such omission was also common among the early masters of the NY pizza style. For the artisan pizza maker, using non-natural additives would be out of the question. The hydration selected for the dough will depend mainly on the type of pizza that is to be made, that is whether one is trying to make a high-hydration NY style dough or a low-hydration dough for a cracker-style pizza. So, at least for pizza dough, I do not think that one can say that hydration does not matter.

By contrast, one who makes pizzas for a broader or mass market often has to make compromises and value judgments, usually based on the markets and demographics served, cost and profit considerations, the expected volume of pizzas, and so on. So, these factors will largely dictate what ingredients will be used and what one will be prepared to pay for such ingredients. In many cases, it may be necessary to use additives to address problems encountered in making the dough or to compensate for time constraints, the demand for the product, or to achieve certain characteristics in the product. Some additives are natural, and might be avoided by the proper selection of dough formulations and methods, but others are chemicals that are specially developed to solve specific problems or to achieve specific characteristics that would be more difficult or take too long to achieve using more natural methods.

Unless you bring a bias to the table, I do not really think that there is a “right” answer to your question.

 

[lilian]

ty pizzanerd
have you cooked a high hydration pizza in a high temp oven does the water play great part in raising the crust in the oven?

 

[pizzanerd]

lilian,

There has to be a proper match between the hydration of the dough and the oven temperature. If the hydration is too high and the oven temperature is very high at the same time, it’s possible that the dough won’t completely bake before the rest of the pizza is done and be undercooked in parts. So, either the hydration has to be lowered or the oven temperature has to be lowered to permit a longer bake. With the right hydration and the right oven temperature, there should be good oven spring. As an example, a 00 dough with a hydration of around 64-65% and baked in an authentic Neapolitan wood-fired oven operating at around 1000 degrees F will be done in about a minute or two and have very good oven spring. I have even read of bake times less than a minute. There is a lot of discussion on these matters at the forum of pizzamaking.com in case you want more detail.

 

[MWTC]

PizzaNerd,

I am ready to get back to the browning issue. (Been having to much fun with Willard’s 2stone Oven.)

The sugar and honey didn’t help any.

The whey didn’t help either.

Do you recommend that I start with 1% diastatic malt? Or do I try the dry milk (bakers grade) first?

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC:

The results of the use of the Bob’s Red Mill Sweet Dairy Whey were less than expected. The browning didn’t really improve at all. The texture was slightly different, a very slight pasty effect. Not an improvement, a move in the wrong direction. I have one more batch using the All Trumps and Caputo Pizzeria, the first was KASL and Caputo Pizzeria. I’ll be baking that round tomorrow. I’ll report back with the results.

I assume that we move to the diastatic malt next.

Please advise.

MWTC,

Somehow I entirely missed your post concerning the use of dried dairy whey. Sorry about that.

I have successfully used dried dairy whey before with 00 doughs (and with doughs made with other flours), so I am somewhat surprised by your results. You are correct about the collateral effects of the dairy whey on the dough. I was aware of that when I suggested it but wanted to see if the whey would solve your coloration problem before suggesting something else. Most people don’t mention the side effects of whey on dough texture so I am glad to see that you spotted it. Usually the principal observation is the effect on crust color.

With sugar, honey and dried dairy whey not offering a solution to your crust coloration problem, I am beginning to think that for some reason you aren’t getting enough top heat in your oven. If you haven’t already been doing so, you may want to move your pizza to a higher oven position toward the end of the bake. Or use the broiler element for about a minute at the end of the bake, with the pizza at a high oven rack position. I can’t believe that the added top heat won’t improve matters.

If you would prefer to stick with an ingredients approach, you can certainly try using some diastatic malt. Since the Caputo 00 flour is milled from grains with less starch damage than our domestic flours, you aren’t likely to get a great deal more sugar extraction to contribute to crust coloration. However, you should get some more from the All Trumps. For a range, you might try from 0.33-0.66% diastatic malt, as a percent of formula flour. If you haven’t been able to get better crust coloration with sugar, honey and whey, I can’t say that I am particularly optimistic about the use of the diastatic malt. So, I hope you will report back on your results if you try the diastatic malt.

