STICKY DOUGH

[wa_dave]

We are experiencing from time to time sticky dough.
We make dough every day and lightly spray oil over the dough and then store in bulk in 60lt tubs in the coolroom. Dough is pulled after a min of 24hrs and not more than 48hrs in the coolroom and balled at night for rolling the next day. The balls are placed on metal trays and covered in garbage bags and returned to the coolroom. The next day they are sheeted and rolled on to screens for that night.
Our mix is constant with 25kg dough, 12lts water, 3 eggs, 2 jars sour dough mix, 2 1/2 cups of oil and ID yeast. Water is stored in the coolroom at 3*C. It is the same mix measurement everytime and set times for mixing so there is no variance but time to time the dough is sticky to the point of glugging to the hands.
Despite all this the dough always cooks up a treat but when it is sticky it is hell to work with when rolling out and it tends to shrink a fair bit during the night.
I found out on Saturday night that one of my senior staff told the others who make the dough that there was no need to oil the doughballs when they go on the trays and back into the coolroom - we have always oiled them. I’m not sure if this has any effect or not but I still tore strips off the guy for changing my directive without authority or speaking with me first.
Any clues, as I thought in the past when it has been sticky that the flour may change in hydration/absorbtion qualities in different times of the year.
Not a major problem but a pain when working with sticky dough.

Dave

 

[Daddio]

Are you weighing you flour or assuming the bags each weigh the same? I have found a variance of as much as 1.3kg in a group of 20kg bags. When the bags are light the dough can be sticky when they are heavy the dough is rubbery.

 

[wa_dave]

Daddio:

Are you weighing you flour or assuming the bags each weigh the same? I have found a variance of as much as 1.3kg in a group of 20kg bags. When the bags are light the dough can be sticky when they are heavy the dough is rubbery.

No we don’t weigh the dough - don’t have scales for big weights, only for doughball weighing. In Australia we have extremely strict weights and measure laws so I assume (I know it’s wrong to assume anything) that weights are correct. Normally you can tell when the dough is mixing if there is too much or not enough water and no concerns have been raised.
Might get hold of some scalles to double check the bags when they get delivered.
Dave

 

[system]

Hey Dave, I cannot talk about the reason for the dough acting like it is…but I just had this same conversation with another member here in pm’s. Coming from a manufacturing background on a very large scale… it is amazing how off a bag or bin of product can be. We produced over a million pounds of soups and sauces a week and it took a little while to figure out that even though we weigh everything we found out that some of the workers would take a 50lbs bag of flour, sugar, starch, etc…and use it as if it were an exact 50lbs. Now when talking 500-1000 gallon steam kettles…and recipes that would use 2,3,…6 or more bags… you quickly are off 10% or more in weight. Ran into this with gound beef a lot. Tubes of meat that should be 20 lbs that would be 18-22 instead. Bottom line you weigh everything. In dough I can see why Tom pushes bakers math with weights over any volume units of measurements. A cup is not 8ozs all the time. I know this is not a huge factor in most situations…but dough is tricky I have learned from the time spent here on the TT. Not too mention the money lost over time. Members here talk about weighing all their toppings to control costs and then overlook the same ideals when making dough. Ok…enough with my weights lecture!