How do I know when my pizza dough is properly mixed?

A: Most pizza doughs as we know them are under mixed in regard to full gluten development. The only real exception is commercially made frozen pizza dough which is almost universally mixed to full gluten development. For the retail operator, though, a dough that is mixed just to the point of becoming smooth and satiny in appearance in the mixing bowl is sufficient. This level of development allows for continued biochemical gluten development as the dough is managed through the cooler for three or more days while ensuring a thorough dispersion of ingredients and adequate hydration of the flour for decent handling properties when the dough goes to the bench for scaling and rounding.

Using a spiral or planetary type of mixer, this usually means mixing the dough for 8 to 10 minutes at medium speed, or 15 to 20 minutes at low speed. When a vertical cutter mixer (VCM) design is used, the mixing time required to achieve this level of gluten development will be between 60 and 90 seconds, with 70 seconds being about the average mixing time. Mixing times longer than this are just unnecessarily hard on your mixer, especially if you are one of the majority, using a planetary mixer. Shorter mixing times may be ok, but they are normally prone to handling difficulties such as stickiness and tearing at the bench when the dough is being scaled and rounded.

What function does oil/olive oil (fat) serve in the dough formulation?

A: Oil serves a number of functions in the dough. It can provide a flavor such as is the case with olive oil, sesame oil, or even lard or butter, for that matter, the fat can help to retain those wonderful flavors created during the baking of the pizza, adding to the overall flavor profile of the baked pizza. It provides lubricity to the dough allowing it to be opened into a pizza skin somewhat easier without tearing. This same lubricity also helps the dough to expand during the early part of baking to give a nicely raised edge to the pizza. Along these same lines, the fat coats the cells within the dough allowing them to better hold the gas produced during fermentation, which in turn is at least partially responsible for the desirable open crumb structure common to so many thin crust pizzas. Fat of any kind in the dough will help to retard the migration of moisture/water from the topping ingredients down into the dough/crust to provide for a crispier eating characteristic in the finished pizza. Fats, in general, are known as tenderizers to product formulators and their use in product formulation provides for a more tender/less chewy eating characteristic in the finished pizza. As you can see, fat is a multifunctional ingredient when it comes to pizza making.

What type of oven should I use to bake my pizzas?

A: It never ceases to amaze that so many ovens are purchased for all the wrong reasons. My personal advice to newbies just getting into the pizza business is to make your oven selection the last thing you do with regard to your equipment package. The reason for this is because there are so many factors that must be considered when choosing an oven, for example;
1) What is your store concept? Will it be a grab and run, DELCO, a slice operation, dine in? Will it provide your customers with a more or less formal dining experience?
2) What about the product concept? Will you be positioning your pizza as the most loaded pizza in a 50-mile radius, or will the pizza be more of a “gourmet” or classical/artisan presentation with just a few, but very elegant and/or flavorful ingredients? Several years ago I assisted a shop owner decide upon a new oven. Their product concept was one of high customer perceived value, meaning that their most popular pizzas were heavily loaded with all kinds of vegetable toppings. The ovens that they were using did not provide the capability to evaporate the moisture released from all those vegetable toppings during baking, so a change in oven technology provided them with a much drier finished pizza that was better received by their customers.
3) What about your product mix? How many other products will you be selling that will need to be baked or heated in the oven?
4) Will you have an open or closed kitchen area? You can get away with a conveyor oven in a closed kitchen where fine or casual dining is the norm, but what a waste it would be to hide a wood fired oven in a closed kitchen store.
5) Location and codes may also dictate what type of oven you can have. For example, some malls may not permit a wood fired oven, I know of one pizzeria that had to work around a code that would not allow them to have a wood fired oven installed within a frame structure.
6) And then there are questions regarding utilities such as gas and electric and wood or anthracite/coal. These questions revolve around availability and cost. There is an issue of space. Do you have the necessary space in your location for the oven you have selected? Keep in mind that some types of ovens may require more operator/tender space than others.
7) Be sure to consider the noise, heat, and hood requirements of the oven too as there can be some rather significant differences between brands and oven types.
8) Don’t forget to consider the baking capacity of your selected oven. Depending upon your store concept, one properly sized oven or two ovens of a different type may be needed to keep up with your production demands.
9) And lastly, aside from the toppings, find out how well suited your oven of choice is to baking the type of pizza that you want to make. For example, some artisan pizzerias use a very high absorption dough that requires the oven to operate at well above 600F to produce the desired finished product characteristics. Is the oven you’re looking at capable of this?

You may have noticed that I haven’t even mention price. This has to be one of the deciding factors, but don’t let it be the only one, sometimes a few extra dollars spent can have far reaching returns on the success of your business. Warranties, service, and parts availability are all considerations too that should influence your final selection and ultimate purchase.

And I bet you thought choosing an oven was going to be one of the first things you did in putting together the equipment package for your new store, it might be your single most expensive purchase, so be sure to give it the ample thought and consideration.

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.

I’ve seen any number of different ways in which the dough ingredients are staged/ added into the mixing bowl. Is there really a difference, or is it a case of just whatever you are taught to use?

