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Pizza a la Central America

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kes8622

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As a former Pizza Restaurant Manager, I had the idea that moving to Central America (El Salvador) would pose no challenge in my pizza making career. I was wrong.

After moving here, I acquired a pizza stone (soap stone) and a gas oven. Using my same as always dough recepie, I figured I could easily reproduce the results of the pizza I made in the USA. I found quality mozzerella, quality sauce (imported tomatoes), etc.

I bake my first pizza. I have a fluffy, crispy crust. Looks good. So does it taste good? No. It tastes terrible. Like wet carpet. It tastes like I took the flour, threw it on the ground, poured water on it and tried to eat it. I am not exaggerating. I tried adding more sugar, some honey, etc as sweeteners, it helped a little but not really. I finally decided the issue has to be the flour.

The flour brand is “Molsa” it’s all purpose and apparently good for “Pizza” according to the packaging.
Prepared with selected soft wheat and fortified with iron, B complex vitamins and folic acid, micronutrients important for a balanced diet.
Click to expand...
Iron is used to reduce anemia levels in the population. Folic acid is an important micro nutrient for women of childbearing age and to help prevent malformations of the spine in the fetus. The fiber found in wheat is insoluble type is not absorbed by the body and helps constipation problems, reduce the risk of colon cancer, diverticulosis (hernias in the colon). ALL WHEAT FLOUR MOLSA D’USO, is prepared according to HACCP standards which ensure the quality that will hit consumer desks. Its chemical composition gives it the characteristic of being used in multiple ways in the kitchen such as:

Quesadillas
Cakes
Cookies
Sticks
Pizzas
Nutritious gruel
Give body to sauces
Breaded
Churros
Pastry general

I found a link back to this forum in my quest to figure out whats going on, this link is from “el medico de la masa” regarding flower in Mexico.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8973&start

I have a feeling its similar. Seems to me like Molsa might not be food for pizza after all. Any recommendations on what I might use to fix this? I am not sure what type of flour meets Pizza needs here if “All purpose” doesn’t. I am very upset with this Pizza situation.

(Other details: I did try the pizza dough on this site, similar to mine, no help. Yeast is same brand as I used in the states so I am not worried about that. The dough looks very “porous” like it is fermenting poorly. I am using purified water. I assume the poor fermentation is at the fault of the flour not my yeast, correct?)

What do you think Doc’? (Or anyone else for that matter)
 
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The problem could very well be due to high starch damage in your local flour. Is the dough very sticky after you allow it to ferment for a few hours? Does it collapse after a few hours of fermentation time? If this sounds familiar, you will need to try to find a flour mill making bread flour for BIMBO, then see if you can buy some of that flour. There may also be a bakery down there making hamburger buns for McDonalds. If there is, see if you can get some of the same flour they use for the buns.
What’s wrong with the locally grown tomatoes??? For the most part, they are a lot better than many of our own locally grown tomatoes. Rather than sauce, try using nothing but a thin application of olive oil on the dough skin, then apply some fresh, green leaf basil, followed by fresh thin sliced tomato. Works great! A lot cheaper too. I’ve done a lot of work with Pollo Campero (Guatemala) and their pizza program. I know for a fact that they have some pretty decent flour that works well for pizza, so if you can’t find anything locally, try to find out what mill they are buying their flour from and try a couple bage of it to see how it works for you.
Please keep me posted on your progress.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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The search continues . . .
This is an update as of June 8, 2010.
We took a trip to the local supermarket in the town next to us (Progreso, Mexico) and interviewed the commercial bakery department. In all of the bread that they produce they add in products from a company called Puratos (many different products, dough conditioners and flours).

After an additional 3 interviews with the the bakers (the last one with an interpreter), several hours on the internet and 2 calls to Mexico City here is what we learned:

Puratos has a traveling vendor in our area (yeah!!!). We were able to purchase a product called Puratos Easy Hamburger 100 (the product used at the supermarket) and Toupan ActiPlus.

