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What changes would you make to this dough recipe?

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UncleNicksPizza

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Just wanted to throw this out to the tank, and see what kind of feedback is out there. Our dough currently works well for what we need, and I don’t have any real complaints. The only exception is I sometimes have people, usually an older crowd, say that it is a little tougher than other places (chewy maybe?). But so far in out 6 years it has performed mostly well. I would love, however, to get some opinions and suggestions to try as I love constantly trying new ideas, looking for ways to either save on cost, improve product quality, or ideally both.

Flour: 25 LBS General Mills Gold Medal All Trumps - High Gluten Enriched Bromated Flour Bleached
Salt: 7 Ounces
Sugar: 8 Ounces
Oil: 6 Ounces Di Stefano Extra Virgin Olive Oil - Cold Pressed - Spain
Yeast: 1 Ounce Fleischmann Instant Dry Yeast
Water: 7 Quarts - Refrigerated Tap Water

I start by preparing my salt and sugar mixed in the same container, a portioned cup of my oil, my bag of flour, and a portioned cup of yeast. I remove the water from the walk in and immediately dump it in the bowl of a 60 quart Hobart mixer, so that it is as cold as possible. I add the salt and sugar mix, then the oil, and stir for about 15 seconds to mix. I dump the bag of flour, then add the yeast on top, and mix on low speed for 6 minutes until completed.

10" Dough Ball - 8 ounces
12" Dough Ball - 12 ounces
14" Dough Ball - 16 ounces
16" Dough Ball - 20 ounces

If mixing during the business hours it takes about 15 minutes to cut and roll the dough, then I cross stack in the walk in cooler for approximately 1 hour, before down stacking and covering in stacks of 5 trays. The dough is ready for use in 24 to 36 hours, depending on the end temperature, and will last for 4 to 5 days from the mix date, again depending on temperature.

Any feedback or suggestions are always welcome!
 
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The only thing that really stands out to me is when you add you oil. @Tom Lehmann suggests not adding the oil until the dry ingredients have had time to absorb the water completely. I add it about 3 minutes in to the mixing process.
 
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The only thing that looks like it would make your dough too chewy for some would be the all trumps, maybe try full strength flour?? Its usually a few bucks less per bag. Maybe you can get best of both worlds less expensive and a product you (your customers) like more
 
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I typed your numbers into tom Lehmann’s dough calculator to get the bakers %
Assuming 1 quart of water weighs 2 lbs.

your recipe Lehmann recipe

100% flour 100% flour
56% water 60% water
.25% yeast .375% yeast
1.5% oil 2% oil
1.75% salt 1.75% salt
2.00% sugar 2% sugar

If it is too chewy, it also may not be very digestible. Tony Gemignani is always talking about how the best pizza dough is the most easily digestible.

I think you water is to low, which will make it more chewy. Maybe the next batch try 58% and see how that works And the yeast may be a little low making the dough more flat, which could also make it more chewy.

Also I would increase the olive oil. It wont help with the chewy part, but since your using such a high grade, why not showcase it. I use the Lehman formula, but I run the oil at 3% because I use extra virgin olive (Truly by Corto). It wont make your dough cheaper but may taste better.

Why are you using cold as possible water? Isn’t the water temp supposed to be different everyday based on flour and room temp. For instance if flour and room is 70 degrees the water should be 65 to 70 degrees to give an 80 degree dough temp after mixed for 8 to 10 minutes. I dont know how to properly post a link, but the following is a graph to show proper water temp.

https://www.generalmillscf.com/indu...ies/technical-support/water-temperature-chart

Are you using Iodine free salt, or kosher salt. John Arena said that matters, cause you dont want to taste Iodine. I recommend Diamond Crystal because the cystals are fine and mix faster.

I would stick with the “All trumps” or any in house brand that has 14.2% gluten. General mills or Pillsbury probably produces it anyway. US foods has “All trumps” at $18,50 and their in house brand is $16 both have 14.2% gluten. To find out how much gluten the flour has, ask your rep to send you the specs and 14.2% gluten has 4 grams of protein per 1/4 cup.
 
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I’ve been revisiting our dough these last few weeks as well. My thoughts on your procedure:

Your yeast could be higher. Increasing it could reduce how many days your dough will perform, but could improve the flavor & bounce.

Oil is possibly a little low.

It’s been a while, but I believe my experience with All Trumps produced a little tougher product.

Water first, then flour, then goodie bag. Mix to hydrate, add oil & mix in, whip up.

Nothing wrong with chilled water as long as you achieve your target temp.

Cross-stack at least two hours.

Overall mixing time seems a bit low. That gluten development is huge.
 
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I’d like to add something here but everything said so far covers all the bases. I’ve been asked to address this same type of question any number of times. It is a growing concern for many pizzerias as we are looking at an aging customer base that still has a love for pizza. Oil is a well recognized tenderizer, you can see its effect first hand if you buy tortillas, get one package labeled as “fat free” and the other should be a regular tortilla with fat shown in the ingredient deck (label). Eat one of each to see the impact of oil on chewiness/toughness in the finished product.
Since flour protein is what is ultimately responsible for the toughness going to a lower protein content flour 12 to 12.8% protein content will also help and might save you a little $$$ to boot.
Remember t mix the dough “just” until it begins to take on a smooth appearance, more mixing than this can result in a bread like crumb structure that can promote toughness in the crust.
You can increase the oil content up to about 5% to achieve a more tender eating crust without impacting other crust characteristics but make sure you add it using my delayed oil addition procedure as described by Daddio, failure to do so will result in inconsistencies in your doughs as the oil will soak into a portion of the flour giving you fits trying to figure out why your dough absorption seems to keep changing. In my humble opinion high priced olive oil is just wasted when used in the dough, instead, use a blended oil or a pomace grade olive oil if you really want to get a more robust olive oil flavor. If you want to use the high priced stuff add it to the pizza as a sprinkle immediately upon removal from the oven…now you’re going to get some “bang” for your buck flavor wise.
Absorption is a key factor in achieving a more open cell structure which ensures a thorough bake. Using AT flour I think your absorption is too low and possibly restricting oven spring creating a more dense crumb structure than desired for a tender eating crust. I’d highly recommend increasing the dough absorption in 2% increments to see if you can get a more open (artisan appearing) crumb structure which will achieve a better bake out resulting in a more tender eating finished crust.
Since fermentation and the byproducts of fermentation are responsible for mellowing (softening) the gluten making sure your dough fermentation is correct is an important aspect too. Correct yeast level is an important part of this picture. I cannot say if your 0.25% IDY is correct or not as I don’t know all of the details of your dough management procedure, but for the most part IDY is used at between 0.375% and 0.4% in most pizza dough formulations assuming a finished (mixed) dough temperature in the 75 to 80F temperature range (using a walk-in cooler), 70 to 75F for a reach-in cooler. Combined with a minimum cross-stack time of 2-hours (variable with dough ball weight) this should give you a dough that is ready to use after 24 to 36-hours and will keep in the cooler for up to 3 or possibly 4-days. Lastly, the oven also plays a part in this too, using an air impingement oven you MUST make sure the dough has tempered AT room temperature to at least 50F before opening the dough ball(s) for dressing and baking UNLESS you have profiled the bake of your pizzas specifically for cold dough. Failure to do this can result in a finished crust that, while baked, is not baked as much as it should be, or could be which in turn contributes to chewier crust mastication properties. Deck ovens, on the other hand, are much more tolerant of variations in the temperature of the skins as they do not have a fixed (programmed) baking time, but instead come out of the oven when the oven tender thinks they are correctly baked…hopefully.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
 
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