A: I think some ingredient staging procedures can actually cause harm to the dough while others may not harm the dough. But they can be more labor intensive, thus detracting from other things we have to do in the shop. Here are some examples:

1. Adding the water to the mixing bowl followed by the salt and sugar, and then mixing for several minutes to dissolve the salt and sugar. This serves no useful purpose, as the salt and sugar will completely disperse as the mixing commences. It just adds additional time onto the total prep time for your dough.
2. Adding the compressed yeast to the water in the mixing bowl and then mixing for several minutes to thoroughly suspend the yeast in the water. Again, this serves no useful purpose. It only adds additional time to make dough. The compressed yeast will be thoroughly dispersed throughout the dough if you simply crumble it onto the flour just before you begin mixing.
3. Adding the salt, sugar and oil to the water in the mixing bowl and then mixing for several minutes also has no useful purpose. In this case again, the salt and sugar will be thoroughly incorporated into the dough without the need to put them into the water. And in this case, as soon as you stop the mixer to add the flour, the oil will immediately separate from the water, float to the top and soak into a portion of the flour rendering it impossible to develop gluten when the dough is mixed.
4. Adding instant dry yeast (IDY) to the water in the mixing bowl and mixing until the IDY is completely suspended in the water. In addition to adding time to your dough preparation, this can also have an adverse impact upon the functionality of the IDY as it should not be hydrated in water colder or warmer than 95 F. Doing so can result in a release of glutathione from the yeast. Glutathione is an amino acid present in all yeast, but it can be washed out of dry yeast by hydrating it at the wrong temperature. Because glutathione is also a reducing agent much like L-cysteine (think dead yeast), it can cause an unexpected softening or weakening of the dough, especially if it will be held in the cooler for several days. If you must pre-hydrate IDY, do it in a small quantity of water at 95 F, stir well to suspend, then allow to hydrate for five minutes before adding it to the dough, either in the water or into the dry flour.
5. Adding active dry yeast (ADY) to the water in the mixing bowl along with the salt, sugar and possibly the oil, then mixing at low speed to suspend the yeast. This is not a recommended practice for a couple of reasons. First, the water temperature in which the ADY is hydrated should be between 100 and 105 F. If the water is colder than this there is a probability that some glutathione will be leached out from the dry yeast cells, resulting in less than optimal yeast activity, plus an added bonus of a potentially softer, more extensible dough than planned. Since you may see the softer dough condition while the dough is still in the mixer, you might reduce the absorption of following doughs to correct this (erroneously thinking that the dough absorption was too high). You might also add a little additional flour to the dough to help dry it up. In both cases, you will only compound your dough problems, as your dough may still not perform well over several days in the cooler despite your “corrective” action. In the event that the water temperature in the mixing bowl was adjusted to the recommended ADY rehydration temperature of 100 to 105 F, your resulting finished dough temperature will probably be much higher than desired, resulting in a rapidly fermenting dough that is difficult to manage in the cooler. This can lead to a reduction in the yeast level to a point where the dough can now be managed without it “blowing”, but the yeast level is now so low that finished pizza crusts may not have the desired raised edge (or, in some cases, there might not be sufficient yeast to raise the center of the pizza, resulting in a collapsed center or an extremely soggy center).
6. The weather influences the amount of water (absorption) added to the dough. This is a totally false observation, but we still see it, so what is really happening is that when the oil is added to the water (a common procedure) the oil separates from the water as soon as the mixer is stopped, allowing for the flour addition. Now we get a situation where a portion of the flour absorbs the oil and not the water. That portion of the flour will not create gluten as the dough is mixed, thus creating a dough that may appear to be softer than normal, leading to the addition of more flour to the mixing bowl to correct the condition (when in fact, the amount of flour was just fine). The best way to eliminate this problem is to use what we refer to as the delayed oil addition mixing method. By this mixing method, the oil is not added to the dough until it has had a chance to mix for about two minutes with the water. This allows the flour to more fully hydrate before the oil is added, thus significantly reducing the problems resulting from the oil soaking into the flour. Once you begin using this mixing method you may find the weather really doesn’t have the impact upon the dough absorption that you once thought it had.

As you can see, the way the ingredients are staged, or added into the mixing bowl, really can have an impact upon the finished dough/crust quality. u

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.

What will happen if I mix my dough less than the normal time?
A: If you mix your dough in the 15- to 20-minute range, you probably won’t see much change in either the dough or the finished pizza. Where you will begin to see a change in both the dough and the finished pizza is when the mixing time (using a planetary mixer) falls into the 7 minute or less range. If you mix dough for less than 5 minutes, and are using instant dry yeast (IDY), you should pre-hydrate the IDY in 95 F water, and then add it to the remainder of the dough water in the mixing bowl. If you are using compressed yeast, you should suspend it in the dough water prior to adding the flour and any other ingredients.

There are two ways to stage the dough ingredients in the bowl. The first is to put the flour in the bowl, followed by the other dry ingredients, and then add the water and oil and mix. The second is to add the water to the bowl first, and then add the flour, followed by the rest of the dry ingredients, and lastly the oil. The first method typically results in rather poor flour hydration with short mixing times. For that reason, when short mixing times are employed, it is recommended that the second method be used as it results in a more consistent dough with less mixing time required.

With less mixing time there is less gluten development and, as a result, the dough tends to be stickier when handled soon after mixing, such as when taking the dough to the bench for scaling and balling. Because of this, the dough will tend to pick up more dusting flour in the process, and take on more of the appearance characteristics of a “rustic” dough and finished crust. The main reason for under mixing a dough is to achieve a more open, porous internal crumb structure in the finished crust. This type of internal crumb structure is conducive to achieving a light, tender eating characteristic, while promoting a crispy bottom crust characteristic.