 

[MWTC]

PizzaNerd:

With sugar, honey and dried dairy whey not offering a solution to your crust coloration problem, I am beginning to think that for some reason you aren’t getting enough top heat in your oven. If you haven’t already been doing so, you may want to move your pizza to a higher oven position toward the end of the bake. Or use the broiler element for about a minute at the end of the bake, with the pizza at a high oven rack position. I can’t believe that the added top heat won’t improve matters.

I tried those, it only overcooked the cheese. The cheese breaks down and doesn’t effect the browning very much.

I’ll try the diastatic malt.

MWTC

 

[MWTC]

pizzanerd:

For a range, you might try from 0.33-0.66% diastatic malt, as a percent of formula flour. If you haven’t been able to get better crust coloration with sugar, honey and whey, I can’t say that I am particularly optimistic about the use of the diastatic malt. So, I hope you will report back on your results if you try the diastatic malt.

PizzaNerd,

Do you think it will make a difference when I add the diastatic malt? One option would be to add it in the “natural biga” or two, add it after the biga was finished and adding it with the remaining ingredients when I mix, riposo, and knead.

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC,

I would add the diastatic malt as part of the final mix.

Would you mind posting the latest dough recipe you are using and how you are making the dough? For some reason, it appears that you are losing sugar in the dough, and that may be why you are losing crust color. This is fairly common for long fermentation times at room temperature. My recollection is that you have been fermenting the two-stage biga for around 24 hours at room temperature, followed by a period of cold fermentation. When the biga is added to the flour and other ingredients as part of the final mix, the overall quantity of fermentiscible sugar is lower than what is available for the yeast in a straight dough method. As a result of the lower availability of sugar, it can be difficult to get satisfactory color in the crust, and particularly so if the final dough contains a large amount of preferment, as it does in your case. The use in the flour blend of the Caputo 00 flour, which has a low enzyme performance, aggravates the situation more–in proportion to its inclusion as part of the total formula flour. This is a situation where diastatic malt is frequently used. Let’s hope that it works. If it doesn’t, you may have to modify the dough formulation and/or fermentation times.

 

[MWTC]

Step 1:

Activate Starter. I take out 120 grams of starter,= 15% of flour weight, from the fridge, place it in an air tight container and allow it to activate. A doubling of the starter is what I am look for. At this time, it takes about 3-4 hours, a little more is not a problem. I have allowed it to activate way past this and it still functions just fine, even to the point where it doubles and then deflates, 18-24 hours. The starter is a 50% flour and 50% water, refreshed every third day.

Step 2:

I take the activated starter and add 190 grams of 70 degree water. Add 100 grams of Caputo Pizzeria flour and 300 grams of All Trumps Unbleached High Gluten flour. Mix it until it comes together, (1-2 minutes) with the Kitchen Aid 500 Plus mixer. Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and allow it to ferment for 18-24 hours. Until it is maxed out. In the KA mixing bowl it fills the bowl to the 3/4 full mark. We experimented with a 12 hour fermentation and it wasn’t near is as good. Remember, we lost oven spring at a lesser fermentation time. This is a 55% hydration “natural biga”.

Step 3:

Take the “biga” and add 254 grams of cold water. Add 1 Tbs Olive Oil, 1 Tbs Kosher Salt, 1 Tbs Honey. Add 100 grams Caputo Pizzeria flour and 240 grams of All Trumps High Gluten flour. Mix with dough hook for 2 minutes, then allow a 20 minute “riposo”, then a 5 minute Knead. Ball up the doughs and place on an oiled half sheet pan, cover with the plastic cover and refigerate. I allow it to cold ferment for 48 hours. I have used it after 24 hours but it is still a little to dense at that point. The additional 24 hours is required, to my taste. I get 3-12 oz. doughs and 1-10 oz dough. The dough temp. going into the fridge is around 68-70 degrees.

