Topic: Pizza from scratch

[JerryM]

mr.mojorisin,

i think of your pics whenever i hear stuffed crust - they look brill.

given i thinking of trying a deep pan - i guess the stuffed crust would work well.

what dough weight do you use and what dia pan.

Whandsy,

well pleased - real impressive stuff. i agree too 500F is pretty good and good enough. and 4 min bake is good enough too. i'm currently running at 5 mins and best i get is about 3.5 mins in my kitchen oven.

StoneCut,

the temp prompted me on what would be ideal. i have no proof or experience but 660F would be my target to upgrade to from kitchen oven at say 550F. Not a huge increase but near on impossible without either money or some handy work.

[StoneCut]

Hey everyone,

this past weekend I made some Pizza with the Oregon Trail sourdough starter from www.carlsfriends.net.

Here's the recipe I used (made with this calculator http://pizzamaking.com/preferment_calculator.html):

297.14 g Flour
172.14 g Water
10.71 g Salt (3%)
120 g Preferment (20%)

Total: 600 g of dough

This breaks down to exactly 65% hydration with 3 doughballs

[JerryM]

StoneCut,

i've had the same - it's quite an eye opener. they will soon get used to the new standard. it gets worse as when you have a few hic cups they will soon let you know too.

i would give the bread flour a try. in the UK it is quite different to plain flour. i've tried a 50:50 mix and also 100% plain in the past. it really does depend on your own preference and of course the beauty of making your own.

i'd also try at some point going up to 70% hydration - for me this has produce for the 1st time that large open bubble structure in the cooked dough. a small amount of rye flour ~5% is also well worth a try.

everything else in your post shows you've mastered it.

ps tried the seriouseats fool proofproof deep pan with mixed results.  it's quite a few years since i last made deep pan - i really gelled with the very quick and easy method making a midweek feast a possibility. i think the cold weather and too small dough batch (for my pans) the key problems. the less is more ethos doe not apply and need to use more tom sauce on next go. also need to get that mozzarella into the crust

[StoneCut]

Well, the problem is there is no such thing labelled as a "bread flour" available over here. Our flour gets categorized by mineral content (All-purpose is "Type 405", which means it has 4.05 grams of minerals per 100g of flour, for example). A more robust dark flour might be "Type 1600". However, it seems that "Type 956" is often being used for bread rolls, so I might give that a try at some point. Any flour that mentions "bread" on the package over here is not really a flour but actually a pre-mix of different flours ("breadmaking mix").

Increasing the hydration even further seems like an interesting experiment, even though the dough will probably hard to handle. But boy, wasw my previous pizza dough always dry. No wonder it was crap Adding some rye flour sounds worth investigating since my wife loves rye bread. Thanks for the ideas.

I've had mixed results with seriouseats' recipes in the past, too. I tend to stick to the "A Hamburger Today" subsite and avoid "Slice".

[JerryM]

StoneCut,

the flour is clearly not clear. high protein content is to aim for.

the "wet" dough does take some patience to handle - think of keeping the inside wet and use flour on the surface so that it can be handled. UB's naan bread was my learning start point (66% hydration).

i usually try to confirm things before trying things new on the pizza front from pizza quest - peter reinhart and his webisodes and blog.

[StoneCut]

JerryM,

Caputo Blu "Pizzeria" Tipo 00 flour only has 9% gluten so I don't see your point about high protein being best. Regular Caputo Tipo 0 (not 00) has about 12-15%, so it has more gluten than "00". Most Pizzaiola mention that 12-15% gluten is best for Pizza, hence why professional pizzaiolas somtimes use various dough conditioners for "00". Puzzles me why they don't use "tipo 0", though, which even "Molino Caputo" mentions as a very good Pizza flour on their homepage.

Anyway, I found out that I might be able to find differences in german "all-purpose" flour (Type 405) when getting it from different brands. Brands made in France and Italy will usually have 12-15% gluten whereas "405" flour from Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland will have lower gluten content (this has to do with the actual grain used).

I also found an interesting thread in a german baking forum where someone compared various supermarket "all-purpose" flours, some specialty "breadmaking" flours and also Caputo Blu. You can barely see any difference between the resulting pizzas, to be honest. His conclusion, after baking more than 40 Pizzas, was: The flour makes little difference. It's all in the technique/preparation.

That being said I will try out some other flours when I stumble over them - AND I will check the manufacturing country on any flour I buy from now on

Oh: I found a "Tipo 00" flour in a supermarket two weeks ago. On the back of the bag it said "Type 405" in small print, so I really don't know what to say or so. I will need to remeber which brand and store it was again so I can take a picture.


Peter Reinhart provided me with some fascinating reading, too, but I soon realized that it doesn't help me at all since our flour uses a different categorization system so I completely ditched following him

[JerryM]

StoneCut,

interesting stuff that is new to me.

i think our bread flour is in the 12-15% range. i have tried what's called very strong bread flour "canadian" (from our uk sainsbury's) which gave poor result (too much springback). i've also used tipo 00 and not been impressed. i've not tried 00 in my wfo but have it on the todo list albeit a very low priority.

i've made deep pan pizza for years too using plain flour ~ probably something like 9% gluten. for thin crust the stronger flour is my preference after much trial and error down to the open bubble structure.

the technique and preparation as you say is key ie amount of mixing and length of fermentation. once these are in place then the flour resurfaces with opporunity.

best wishes

[harley]

A pizza is built on James may's man lab

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rmhlc/hd/James_Mays_Man_Lab_Series_3_Episode_1/

Not too serious mind, maybe a bit of fun or interest for you guys.

starts at 15 mins 10 secs

[JerryM]

harley,

nice simply and short intro to wfo and not bad outcome for a 1st go at it.

i've treated myself to a IR temp in preparation for the season.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130804603113?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

[StoneCut]

Haven't watched the video yet. Just wanted to say that I tried out that 'Tipo 00' flour I mentioned I had seen in a supermarkt recently. It was nice but really not much different from my previous flour (which costs only a fraction). Will try some german 'type 550' sometime, which is said to be bread flour.