In some cases, the mixing time is reduced to only a matter of seconds. We have used 45 to 75 seconds of mixing time to achieve a unique cracker-like finished crust. When these extremely short mixing times are used, the result doesn’t look anything like a normal dough. Instead, it looks more like that of a baking powder biscuit dough, with a sizeable amount of dry flour present. This dough must be manually pressed together at the time of scaling just to get the pieces to cling together, it is then roughly formed into a ball –– still with a lot of dry flour present –– and placed into a plastic dough box where the dough will be allowed to hydrate while it is stored in the cooler for the next 18 to 48 hours, prior to use. As you might imagine, this dough is very particulate, and it just falls apart at the suggestion of forming it by hand, so it must be formed into skins by using a dough sheeter/roller. Once this is done, it must be trimmed to size, as it cannot be stretched to a circle. The resulting crust has a very dry, cracker-like texture that is perfect for use in a pizza buffet type of operation.

By all means, experiment with different mixing times for your dough. It is just another tool that we have to work with to modify the finished crust characteristics.

I’m trying to decide between a deck oven or an air impingement/conveyor oven. How do I know which is right for my operation?

A: Many people look at an oven only as a means to bake their pizzas, but it is actually a lot more than just that. Consider your store concept. Will you be a delivery/carry-out delco or will you be more focused on dine-in? A delco pizza can benefit from being baked in an air impingement oven, as the high airflow does an excellent job of removing any water released by the vegetable toppings, resulting in a potentially drier pizza for the customer. Air impingement ovens are also ideal for pizzas with lots of toppings, as they can remove the moisture released from all of those vegetables.

On the other hand, if you have a more traditional, dine-in concept and you want to entertain your customers by allowing them to watch your prep people toss pizza skins, a deck oven might be the oven of choice. If your concept is upscale dine-in, perhaps a wood-fired –– or one of the look-alike deck ovens –– might be right for you.

If you have a by-the-slice concept, you could go with either a deck oven or an air impingement oven. A deck oven works well for a traditional slice operation where ready-made slices are placed into the oven for reheating while the drink order is filled and the order paid. The air impingement oven is a vital link in a concept where each slice is topped with fresh ingredients and finished to order in about 3 minutes. Think of it as an upscale slice operation where the same air impingement oven is used to par-bake the skins from which the slices are cut, and to finish baking the slices to order.

There are a multitude of other reasons for choosing one type of oven over another, but space does not permit me to cover all of those. These are the main considerations when selecting the best oven type for your store, and hopefully they will help you in making the right decision on one of your most important –– and expensive –– pieces of equipment.

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan,

Our mixer finally crashed and we got a 40-quart vertical cutter mixer (VCM) to replace it. How does this mixer compare against our old 80-quart mixer?

A: The first thing to know about the VCM is that it has a much higher mixing speed. The two-speed models mix at 1750 RPM at low speed and at 3500 RPM at high speed. Single-speed models mix only at 1750 RPM. In most cases, only the 1750 RPM speed is used for dough mixing. This high speed mixing means that the mixing times will be a lot shorter, typically in the 70- to 90-second range, and due to the high speed mixing, dough heating may be a problem.

To address the dough temperature issue, we suggest that you have a five-gallon bucket of ice water at hand, and between doughs, fill the mixing bowl with the ice water, then pour it back into the bucket when you’re ready to add the ingredients for your next dough. The short mixing time can pose a problem for those using instant dry yeast (IDY), as the mixing time is not sufficiently long enough to fully hydrate the yeast or properly incorporate it into the dough. For this reason, IDY should be hydrated in 95 F water for
10 minutes prior to addition to the dough (I like to add it directly to the dough water after hydration).

If you are using active dry yeast (ADY), you have to hydrate it anyway, so there won’t be any change for your normal handling procedure. If you use fresh, compressed yeast, we suggest adding the yeast to the dough water in the mixing bowl, then running the mixer for a couple seconds to fully suspend the yeast throughout the dough water. The remainder of dough ingredients can then be added.

VCMs come with two different mixing attachments. One is flat, looking something like an airplane propeller, while the other one is curved, and sharp on the leading edges. The flat mixing attachment is the correct one to use when mixing dough, while the sharp, curved one is correct for cutting or chopping applications. To assess the correct mixing time when going from a planetary mixer to a VCM, mix the dough just long enough to achieve a smooth appearing skin on the dough. Unlike with other dough mixers, it is easy to over mix a pizza dough in a VCM, so proceed cautiously, making adjustments in mixing time in increments of not more than five or 10 seconds. By following these basic guidelines, the VCM should work well for you.


What is your opinion of spiral dough mixers?

A: I think spiral mixers are the greatest things since sliced pizza. They are highly efficient and mix the dough well with essentially the same total mixing times as a typical planetary mixer when using second speed. In addition, they will mix doughs from full-size (whatever is appropriate for the mixer) to as small as 25 percent of full capacity.

Because of this, I always suggest to buyers that they purchase a mixer a little larger than what they think they need. The mixer will then have the needed capacity to meet future growth demands. These can mix a relatively large amount of dough with a fairly small power draw, making them highly efficient. They also have a footprint that isn’t much larger than most 80-quart planetary mixers, so they are not difficult to fit into most shops. The larger mixers will typically have a removable bowl on wheels, allowing the bowl to be moved around the shop. However, most of the smaller size spiral mixers don’t have this feature, so the dough will need to be removed from the mixer and manually transported to the work area for cutting and balling.

