Pre-making skins with low hydration dough

[pcuezze]

I’m opening in the next 2-3 months and am trying to make sure I have my prep and production nailed prior to opening. Unfortunately, i don’t have a commercial kitchen to work in so most of my experience is in my home kitchen (I have my sheeter set up in the garage). I’m hoping to have all of my thin crust skins prepped in advance. I planned on storing them in a plastic bag under the prep table (refrigerated).

My dough is 37% hydration and very thin (~300 grams to a 15" pizza). Is anyone working with a similar dough in their pizzeria? In my house, these skins have performed very well - even lasting until the next day (18 hours). My plan was to sheet 2x per day (morning and after lunch).

I also have a chicago style which uses a totally different dough so I really can’t afford to sheet the thin crust to order. Anybody who has experience-based tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Patrick Cuezze
www.nextdoorpizza.com (work in progress)

 

[pcuezze]

Sorry to bump this thread, but I’m wondering if a dough press will work with low hydration dough for a thickness factor of .55-.58. Anyone have any experience?

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

With a dough that low in absorption, you would need to add a reducing agent such as PZ-44 just to get the dough to press out decently.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[pcuezze]

Thanks a lot Tom. I"m going to have a rep bring a demo to me for practice (it’ll have to be in my home). One more question - my dough rises at ambient temperature. I’m sure you’ve seen dough like this before, but it is not a “dough” when it comes out of the mixer but more of a crumbled mess. My thought was to let it rise in a tight lidded “trash” can rather than trying to cut it and put in dough boxes. Does that seem appropriate to you?

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

We make our Chicago style cracker crust in what is probably a similar manner. The dough is just barely mixed, total mixing time is about 2-minutes. The dough is dry and crumbly. You have two options, one is to do as you suggest, put the dough into a container (not tightly lidded) loose fitting lid works best, then allow the dough to hydrate and ferment overnight before cutting it into pieces and sheeting to form the dough skins. We have found what we think is a better method, we take the crumbly dough to the bench right after mixing, and we scale it, and form it into rough dough pieces, then we place the dough pieces into a plastic dough box(es), cross stack in the cooler for 1-hour, then cover or nest the boxes. On the following day, remove about a 3-hour supply of dough from the cooler, allow to temper AT room temperature for 90-minutes, then sheet to the desired size. The dough will still need to be trimmed to finished diameter, but this method produces the least amount of trim scrap. We typically scale the dough balls in this case 1.5 to 2-ounces heavier than what the actual dough skin weighs. By this I mean, we sheet a piece of dough to the desired thickness, then trim all od the scrap away and weigh the actual, remaining dough on the screen or pan. To this weight, add 1.5 to 2-ounces, and that is the dough weight for the dough balls for that size pizza.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor