Let's get geeking about pizza dough...😆

[Breadhead]

Someone posted a pizza dough recipe written by Kenji from seriouseat.com recently. I looked at it and noticed it was very unique for pizza dough.

I decided I needed to play with it some and decided he wrote it for a particular audience, inexperienced bread bakers. No bread baker would use a machine to make that dough unless they were making 100's of pizza crusts per day.

So... I devised an easier way for you guys, my fellow Pit members to do this pizza dough the easy way... By hand.😆

I served this dough at my "Make your own Pizza Party" on the 4th of July and it got rave reviews by all.

I admit it's geeky but give it a look and see what you think.😎

https://app.box.com/s/7rsj7j6sdhmt90otvxileg98wsgndhpf

[Tim E]

Very cool Breadhead . I'll need some time to absorb all the information and put into practice.
Thanks for the education!

[Breadhead]

Cool...I'm pleased you want to learn. Make some pizza dough, cook it and post a picture.👍

[Koy Schoppe]

Thanks for the education Breadhead I hadn't looked at this yet, but I did already order a scale this morning. Good timing!

[Breadhead]

Good move Koy Schoppe ... I never ever make dough without a digital scale!!! If your hydration is off by as little as 5% of the weight of the flour, you will get a very different loaf of bread than you were trying to make. Bread making is much more of a science than BBQ.

[RonB]

Hey Breadhead - I wouldn't call salt evil. It's there to slow down the fermentation so that more flavor can develop. I was the one who posted Kenji's recipe thinking that it would work for those who want a good crust, but don't share the passion you and I have for baking. Making pizza dough in the processor is quick and simple for those who just want the dough.
I do agree that making dough by hand is a good way to start, and even when I use a mixer or food processor, I still do at least a few turns or stretch and folds by hand.

At any rate, a very good write up.

[Jerod Broussard]

Will have to try before 2019. Seems doing pizza has eluded me like the peak of Everest.

[Jerod Broussard]

I would think Geeky is an understatement!

Nice write up.

[Breadhead]

Bread making is a geeky subject for most people. Most have been lead to believe making bread is very difficult and never try it. The fact is it is a simple process that once you understand it it's easy peasy. Steve Vojek made a beautiful loaf of sourdough bread on his first attempt.

[Breadhead]

RonB ... Thanks for your comment.

During my long journey of learning how to bake bread I had gone out and bought lots of fancy equipment and was producing large heavy door stops and hockey pucks! I was struggling and a very knowledgeable moderator on a bread website told me to ditch the fancy equipment and learn dough making by hand. That was the best advice I EVER got. In a short time I was making acceptable loaves of bread. His contention was that you've got to know how a dough is suppose to look and feel in your hands at each step of the process before you incorporate machines. To this day... If I'm working a new recipe like Kenji's I make it by hand.

I felt it was important to include the video where Chef Jacob Burton demonstrates slap and folds, stretch and folds and the tension tugs for final shaping. If a beginning baker learns those techniques and how and why he/she is doing it they have made a major step forward in their bread baking journey.

Salt... In most breads salt is the only tool a baker has to influence a loaf of bread. Knowing when to add it to the other ingredients is the key. Some breads you want to inhibit the gluten structure right in the beginning. Some you want to give the gluten structure a head start before adding gluten inhibitors.

[GadjetGriller]

Yes Breadhead thanks for the info!! I want to try this I do... but you said BAD word "Gluten"!! Don't you know that Gluten has been linked to stupidity and Heartache!?!? Its been added to the saying The root of all evil is the love of money and Gluten!!*

[GadjetGriller]

*of course I'm joking, Unless yo have celiacs disease which is no laughing matter. I dont and love Gluten look forward to tying to make this I was just trying to get a RISE out of people! get it rise like the dough....OK moving on.

[Breadhead]

GadjetGriller ... You a funny guy.👍

Without gluten there would be no bread, just cake.😡

[Dr ROK]

Breadhead, love the write up! I may have posted that recipe, I use it all the time for my catering business and people LOVE it. While you may not like using a machine, the food processor to me is a God send. I can make 15 - 20 balls of dough in about 20 minutes. I do use a scale to measure ingredients and then I use a scale to weigh out the dough into equal portions. I then ball them up, spray a ziplock bag with cooking oil, and cold ferment in the fridge for at least three days. Turns out beautiful every time.

Thank you for breaking it down into the Bakers %. Great job on the write up.

[Breadhead]

Thanks Dr ROK ... The ONLY reason I decide to try Kenji's pizza recipe was it is way out of the normal percentages of olive oil, sugar and 66% hydration is pretty high for a pizza dough recipe. There were enough elements that were different it intrigued my curiosity.

My reason for eliminating the food processor was 2 fold. 1) Whenever I make a new bread recipe, I ALWAYS make it by hand first. I want to feel the dough in my hands as it develops. I want to see it develop so I know how it suppose to look at each stage. Then if I like the dough and don't think it needs any adjustments I will possibly use my Kitchen Aid mixer to develop it later. 2) Most Pit members who I want to motivate to make their own pizza dough possibly don't have a food processor and I don't want them to feel like they have to buy one to make really good pizza dough. Plus I really think they will advance their bread making skills much quicker if they do it by hand the first few times.