Most shops using spiral mixers address this issue by simply installing the mixer as close as possible to the cutting bench, as this allows them to easily cut dough from the bowl and toss it onto the bench for cutting as needed. A handy feature that I would like to see more often on spiral mixers of all sizes is a removable drain plug in the bowl.

To clean a spiral mixer, we typically pour some hot water into the bowl and then cover it with a sheet of plastic, allowing the bowl to be steamed, thus softening any dough residue in the bowl. After steaming for about
15 minutes, the bowl can be scrubbed using a nylon bristle pot brush. The bowl is then rinsed and sanitized. A drain plug makes cleaning the mixer a bit easier by allowing the wash water, rinse water and sanitizer to be simply drained from the bowl by placing a bucket under the drain plug and removing the plug. Without a drain plug, you will need to bail the water out of the bowl like bailing a sinking boat.

So why don’t we see more spiral mixers used in pizzerias? It’s probably because they don’t have any provision for changing the agitator; hence, you can’t mix sauce in them. They also don’t have an attachment hub, so you can’t install an attachment for chopping, grinding or slicing to the mixer. But if you’re looking to update your dough mixer, and you can keep your old planetary mixer to do the sauce and cutting chores, a spiral mixer might be just the ticket.

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.

A: The first thing to know about the VCM is that it has a much higher mixing speed. The two-speed models mix at 1750 RPM at low speed and at 3500 RPM at high speed. Single-speed models mix only at 1750 RPM. In most cases, only the 1750 RPM speed is used for dough mixing. This high speed mixing means that the mixing times will be a lot shorter, typically in the 70- to 90-second range, and due to the high speed mixing, dough heating may be a problem.

To address the dough temperature issue, we suggest that you have a five-gallon bucket of ice water at hand, and between doughs, fill the mixing bowl with the ice water, then pour it back into the bucket when you’re ready to add the ingredients for your next dough. The short mixing time can pose a problem for those using instant dry yeast (IDY) as the mixing time is not sufficiently long enough to fully hydrate the yeast or properly incorporate it into the dough. For this reason, IDY should be hydrated in 95 F water for 10 minutes prior to addition to the dough (I like to add it directly to the dough water after hydration).

If you are using active dry yeast (ADY), you have to hydrate it anyway, so there won’t be any change for your normal handling procedure. If you use fresh, compressed yeast, we suggest adding the yeast to the dough water in the mixing bowl, then running the mixer for a couple seconds to fully suspend the yeast throughout the dough water. The remainder of dough ingredients can then be added.

VCMs come with two different mixing attachments. One is flat, looking something like an airplane propeller, while the other one is curved and sharp on the leading edges. The flat mixing attachment is the correct one to use when mixing dough, while the sharp, curved one is correct for cutting or chopping applications. To assess the correct mixing time when going from a planetary mixer to a VCM, mix the dough just long enough to achieve a smooth appearing skin on the dough. Unlike with other dough mixers, it is very easy to over-mix a pizza dough in a VCM, so proceed cautiously, making adjustments in mixing time in increments of no more than 5 or 10 seconds. By following these basic guidelines, the VCM should work well for you.

A: Some of my favorite ways to “spice-up” old favorites are as follows:

Marinate pieces of skinless chicken breast in lemon, lime or coconut juice. Add one of these along with a few pieces of drained or frozen/thawed peach slices to a pizza. Add a few pieces of pecan nuts to the top of the pizza to increase the “wow” factor. Or, if you used the coconut juice marinated chicken, try adding a little shredded coconut to the top of the pizza instead of the pecans.

Offer a simple shrimp pizza using a white sauce (Alfredo) on the dough skin to replace your regular pizza sauce. Marinate baby shrimp in lemon or lime juice. Begin by brushing a little olive oil over the dough. Add some diced garlic, followed by the white sauce. Sprinkle the top of the pizza with dried dill weed, and add the marinated shrimp. Follow this by adding some red and green pepper slices, and a little red onion. Top with a light application of Mozzarella cheese (about 4 ounces for a 12-inch pie), and finish by adding 1 ounce of shredded Parmesan cheese. Bake the same as your regular pizzas.

Offer a slightly upscale version of your meat pizza using a 50/50 blend of your pizza sauce with a tangy BBQ sauce, garnish with red onion rings, and a sprinkling of smoked Provolone and Parmesan cheese.

These are some of the things that I like to do to add something a little different. Use your imagination to come up with your own special treatment of one or more of your house favorites!

A: I think spiral mixers are the greatest things since sliced pizza. They are highly efficient, mixing the dough very well, and with essentially the same total mixing times as a typical planetary mixer when using second speed. In addition, they will mix doughs from full size (whatever is appropriate for the mixer) to as small as 25 percent of full capacity.

Because of this, I always suggest to potential buyers that they purchase a mixer a little larger than what they think they need; then, the mixer will have the needed capacity to meet future growth demands. Due to the design of spiral mixers, they can mix a relatively large amount of dough with a fairly small power draw, making them highly efficient. They also have a foot print that isn’t much larger than most 80-quart planetary mixers, so they are not difficult to fit into most shops. The larger size mixers will typically have a removeable bowl on wheels, allowing the bowl to be moved around the shop.Most of the smaller size spiral mixers don’t have this feature, so the dough will need to be removed from the mixer and manually transported to the work area for cutting and balling.