Using the information gained from our interviews we were able to mix 50% Easy Hamburger, 2% ActiPlus and 50% harina blanco (regular flour) and got our first batch of dough that wasn’t blown. We used 47% water and might back that down to around 40-42% based on the information we got from our interviews and the labeling on the product. We fermented for 45 mins and started cooking. The dough was better than anything we have produced to date. Still not hand tossable but. . . After 4.5 hours at room temperature (still fermenting) the dough was not blown. We are going to meet with the vendor in 2 weeks and learn if they have a better product for our needs.

We will keep you posted.

Para mi amigo en El Salvador:
http://www.puratos.co.cr/products_solut … efault.htm
Puratos de El Salvador SA de CV

Boulevard Venezuela
Esquina Calle Lorea, Local 4
Contiguo a Iglesia del Carmen
San Salvador

Phone: ++/503/298.56.00
Fax: ++/503/279.34.38

We will keep you posted on our progress.
 
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Can you tell us what the 50% Hamburger and 2% ActiPlus products are, and what they are used for? And have you concluded at this point that the flour you were using was the problem, as Tom Lehmann mentioned as a possibility?

PN
 
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As near as we can figure (we will have more information in 2 weeks after we meet with the vendor personally) the 50% Hamburger is a blended high gluten flour with a number of additives (we can’t read our bag so I can’t be more precises right now) and a touch of sugar. According to the folks we interviewed it is a better quality flour than the regular flour sold here. It tastes and acts better than any flour we have used down here. We use the Actiplus as a dough conditioner and when I googled some of the ingredients it also acts to retard the fermentation process (a problem for me since I don’t have a walk-in cooler) I have attached a picture of the label (I can e-mail a fairly high res photo so you can zoom in on it if the attached photo is not readable). Perhaps Senor Lehman could take a look at the label and tell us both exactly what it does. 😃

It is clear to us that the flour we were using was not acceptable for making a quality pizza.
I will let you know what the vendor says.
 
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Tom,

Thanks for the great suggestion with the basil and the tomato. I will give that a try, I am sure it will save me a bundle on sauce. Local tomatoes vary in quality, although the good ones are very cheap still.

As for the flour, we have a pollo campero and telepizza right here where I live. I am attempting to find out where I can purchase similar flour.

I am pretty sure its the flour but it baffles me, I am not having severe issues with the dough fermentation. I will admit, if I allow the 24 hour dough fermentation it seems a little off, I can still turn it into a pizza and it rises well. It just tastes bad, as I mentioned almost pasty. I always have used the same recipe and in the states it worked just fine. Which leads me to believe it is the ingredients here.

As a little experiment last night I decided to do a “Pan Pizza”. In other words I made a dough with some powdered milk mixed in (its an old pan pizza recipe) and mixed the yeast, powdered milk, salt, sugar with warm water. Added flour and oil, mixed and kneaded it. Allowed it to rise 2 hrs at room temp and baked it. It turned out spectacular. In fact it tasted great. Really is baffling me because I had assumed the flour is bad but it tasted good.

Is it possible the flour is the source and the reason the pan pizza turned out fine is because I did quick fermentation (2 hrs) – which is fine for pan pizza but no go for my regular pizza. It only seems to taste bad when I let it ferment for the full 24 hrs or even 12. Would that still be the flour?

Thanks so much to everyone for the input… Pizza + Central America = A Challenge!

Also El Beachstro – Small world amigo! I am out here in La Paz trying to bring the Pizza to life. I had actually tried some “Mejoradora de hariena” from La Despensa de Don Juan. It did amazing things for our garlic knots. Gave the dough a decent texture and flavor. Sadly it ruins our pizza, it seems to stop the fermentation process or at least slow it. I am not sure why. I will definently check out that information you provided, and please keep me updated on the situation with what you find, it may help me too!
 
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Hummmm…Dough tastes “pasty” could it also be said to taste “starchy”? This would be a classic flavor profile for a product that was made with insufficient salt. Pizza and bread type products develop their best flavor when the salt level is in the range of 1.5 to 2.25% of the flour weight. You might teast this out by making a dough with 2% salt level. Here’s how to calculate a 2% salt level. Use your calculator as follows: enter your flour weight (maybe in grams) press “X” then enter 2 and press the “%” key. Read the answer in grams weight in the display window. Let us know what you find.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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Tom,

I will give that a shot.