For my Make your own pizza party on the 4th of July... I made one batch out of sourdough that had 2100 grams of flour and another batch with instant yeast that also had 2100 grams of flour. All by hand. Both turned out well. It seems the sourdough batch won the day based on the comments from my guests.

The Bakers Percentage... Once you understand that system, everything makes more sense, and you can perfect a recipe and repeat it, EXACTLY, every time.😆. I made sure to post Chef Jacobs video about the Bakers Percentage in my write up simply to expose our fellow Pit members to that brainiac system.👍

[siouls]

Excellent post Breadhead! Thank you for the lesson and sharing some of your knowledge on breads.

[Breadhead]

Thanks siouls ... Breadhead's are just like BBQ Pit Masters we love passing on the knowledge.👍

[Willy]

Breadhead Thanks for the recipe--I'm just starting to try to make good pizza on the grill. I'm using a Weber gasser (Genesis) with grill grates and a pizza stone. The stone gets to about 700°F according my IR thermometer and my first two attempts have turned out a pretty decent pizza, although I did use a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook and did my measurements by volume--bad boy, eh. At least I had real buffalo mozz and a fresh, homegrown, homemade, chunky tomato sauce. I'm also listening to the Stella podcasts (thanks to your introduction of the Stella chef a few days ago) and am trying learn about breads, though for now Pizza dough is the only thing I'm making. Sourdough is somewhere in the near future. My wife has made some good no-knead bread in the past, using a covered Dutch oven. Very nice crust, but not sour enough.

[Breadhead]

Breadhead Thanks for the recipe--I'm just starting to try to make good pizza on the grill. I'm using a Weber gasser (Genesis) with grill grates and a pizza stone. The stone gets to about 700°F according my IR thermometer and my first two attempts have turned out a pretty decent pizza, although I did use a Kitchen Aid with a dough hook and did my measurements by volume--bad boy, eh. At least I had real buffalo mozz and a fresh, homegrown, homemade, chunky tomato sauce. I'm also listening to the Stella podcasts (thanks to your introduction of the Stella chef a few days ago) and am trying learn about breads, though for now Pizza dough is the only thing I'm making. Sourdough is somewhere in the near future. My wife has made some good no-knead bread in the past, using a covered Dutch oven. Very nice crust, but not sour enough.

I like that pizza dough recipe. It's different and tasty.

1 thing to be cautious of is getting your pizza stone that hot. Usually All Porpose flour & Bread flour is going to burn fairly quickly at 700° and over. I try to not go over 650° when using those flours.

Measurements by volume. In that you are a beginner I would highly recommend you buy a $25 digital scale. If your flour or water is off by just a few grams/ounces it can increase your chance of failure. With accurate quantities of all ingredients you have a much greater chance at getting it right.

If you can master pizza dough you're 2/3's of the way to making sourdough bread. You will make that leap when you're ready for it. As you can tell from my thread on teaching Steve Vojtek to make sourdough bread, making a nice loaf of real sourdough bread is not nearly as difficult as people think it is. Steve nailed it on his very first loaf.

"Very nice crust, but not sour enough"... The sour taste you want is not made in your bread. That's created in your starter. You can manipulate your starter to produce very mild or very tangy bread. It's an easy process that's done by keeping your starter in your refrigerator instead of out on your counter at room temperature. I recommend you ask Chef Jacob Burton how to do that this weekend when he's online with us. He taught me.

[Willy]

Thanks for the response. I WILL learn pizza dough and sourdough. I do have a scale, but the recipe specified volume. I'll follow your recipe next time. If I can get to 700°F, would you recommend 00 semolina and a different recipe?

[Breadhead]

Willy ...

Most dough recipes are written in volume in America... Unless you go to a bread website. All bread websites use the metric system.

For real high temperature pizza cooking you need 00 pizza flour. Caputo is the popular brand. You can buy it on Amazon. That flour was engineered to be able to bake at 800° or over, without burning. They removed the majority of the natural sugar content of the flour during the processing. Low sugar... Less carmelization of the crust.

If you use 00 flour I would go to StellaCulinary.com and use Chef Jacob's Neapolitan pizza dough recipe. He has a video that walks you through the entire process.

[RonB]

Willy - If you have a recipe that you like or want to try, but it's in volume you have to guess what the weights are. Convention is that a cup of flour can weigh between 113 g and 142 g depending on how the flour is added to the cup, but the weight can vary even more. However, when I want to convert a recipe to grams, I split the difference and use 127 g to begin with and adjust as necessary by adding more flour or water. Just keep notes of any adjustments so you know for the next time. For teaspoons, I use what is in the recipe. Make sure you use the same type of salt though, because a tsp of table salt weighs more than a tsp of kosher salt.