Most shops using spiral mixers address this issue by simply installing the mixer as close as possible to the cutting bench, as this allows them to easily cut dough from the bowl and toss it onto the bench for cutting as needed. A handy feature that I would like to see more often on spiral mixers of all sizes is a removeable drain plug in the bowl. To clean a spiral mixer, we typically pour some hot water into the bowl and cover it with a sheet of plastic, allowing the bowl to be steamed, thus softening any dough residue in the bowl. After steaming for about 15 minutes, the bowl can be scrubbed out using a nylon bristle pot brush. The bowl is then rinsed and sanitized. A drain plug makes cleaning the mixer a bit easier by allowing the wash water, rinse water and sanitizer to be simply drained from the bowl by placing a bucket under the drain plug, and removing the plug. Without a drain plug, you will need to bail the water out of the bowl like bailing a sinking boat.

So, why don’t we see more spiral mixers used in pizzerias? It’s probably because they don’t have any provision for changing the agitator. Hence, you can’t mix sauce in them. And they don’t have an attachment hub, so you can’t install an attachment for chopping, grinding or slicing (a.k.a. pelican head) to the mixer. But, if you’re looking to update your dough mixer, and you can keep your old planetary mixer to do the sauce and cutting chores, a spiral mixer might be just the ticket.

Tom Lehmann is a director at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas.

We make our dough fresh every day and get a fairly consistent result. However, every once in a while our dough will have a smooth/firm bottom crust instead of a “soft/dimpled” bottom crust — and I like the smooth result better. The smooth result happens very infrequently so it is hard to understand what causes it. Do you have any ideas or thoughts as to what might be causing this?

Craig LeCrone
Bestway Pizza
Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania

I’m at a little disadvantage here because I don’t know the steps you take when you put together a batch of dough. Pizza dough is a living organism. As such, it has a birth, maturity and death. These stages of life are controlled by time, temperature and fermentation rate. I believe the only way to control the many variables is to develop a process that will ensure consistency from batch to batch. I strive to remove all of the human variables possible.

Step 1. Weigh out your flour. 50-pound bags of flour rarely contain 50 pounds of flour. They have a tolerance that will allow the bags to be slightly over or underweight. Since they are filled mechanically on a fast moving line, it is not unusual to see 49- or 51-pound bags. The mills have to hit a pallet weight average to pass final weight tolerances. I am a big fan of a digital receiving scale. I like the models that have 150 pound capacity and weigh out in 2/10 of a pound increments.
Also, I only use flour that has been in my storage area at least two days. If I were to use flour right off the delivery truck, it would be 40 F. This cold flour would stunt the fermentation of the batch. I want flour that is around 60-70 F.

Step 2. Weigh the water and take its temperature. Volume metric measurement of liquids is not very accurate. I use the same scale I use for the flour. Then I adjust the faucet to deliver 70-75 F water. The temperature of the water is important because it controls the core temp of the batch. If you use 70 F flour and 75 F water and mix for 9-10 minutes, the core temp will always be 80 F. Friction heat usually imparts 5-10 F of warmth to the batch. I always take the temperature of the whole blob of dough on the prep table before I start to cut and weigh dough balls.

Step 3. Weigh out your dry ingredients. The salt, sugar, yeast and any other dry ingredients need to be weighed out even more precisely. I like to use a 0-32 ounce dial, platform scale with a no bounce feature. The only missing ingredient is vegetable/olive oil. This can be measured in plastic measuring cups or weighed out to the ounce, which leaves no room for error.

Step 4. Set a timer so you mix every batch for the same length of time.

Step 5. When the dough is born (comes from the mixing bowl to the table), take the core temp and don’t tarry in cutting, rounding and refrigerating the dough. As it sits on the table it is rising (fermenting), and hustle is the name of the game. Don’t ruin a batch by ignoring it for half an hour, especially on a hot summer day. I hope I have shed a light on why your dough is not totally consistent.

Big Dave Ostrander owned a highly successful independent pizzeria before becoming a consultant, speaker and internationally sought-aftertrainer. He is a monthly contributor to Pizza Today.

Q: What is the purpose of cross-stacking?

A: The purpose of cross-stacking dough trays or boxes is to allow the dough to cool down slightly after it has been cut and balled and before the dough is sealed. While mixing, dough heats up as a result of the friction put upon it by the machine. The yeast in dough is more active when warm, causing the dough to rise and ferment. Cross-stacking the dough trays in the refrigerator allows the air to flow through the trays slowly, thereby retarding the fermentation process until you are ready to pull out your dough again. If you were to put your dough directly in the fridge, already sealed, right after cutting and balling, the heat from within the dough ball would be trapped and would cause the dough to continue rising. As a result, your dough could be over-fermented by the time you want to use it. You never want to keep your dough trays or boxes cross-stacked for more than 10-20 minutes. If left open too long, the dough will form a dry layer on the surface of each ball. A small amount of water massaged on the top can easily counter any small portion of dryness, rehydrating it and making it smooth again. But this should only be used if necessary.

Q: Do I change the percentage of yeast in my batch if I live in Colorado?

A: Yes. At high elevations the amount of yeast in your recipe generally needs to be lowered. Because of the high elevation, the increase in air pressure makes yeast act faster — which causes your dough to rise more quickly. The amount of malt/ sugar in your recipe could be lowered as well since the yeast will not need as much to consume. Since the dough is going to rise quicker it is important to cut and ball your dough and get it into the refrigerator as soon as possible after mixing. Another important tip is to make sure you cover your dough appropriately. The air at higher altitudes is very dry, so covering your batch is critical to maintaining quality.

