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2010-10-26 Dough in San Antonio

2010-10-26 - Had the distinct pleasure of meeting Doug Horn of Dough Pizzeria Napoletana (VPN #292) and he let me pick his brain and advice on improving my pizzas. Thank you very much for taking time out to talk to a fellow pizza geek Doug, and keep up the fantastic work!

I'm using King Arthur Bread Flour almost exclusivly right now.2011-01-15 I have now switched back to King Arthur All Purpose for my Wood Fired pizzas. I've found that it's giving me a lighter less chewy crust than the King Arthur Bread Flour. For electric oven pizzas I still use the King Arthur Bread Flour. 2011-05-?? I'm now using Caputo '00' Pizzeria Flour exclusivly.... it's an amazing flour. I'm also now using 64-65% hydration. I'm also hand kneading the dough... most I've hand kneaded was 17lbs.

I've tried the following:


Caputo '00' Pizzeria
Supremo Italiano '00'
King Arthur Bread Flour - Gives a nice puffy chewy crust.
King Arthur All Purpose Flour - Makes a crispy crust crust on the outside and light on the inside.
Sams Club Baker's and Chef - This stuff just burned fast in the oven.
Weisenberger Pizza Mix - makes a really great thick pan crust... if you're into that kinda thing.
Lily White All Purpose - I don't remember anything about this, but I don't remember being impressed.
Gold Medal All Purpose - I don't remember anything about this.

Dough - Much has been written about dough and I'm going to try to document all my attempts. Until I do I'm going to leave you with these two dough masters..
If you're wanting a fairly simple dough recipe that's more than "Mix the yeast, sugar, water, vegtable oil, and flour and let it rise for 10 minutes and cook at 425", then follow Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza dough from Bread Baker's Apprentice to a T once. Just once... that's all I ask. This is the best recipe I've found for a dough for an electric oven or Cast Iron skillet on the grill. (Low temp being under 600°F). It might be too dry a dough to use in a wood oven and I'll update after I experiment some I just don't know yet 08-15-10 After about 70+ pizzas in my WFO and 4 burnings, this basic recipe works great. The only thing that isn't great yet is my technique.. Make sure to measure ingredients by weight not volume. Doing that makes a huge difference. Let it sit 1-5 days in the fridge, use a preheated stone/skillet to cook on. I go back and forth between using a mixer and mixing by hand and I haven't noticed a difference. Depends on how much time I've got and how much of a mess I want to make.-->


If you're a nut job like me and want to learn more and more and more, check out Jeff Varsono's NY Pizza Recipe page.
Serious Eats had a great article by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt that has pretty pictures showing why long ferments are better which you can find by clicking on this linky

One of these day's I'm going to drive to ATL and meet Jeff or NC to meet Peter, who both seem to be more obsessed than I am. And for that I thank them. -->

2010-09-23 - This past weekend after studying Jeff Varsono's web site, I tried autolyzing my dough after combining the ingredients with a mixer first for the first time and it made a huge difference in taste, however it was very difficult to work with. I think it had to do with me using too much flour to knead the dough and it being too dry.

2010-10-16 - Tried upping the hydration to 72% and was too wet to do anything with.

Sauce: I have two that I really like, and they are both really simple (Under 10 minutes for both with no cooking).

The first is the above San Marzano Tomatoes that are deseeded, then crushed by hand or in the food mill. Then I add a teaspoon of salt and sometimes some garlic. Each can makes about 6 pizzas and each can is about $4.25. What's left over I'll warm up the next day and put on spaghetti.

The second is a modified version of Peter Reinhart's Basic tomato sauce from "American Pie". Seriously... buy this guys books. They're the best cookbooks I've ever picked up.


Cheese - I really like a 50/50 mix of Boar's Head Dry Mozzerella and fresh mozzerella slices(other "fresh" vacume sealed mozzerella). We use an average of 1/4lb of cheese on each 10" pizza. We get it at the Fatted Calf in Bowling Green. Everything else (Kraft, Sargento, Kroger, Polly-O, etc) just burns in the wood oven before the crust is done. I'm not sure if it's due to the lack of moisture in the cheese or the addition of all kinds of other crap they put in it... regardless it just burns. Don't get me wrong... I LOVE processed food as much as the next guy... it just doesn't have a place on the pizzas I make.

Here's the ingredients for Kraft Mozzarella shredded cheese according to zeer.com

Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese (Pasteurized Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes)Calcium Sulfate; Potato Starch, Cellulose Powder and Calcium Sulfate Added to Prevent Caking, Natamycin (a Natural Mold Inhibitor)

I'm not positive as to what temperature potato starch(used in wallpaper paste) and Calcium Sulfate(Plaster of Paris) burns.... but it's lower than 900°F.

As comparison here's the ingredients for Fresh Mozzarella by Mozarella Fresca (also available at most supermarkets)

Pasteurized Grade A Whole Milk, Vinegar, Vegetable Rennet, Salt.


Pepperoni We've used Boar's Head Pepperoni for a while now and hand slice it the day we make pizzas. We get it at the Fatted Calf in Bowling Green.

Bacon

Baby Spinach

Green Peppers When in season.

Jalapenos When in season.

Mushrooms

Olives

Italian Sausage We use a Italian sausage available at the Fatted Calf in Bowling Green.

Grilled Chicken

Onions


Electric
I stopped cooking pizzas in our electric oven for a few reasons, because keeping the oven at 500°F for 2 hours with 10+ people in and out of your kitchen makes the kitchen very uncomfortable place to be, and our oven doesn't get very hot enough.
BBQ Grill
The person who owned the house before us spent more money on the outside grill than he did the oven. It's a Jenn-Aire Natural Gas Grill. Highest I've gotten it up to was 575°F
Wood Fired Oven
Because I wanted to cook 700+°F range.