Step 4:

Remove cold from fridge and allow to warm up under plastic wrap for 1-2 hours. Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees for 1/2 to 1 hour. Place dough into 1-1/2 inch tin steel pan. Bake on stone till bottom is golden brown and finish on next rack above stone (middle of oven). I have baked using the hearth disk and cutter pans. The use of lesser sided pans & disks does allow for a slight increase in browning but no where near the disired results.

The Recipe:

800 grams Flour
504 grams water = 63% hydration
(included in the above, 120 grams of starter =15% of flour weight)
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1 Tbs Honey
1 Tbs Kosher Salt

Last night I finished a batch and added 0.66% diastatic malt = 1Tbs, per your instruction.

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC,

Thank you very much. I ran through some calculations based on your latest dough formulation. You may want to check my math, but I calculated that the total flour is 860 grams rather than 800 grams. Here is my analysis:

At the end of Step 1, there is 60 grams of flour and 60 grams of water in the starter. That is 15% of the 800 grams. The hydration of the starter is 100%, which is technically a poolish consistency.

At the end of Step 2, there is 120 grams of starter (60 grams of flour and 60 grams of water), plus 100 grams of Caputo 00 flour, plus 300 grams of All Trumps, plus 190 grams of water at 70 degrees F. The total flour at this point is 460 grams and the total water at this point is 250 grams. That translates to a hydration of 54.35%, not 63% at this point as you noted. The 54.35% hydration level is within the classic “biga” hydration range.

At the end of Step 3, there is 460 grams of flour and 250 grams of water from the end of Step 2, plus 100 grams more of Caputo 00 flour, plus 300 grams more of All Trumps, plus 254 grams more of water (cold). There are also the olive oil, honey and Kosher salt. The total flour at this point is 860 grams and the total water at this point is 504 grams. That translates to a hydration of 58.6%. If my calculations are correct, you may want to keep that 58.6% figure in mind for future efforts since it may be a factor in why the oven spring has been less than desired.

I’ll be anxious to hear of your results from using the diastatic malt. If that doesn’t improve the crust coloration, you may want to think about collapsing Steps 2 and 3 into a single step and adjust fermentation times. With 710 grams of dough at room temperature for 18-24 hours, that may be leaving too little natural sugar to support good coloration even after adding more flour in Step 3 to provide its own source of natural sugar. And a good part of that additional sugar will be consumed during the 48 hour cold fermentation period.

 

[MWTC]

Sorry for this error. I was working from memory and not from my notes.

I changed the above post to correctly reflect the actual way that I am doing it. The Biga is 55% as you stated which is correct, I made a mistake in saying it was 63%.

And the All Trumps added after the biga ferments is 240 grams not 300 grams bringing it into line at 63%

Does that bring things into correct calculation?

The results will be in this weekend, using the diastatic malt.

Remember, we did add additional sugar to this formulation and it didn’t change anything. Maybe adding more sugar than before and at different times might do something if the sugar is being used up during the additional fermentation time. Just a thought.

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC,

Yes, the numbers now appear to be correct.

Technically, what you have been doing is correct. By that, I mean that you have used only flour, water and yeast (wild) in your starter and “natural biga”, and that you have properly incorporated the honey, oil and Kosher salt as part of the final mix. Where your dough formulation is unorthodox is the sequential two-step preferment method. And it may be this two-step process that is resulting in insufficient residual sugar in the dough at the time of baking that is causing insufficient browning of the crust. I calculate that 1 tablespoon of honey is about 2.62% of the total formula flour. Normally, that percent of sugar is not detectible as sweetness on the palate of most people although honey is sweeter than ordinary table sugar (sucrose) . Did the crust taste sweet to you?