When doing small portions to test out for dough quality I have been using the follow (this is my small 1 portion tiny recipie not my batch recipie)

(.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar

It has pasty or maybe “Starchy” taste. Never happened to me until I got here. I tried 1.5 of salt, still same taste. It’s strange. If I do other stuff such as pan pizza or do garlic knots with that above recepie its fine. Its just when I go for a regular pizza w/ 24 hrs fermentation. I’m baffled.
 
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kes8622,

One thing that jumps out at me is the use of a full packet of yeast (0.25 ounces) for two cups of bread flour. By my estimation, that is close to 3%. That is a lot more than you need for a 24-hour cold fermented dough. Were you pan pizza and garlic knots based on a similar fermentation period?

PN
 
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PN,

Thanks for the reply. No they were not. When I did the garlic knots I did a large batch of dough and the yeast was less I believe.

My pan pizza was warm-fermented at room temperature for 1.5 - 2 hours and it works fine.

I just noticed something, I def. copied and pasted that recpie from a document on my computer and didn’t change the yeast line as I do in my small batch.

I really only use 1 teaspoon of yeast in the small 2 cup flour batch, which 1 teaspoon is … around 0.14 - 0.15 ounces of yeast. Is that still too much?

Even when I use my regular full scale recpie I still get issues. Troubleshooting this is difficult. I was sure it was the flour, hmm…
 
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kes8622,

If you are using 0.14-0.15 ounces of ADY for two cups of flour, then by my estimate you are still very high, at about 1.6% ADY. It’s hard to be more precise since you are using a volume measurement for your flour. You should be able to use far less ADY, maybe around 0.40% for a one-day cold fermented dough for where you are.

Tom may be able to tell us whether the high yeast usage has been a proximate cause of the problems you have been experiencing. It may still be the flour.

PN
 
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PN may be on to something with the high yeast level. According to my Transposition Table, your folur amount in the 2-cup batch comes out to 270-grams. For 270-grams of flour, you should be adding about 0.5% ADY or 1.35-grams of ADY. This is the equivqalent to 1% compressed yeast. There is nothing in the milling of the wheat that would create a situation where the flavor would change significanyly over a 24-hour refrigerated fermentation period. Even if the flour was unmalted, you’re still adding enough extra sugar to support fermentation for up to two days in the cooler. Just out of curiosity, How much growth do you see in the size of the dough balls during the 24-hour fermentation period?
Does your dough management procedure differ much from what I’ve shown below?
Mix dough.
Finished dough temperature: 80 to 85F/26.6 to 29.4C.
Immediately scale and ball the dough.
Place into dough boxes and oil the tops of the dough balls, or oil the dough balls and place into individual plastic bage.
Take directly to the cooler. 36 to 40F/ 2.2 to 4.4C
If using dough boxes, cross stack for 2-hours. Not necessary to cross stack if using plastic bags.
After two hours, down stack and nest/cover the dough boxes.
Allow dough to remain in the cooler for at least 12-hours. Keeps for up to 72-hours.
Remove dough from cooler and allow to temper AT room temperature for 2-hours.
Open the dough up to fit your pans.
Place opened dough into an oiled, dark colored deep-dish pan.
Cover the pan(s) and allow to proof/rise in a warm area for 45 to 70-minutes.
Dress and bake.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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PN thank you.

Tom… that sounds about what my process is. The only difference is that I usually don’t allow a full two hours at room temp, more like 1 to 1.5 but the room temp is higher here since its always HOT.

My yeast in the small batch may be very high. I am doing a batch right now and I will post results.

The change I notice in dough ball size is pretty normal.

After 24 hours my dough from the cooler is about … 60% larger than when it went in, after tempering at room temp it gains the size a lot. When I quick ferment for 2 hrs at warm I see the dough double. But obviously that is a no go.

I am gonna try another batch now and see what happens… I will post those results! Thanks again to everyone for working with me on this
 
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