*The information in this answer was enhanced by Jeff Smokavitch of Brown Dog Pizza in Telluride, Colorado (elev. 8750 ft.).

Respecting The Craft is a new column featuring World Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani, owner of Tony’s Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco and Pizza Rock in Sacramento. Tony respects the craft of pizza making daily. If you have questions on any kitchen topic ranging from prep to finish, Tony’s your guy. Send questions via Twitter @PizzaToday, Facebook (search: Pizza Today) or e-mail jwhite@ pizzatoday.com and we’ll pass the best ones on to Tony. This month, Tony addresses pizza dough topics.

If your thick crust doesn’t have a light texture, you likely are not proofing the dough properly. Proofing is the act of allowing the dough to rise after it has been formed. This is the final processing step before baking.

During proofing, dough is aerated, which leavens it and creates a thicker, more tender and potentially crispier finished crust. Typically, thin crusts are not given any proof time. Instead, they are formed, dressed and taken directly to the oven. Thick crusts, on the other hand. really need to be proofed to give them their desirable characteristics. Under normal conditions proofed dough will double or triple in height during the proofing stage. This expansion will continue during the first few minutes in the oven. With the combination of proofing height and oven spring, a lighter textured crust is produced. This lighter texture also provides for a more tender crust, and the reduced density of the baking dough creates better resistance to heat transfer through the dough (resulting in a more rapid temperature gain and a higher surface temperature at the bottom of the crust, which can result in a more crispy texture).

One of our challenges is to figure out how to produce thick crust pizzas that have been proofed for upwards of 60 minutes in a timely and predictable manner so they are ready for baking when an order is placed. The operative word here is "predictable.” while you can effectively proof pizzas at room temperature, the problem is that when doing so you are left entirely at the mercy of the room temperature. When the room is cold, the dough will proof more slowly; when it is hot it will proof faster. Additionally, we also find that the finished dough temperature has a greater effect upon the rate at which the dough proofs when the proofing is done at room temperature rather than in a controlled environment, such as a proofer.

Another approach that some operators have taken is to stack the pans of dough either near a heat source or right on top of the oven. We see a lot of this when deck ovens are used since the top of these ovens can get rather warm and the large, flat top looks like a good place to stack pans of dough. Sure, you can proof this way, but it has its drawbacks. Since the top of the oven is the heat source, those pans, which are sitting right on top of the oven, will get the most heat while those pans which are stacked above them will get significantly less heat exposure. The result is a vast inconsistency in proofing from the top to the bottom of the stack, and you will soon find yourself digging through the stack of pans looking for that pan with correctly proofed dough to fill the order at hand.

I think the best solution is to invest in a commercial proofer or proofing cabinet. A proofing cabinet is typically about 24-inches wide, 32-inches deep, and about 72-inches high. It will have a number of suitably spaced cleats down both sides to hold 18-inch by 26-inch size pans. A proofer will have both temperature and humidity controls so you won't need to cover the pans to prevent the dough from drying out. The best operating conditions for proofing pizza dough are to set the temperature at 90 F and the humidity at 75 percent relative humidity. No, this won't make the dough proof any faster, but it will allow the dough to proof much more consistently. If you fill the proofer with pans of dough all at one time, it will all come ready to dress and bake at the same time. This may not be such a good idea unless a bus just pulled up outside your store. Here is where we must get a little inventive.

It’s best to simply give the dough partial proof in the pans. If you closely control your finished (mixed) dough temperature, this can be time effective. But if your finished dough temperature varies quite a bit, then you will need to periodically check the height of the dough as it rises in the pan to determine about where half proof is at. Then immediately take the pans of uncovered dough to the cooler. The dough will continue to rise for a period of time in the cooler to reach full proof height at about the time that the dough cools enough to stabilize (significantly slow in proofing rate). This allows it to be held in prime condition, ready to be baked for a longer period of time than it could be held at room temperature or in the proofer. You can build an inventory of dough in the cooler so it will be ready to use at any time within a four-hour period after placing it in the cooler.

To use a pan of this fully proofed dough, place it onto a warming tray set at 150 F for about a minute or so (this sure beats having to wait for the dough to finish proofing). It is then ready to dress and bake for the order.

Like a fine wine, rum, bourbon or scotch whiskey, pizza dough is one of those things that just seem to get better when they’re allowed to age a little. There are times when aging, or allowing the dough to ferment, just isn’t an option — such as when you come into your shop one morning after a storm and you are greeted by the overpowering smell of a brewery. A quick trip to your cooler reveals the source of the smell as you discover your dough pushing out of the dough boxes and onto the floor. Your cooler was knocked out by an electrical surge during the storm, and now you’ve got to come up with some usable pizza dough before you open in just three hours, or you won’t be making any pizzas. This is the classical example where an emergency dough comes into play. This dough is based on your regular dough formula that you’re already familiar with (this is not the time to be tinkering with a dough formula).

So we just increase the water temperature by 15F, double the yeast level and mix the dough in your normal manner. After mixing, we take the dough directly to the bench for scaling and forming into balls, the dough balls are placed into dough boxes and lightly oiled as we normally would, but instead of taking the boxes of dough to the cooler (remember, it may not be working yet) we set the boxes aside to ferment at room temperature.

After the dough has fermented for 90 to 120-minutes, it will be ready to begin using. Be sure to dock the dough with your favorite dough docker, and keep a bubble popper near at hand. No, this dough won’t live up to the reputation of your time honored, secret family heirloom dough, but it will allow you to keep the doors open when you might not have otherwise had any dough to work with.

