Problem With Pizza Dough

[MichiganKevBoy]

Ok here the deal... My boss just opened a place and desided to make his own bread for the sandwiches. This is great and it's not bad tasting. But now he desided that just sandwiches will not be enough and went with the pizza gig as a side kick to the main idea of his ordeal.

Now he brought me on to run the pizza gig with what he has to work with, (no this isent the food network show i'm on...lol). But I did take on the challange of making a pizza dough with what worked for him at home in small amouts and he did all the math to make it larger. His bread dough comes out mmmm, ok for most part in my openion.

To my knowlage the owner uses all purpose flour, active yeast, water (110 F), Olive oil, and i beleave salt. At the same time he is trying to use the same dough with a bit less yeat in it.

Problem At Hand: The bread come out great , in the commercial mixer for around 12 mins (smaller mixer), all happy with it... The pizza dough (using a press set at 80 F to 116 F (top)), makes the dough come out to size weighed (14oz or 16 oz) but shortly after still on the press it is noticiblely seen that it shrinks. When you take it off the press it now becomes smaller. And at times some balls of dough will come out of the press looking like swiss cheese. Again when taken off the press it begines to shrink more so.

What us cooks are doing at this point is rolling the dough out by hand after the press. Our goal is to be able to press the dough to the prfect thin crust that has a crispness to it.

What do we need to add , subtract, do longer or less to get the pizza dough to work with the press?

Note: Can NOT use Milk or Eggs in the recipe.

Thank You,
Kevin C.

 

[TATTRAT]

Hrrm, I will forward you a batch recipe that I use, but in case of shrinkage:a) sounds like the dough is over worked, B)sounds like the dough is too cold.

With breads, actually I prefer a little more yeast as it yields a more tender and supple texture, for a pizza dough, it needs to be more resilient as it has a lot more to contend with.

here is my focaccia batch recipe
700g AP flour
300g cake flour
30ml EVOO
12gm Yeast
20gm Salt(kosher)
30gm Sugar(or sub malassas for a nice brown bread)
565ml H20

For a solid pizza dough, just omit the cake flour and go a solid 1000 on AP, cut the yeast down to 7gm, sugar down to 4gm and H2o to 550.

Also, a press is not always the best tool, imo. You need to feel it. A press can not feel it. Try out a batch, stretch by hand, feel for the elasticity of it. A press can not duplicate this. A press needs a far softer, more supple dough, imo. But then, you get a gummy dough, so it is all a trade off.

 

[MichiganKevBoy]

ok thank you Tattrat... I need all the help I can get. Like I said the Owner is kind of stuck on the idea, and understands the bread dough cannot be used as pizza dough, nor can it go the other way around. So his knowlage of needing to do is limited to just cutting back or adding yeast to make the pizza dough. For most part on making this dough is: 2cps Water, 8cps Flour, 1tbls. Salt(norm. table), and 2tbls Yeast.

First thing we do is mix the yeast and water(110 F) together. As that is setting we put the flour in the mixer. We then add the salt on the flour and then after all that we now add the oil to the yeast mix and then pour that on top of the flour. We now add another 2 cps of water and begin mixing 13 mins. During this time I noticed that the dough never gets to the point of actualy slapping againest the bowl nor did i realy notice the dough crawling up the hook.

Now after the time is done the dough is put into a dough continer and covered and set into the fridge. We have also tried to leave the dough set out for a hour and then put it into the fridge.
We have gone as far as making the 14oz balls right after mixing, we tried to let the dough rest for 1 hour and then form them into balls ten set again. Even went with the idea of forming and then put them in the fridge.
So yeah it seems to be a loosing battle in getting this press idea to actualy press a pizza to size and hold with the size without adding something.

 

[justplainbill]

ok thank you Tattrat... I need all the help I can get. Like I said the Owner is kind of stuck on the idea, and understands the bread dough cannot be used as pizza dough, nor can it go the other way around. So his knowlage of needing to do is limited to just cutting back or adding yeast to make the pizza dough. For most part on making this dough is: 2cps Water, 8cps Flour, 1tbls. Salt(norm. table), and 2tbls Yeast.

First thing we do is mix the yeast and water(110 F) together. As that is setting we put the flour in the mixer. We then add the salt on the flour and then after all that we now add the oil to the yeast mix and then pour that on top of the flour. We now add another 2 cps of water and begin mixing 13 mins. During this time I noticed that the dough never gets to the point of actualy slapping againest the bowl nor did i realy notice the dough crawling up the hook.

Now after the time is done the dough is put into a dough continer and covered and set into the fridge. We have also tried to leave the dough set out for a hour and then put it into the fridge.
We have gone as far as making the 14oz balls right after mixing, we tried to let the dough rest for 1 hour and then form them into balls ten set again. Even went with the idea of forming and then put them in the fridge.
So yeah it seems to be a loosing battle in getting this press idea to actualy press a pizza to size and hold with the size without adding something.

Another 2 cups of water = 4 cups of water with 8 cups of flour???
Going by weight, Rat indicated, the amount of water should weigh some 55% of the weight of the flour.
In my environment I find that the weight of my water component runs about 70% of the 'dry' weight of my flour component.
Don't know if iodized salt is a good idea.