Hello all, I'm just looking some guidance on my dough mixing process (outcome is very inconsistent)
I'm running a busy pizzeria close to 5 years now and still getting very frustrated with my dough results.
It's a enriched low moisture dough with quite alot of extra virgin oil in it. I'll share my recipe and process below in the hope that somebody can advise me. I feel like it's the mixing process that's causing the problems.
20kg Flour
10.2kg water (51%)
1kg extra virgin olive oil (5%)
60g diastatic barley malt (0.3%)
Fresh yeast (changes throughout the year)
400g fine sea salt (2%)
I know that the hydration is very low but I've tried tweaking it and getting know where (completely different pizza) My process is as follows. It's a slow mixing spiral mixer.
Add 9.2kg of water to the bowl along with the yeast and whisk. Add flour and malt to machine, mix for 2 mins 30 secs and add remaining water around bowl (to incorporate dry flour) mix to 7 mins then leave for 2 mins to allow water to soak in. At 9 mins add salt then the oil over the space of 2 mins, mix to 17 minutes. Total mixing time of 15 minutes.
It's then balled and fridge fermented for 4 days. A very tasty dough when it turns out how I want it to.
Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks, Stephen 😃
If you've been in business for 5 yrs and it's busy, the crust can't be too bad. 😊
It would help if you could describe the characteristics of the not-so-great crust, compared to the characteristics of the excellent crust. The experts here should be able to come up with some ideas based on the descriptions.
Agree with Moe here, Stephen. Knowing what type of results you're having consistency issues with would go far in finding a solution.
On a side note, I'm literally brand new to breadmaking, with pizza dough actually being what hooked me recently, so I'm not the guy, lol. But just a couple of thoughts- I was under the impression that olive oil quantity should be kept to around 1% ~ 2%, but not sure that would make a difference from your 5%. The other thing that seems off is 51% hydration. Most recipes I've seen don't go lower than 55%, but the majority are 60 and higher for pizza dough.
Hopefully some pizza folks can help you here. ;)
I don't use any oil in my pizza dough at home. I've tried it and it seemed not to be needed.
Can you break that down into smaller amounts you can practice with at home or in the off hours, then scale up later? I think you probably need to put all the water in at once and I add the salt into my flour when making most of my doughs when the yeast is already activated in the liquid.
Edit- Oh yea I have noticed a lot of people teaching put the liquid in first then put the flour on top of it. ?? I'm not sure how much of a difference beyond preventing a dry spot on the bottom of the mixing bowl that will make.
You might try adding a 1 or 2 hour 1st proofing before balling up the dough, and another hour or so at room temp after balling, before placing the balls in the fridge.
Diastatic malt and long fermentation pretty often don't work well together.
BTW, the recipe looks like a thin crust Chicago tavern style pizza. Am I right?