Emergency doughs typically have a useful life of about two hours after you begin using them, so you will need to be prepared to make more of them as necessary during the day. A pain in the neck? Sure, but it beats the alternative. Due to the lack of fermentation on our emergency dough, finished crusts will not have the same great flavor that our regular crusts have.

During the holding period in the cooler, the dough is being fermented (ever so slowly) and the gluten/flour proteins are being modified by the byproducts of yeast fermentation, namely carbon dioxide, alcohol and acids, as well as exposure to the enzymes contained in the yeast, which all work to degrade the proteins as well as develop the gluten. The effects on the gluten are what give the conditioned dough its great handling properties after a day or two in the cooler, and it is the overall degradation of the proteins that contribute to the development of the great flavor of our crust during the baking process.

Work that we have conducted over the years has shown that, for practical purposes, a well-formulated dough that is properly managed, can have a refrigerated shelf life of three days. This is not to say that the dough cannot be held under refrigeration for more than three days, but only that the dough will give consistent, quality performance for a three day period. For example, if we were to mix the dough today, it would typically be ready to use tomorrow (day 1) and on the following two days.

But what if we wanted to use the dough instead on days 3, 4, and 5 after mixing? We can accomplish this by lowering the finished dough temperature to the 65 to 70 F range. At this temperature, the dough will ferment at an even slower rate during storage in the cooler. However, the dough, in all probability, will not perform up to standard until the first day of use (which is day three … but it will then be good to use over the following two days). If you were to use the dough before day 3, you would find that the dough was excessively tight, exhibited undesirable “memory” characteristics, lacked flavor, and might even give you the opportunity to practice your bubble popping skills.

These results were based on the use of a typical, high gluten, pizza flour with a protein content of 13.2 to 13.7 percent. In many cases we have used a lower protein content flour, 12 to 12.7 percent protein content, and we find that the dough loses about one day in optimum shelf life. This means that we can mix the dough and use it quite successfully over the next two days, but things might become a little “iffy” by the third day.

Part of the dough management process that is difficult for most stores to control is the temperature of their cooler. Due to traffic in and out of the cooler, the temperature tends to rise over the course of the day, before dropping back to the set point again during the night when the store is closed. To help compensate for this, it is important to educate your employees of the importance of keeping the cooler door closed at all times, this includes when they enter to remove something. You might also want to consider installing plastic strip curtains on the inside of the cooler door opening. These have been proven to improve the operating efficiency of the cooler by as much as 15 percent, so I think they’re worth the low investment cost — plus they will go a long way in helping to keep your cooler at a more constant temperature over the course of the day.

Like other types of yeast leavened bread doughs, pizza doughs will benefit from fermenting for a period of time before using or baking it. Fermentation provides dough conditioning, making the dough easier to shape. It also reduces the propensity of the dough to bubble during baking, and it does wonders for the flavor of the dough, too. Depending upon the temperature the dough is fermented at, you can get different fermentation flavors. For example, if the dough is unusually soft, due to high absorption (added water), or if it is stored (fermented) in a cool environment, the yeast and bacteria present in the dough will tend to produce greater amounts of lactic acid, producing a flavor in the finished crust more along the lines of that of a sourdough. A dough that is made with a low absorption (50 percent or less), or which is allowed to ferment at room temperature, will tend to produce more acetic acid, resulting in a flavor more like that which we would associate with commercially produced white pan bread. This is one of the reasons why you see so many formulas/recipes for artisan bread that call for overnight refrigeration/fermentation of the dough.

Fermentation, itself, is important to the performance of our pizza dough. The affects of fermentation combine to help mellow or weaken the gluten forming proteins, resulting in a finished dough that is more easily stretched to shape, and which doesn’t posses so much snap-back that it refuses to maintain its shape. The weakening effect upon the flour proteins is also responsible for developing a more tender eating characteristic.

The main by-product of fermentation, carbon dioxide, works to leaven the dough both before and during baking. This leavening effect is what produces the desired lightness in the finished crust (which, in turn, is responsible to a great degree for the crispiness and crust color development of the finished crust).

Since so many good things come from the effects of fermentation, one might be inclined to think that more is better, but that isn’t necessarily the case — too much fermentation can result in a dough that is excessively gassy, or so weak that it is difficult to shape properly, not to mention the fact that it probably won’t rise very well either, and remember those acids that are formed as a by-product of fermentation?

If your dough gets too acid as a result of excessive fermentation, those acids will impede crust color development, making it difficult to get the desired color on the finished crust. Then too, there is flavor, an over fermented dough will have a very strong and pronounced “fermentation” smell. Some operators have likened this smell to that of a brewery, and they’re not too far off base, as the aromatics are both due to the by-products of yeast fermentation.

In some instances, we might see a dough that has not been given sufficient fermentation. Think of an emergency dough, where you came in to open the store early in the morning only to be met by the pungent smell of fermentation — and a mess in the cooler. Now you’re faced with the task of cleaning up the mess, tossing out the “blown” dough, and making an emergency dough to get you through the day. Since you will only have a few hours at most to get the emergency dough up and running, you can bet that it will be short on fermentation time.