FYI, to complete the record, I calculate that your olive oil (1 T.) is 1.69% of the total formula flour, and that your Kosher salt (1 T. of Diamond Crystal brand) is 1.28% of the total formula flour. Those numbers are not out of line (although I personally like more salt).

 

[MWTC]

I would not say that the dough has a noticable sweetness. Even when we added the sugar, I wouldn’t say I noticed the sweetness. Excellent flavor, minimal browning.

As a side note, using this dough and some of the variations, browned up very nicely, (chared) using the 2stone Oven.

I’ll report back with the results with the diastatic malt.

MWTC

 

[MWTC]

PizzaNerd,

The diastatic malt did not make any change in the browning of the dough. :? The dough seemed a little denser, it lost some of the airy texture in the rim. I baked another on the next day in the 2stone Oven and the airyness and browning was excellent.

Do you think that baking at 500 degrees is just not going to produce the browning? Or do you think continued experimentation is just a waste of time?

MWTC

 

[pizzanerd]

MWTC:

PizzaNerd,

The diastatic malt did not make any change in the browning of the dough. :? The dough seemed a little denser, it lost some of the airy texture in the rim. I baked another on the next day in the 2stone Oven and the airyness and browning was excellent.

Do you think that baking at 500 degrees is just not going to produce the browning? Or do you think continued experimentation is just a waste of time?

MWTC

MWTC,

When you mentioned in an earlier post that you achieved good crust coloration using the 2stone oven, that suggested that your home oven isn’t providing sufficient top heat. I don’t have a 2stone oven, but I know that it is capable of providing temperatures above 750 degrees F. Whether there is enough residual sugar in the dough and on the surface to support good crust coloration all by itself, the high oven temperatures using your 2stone oven may be contributing additional coloration through the denaturing of protein and the Maillard reactions. The Maillard reactions are reactions that take place in the presence of heat between reducing sugars (also residual), protein (amino acids) and moisture. The more sugar there is, or the more protein there is, the greater the degree of crust coloration, and it will intensify with increasing oven temperature and increasing bake times. In your case, you may also be getting some charring and leoparding, which are also contributing to the appearance of the finished crust. As an added side benefit, but also an important one, the high temperature of your 2stone oven is also helping nicely with the oven spring.

In my home oven, I rarely have problems with lack of crust coloration, even with doughs that contain no sugar at all and are over a week or two old (cold fermented). Because my oven is deepâ€â€much deeper than commercial deck ovensâ€â€I usually move the pizza from a lower oven rack position to the topmost oven rack position for about a minute or two at the end of the bake. There is more heat there to help provide more crust color. What I do in such instances is equivalent to what some pizza operators with brick hearth-type ovens do when they lift the pie up toward the dome of the oven at the end of the bake to finish the pizza. That is often a sign of an oven that is too deep.

Where I do occasionally encounter problems getting sufficient crust color even when using the top oven rack position is when I am using a cheese that breaks down or turns brown too fast under the top heat. That is mainly a problem of not being able to find high quality retail-level cheeses where I live. Under those circumstances, I have learned to put the cheeses (generally mozzarella cheese) down before the sauce (which I put down in a manner to leave some of the cheese exposed) so that the cheeses are for the most part shielded from the top heat. If you haven’t tried that, or if you are using cheeses that break down easily or brown too quickly, it may be something for you to consider. If you have already tried that and it didn’t work for you, then the only other option I can think of is to re-do your formulation, as by collapsing the two stages of your preferment into a single stage, as I previously mentioned. Of course, if you are satisfied with the dough formulation as it is and the use of the 2stone oven, then you may not find a need to do anything further at this point. Either way, I would say that you have accomplished a lot, both in meeting most of your objectives and in learning about the principles involved in making naturally-leavened pizza doughs. We would have failed only if neither of us learned anything, or your pizzas got worse instead of better as a result of our exchanges.