Even though we double the yeast level in our emergency dough, the flavor will still be somewhat lacking. Because of the shorter fermentation time, the same level of acids won’t be developed, which can result in a dough that colors more quickly in the oven, possibly necessitating a slight reduction in bake time or temperature. And lastly, since the effect of the various acids and enzymes from the yeast haven’t had sufficient time to mellow, or soften the gluten forming proteins, the dough might feel a little stiffer or stronger, and exhibit more snap-back at forming than your regular dough’s. To some extent, this can be compensated for through the addition of a small amount of L-cysteine/PZ-44 to the dough. Even at this, you will most likely find that the dough isn’t as light/airy as your regular dough, and this can make the finished crust more chewy and less crispy. As you can see, fermentation is a very important aspect of making a quality pizza/pizza crust. The main thing to keep in mind is that it isn’t so much a matter of how much fermentation you give the dough, but rather how well you control the fermentation.

One commonly overlooked aspect of dough management is that of temperature control. Temperature, temperature, temperature — our life in the store revolves around temperatures. The temperature of the cooler and oven, the holding temperature of the food on the lunch buffet, the temperature of the freezer, even the temperature of the room is generally known and regularly monitored, but temperatures as they relate to the dough are seldom, if ever, taken. If you are one of those who do take the temperature of anything that will allow you to stick a thermometer into it, I applaud you. Otherwise, read on.

Dough is made with yeast, and yeast is a living organism (just like us). And just like us, it responds to its environment in a predictable manner. In general, higher temperatures accelerate yeast activity and lower temperatures depress it.
If you use active dry yeast you must rehydrate and activate it before adding it to the mixing bowl. This is done using warm water at 100 to 105F. If the temperature is outside of this range damage can be done to the yeast. This will adversely affect the performance of the dough. The same can be said for instant dry yeast. While not generally rehydrated, in some instances it is necessary to rehydrate it prior to use — such as when the vertical cutter mixer is used and very short mixing times are employed (75 to 120 seconds). With active dry yeast the recommended water temperature for rehydrating the yeast is 95F. It is well recognized that if this water temperature is off by only 5F, measurable damage to the yeast will be sustained. This just can't be good for dough consistency. The best way to guarantee that the water is at the correct temperature for rehydrating the yeast is to use a thermometer to measure the water temperature before adding the yeast to it.

Then there is the finished dough temperature. This sets the stage for the way the dough will perform during our dough management period (and to a great extent it will also influence the way the dough handles during forming and even the way it bakes up). There are a lot of things hinging on the finished dough temperature that are all very important to us, so is it any wonder that this could possibly be the single most important temperature there is to measure?
When we add the ingredients to the mixing bowl each ingredient has its own temperature, then when the dough is mixed, friction is developed between the moving dough and the sided of the mixing bowl. This friction raises the dough temperature during mixing.

The temperature of the room also influences the finished temperature of the dough. To control the temperature of the dough we typically adjust the temperature of the water that is added to the dough. In most cases a finished dough temperature of 80 to 85F is desirable. So the question that now begs to be asked is how do I know what the water temperature needs to be to give me the desired finished dough temperature?
There is a simple formula that can be followed to give you that "magic" number. Here it is: 3 X desired finished dough temperature minus the sum of the flour temperature, room temperature and friction factor. There is a formula for figuring the friction factor too, but space does not permit me to go into those details at this time so we will use the number "30" for our friction factor. Here is a typical working example of the formula: We want our finished dough temperature to be 80F. The room temperature is 75F, the flour temperature is 72F. Our formula at work: 3 X 80 = 240. Next, subtract the sum of 75 + 72 + 30, which is 177. This gives us 63 (240 minus 177). The correct water temperature to add to this dough would be 63F. If you need to make any further adjustments to the water temperature to get the finished dough temperature right where you want it, adjust the water temperature in 5F increments either higher or lower and you will be able to steer the finished dough temperature to where you want it.

The finished dough temperature is so important because it sets the stage for the way the dough will perform during the forming and baking stages. If the dough temperature is too high you may experience problems with either wet doughs due to sweating or blown doughs due to excessive fermentation. If the finished dough temperature is too low the dough may not receive sufficient fermentation within the time allocated and the dough will be difficult to shape (not to mention the problems you can then experience with excessive dough memory or snap-back). If you are making pan style pizzas the dough temperature is doubly important since it can impact the length of time needed for the dough to rise (proof) to a specific height in the pan. An old trick worth mentioning here is to use one of the hot presses to form the dough skins for pan style pizzas.

The heat imparted to the dough piece during the forming operation helps to significantly reduce the time needed for the dough to rise in the pan. In some cases we have been able to eliminate the need for a final proofer (temperature and humidity controlled cabinet) when hot pressing pan style pizzas and instead just place the pans of heated dough onto a vertical pan/tray rack and cover it with a rack cover or bag and get acceptable dough proofing.
As you can see, temperatures are important as it pertains to our doughs. It's a good idea to record the room temperature, flour temperature, and the water temperature for every dough that we make.

This will allow you to, at a glance, determine the room and flour temperatures and see what water temperature was previously used to achieve the target dough temperature. If you watch, record, and maintain your dough temperature you will be well on your way to producing more consistent performing doughs and more consistent, high quality finished pizzas.

I’ve heard you say that the temperature of the dough after mixing is the single most important aspect of dough management. Would you please explain this to me?

The temperature of the dough is vitally important because it sets the stage for everything else that will happen to the dough thereafter. It is the temperature of the dough that controls fermentation, how fast it will proceed, and how long it will continue for. For example, higher dough temperatures allow for faster fermentation rates, as the dough ferments faster, it consumes more nutrient (sugar) and generates more acid (acetic. lactic and propionic). The ultimate lack of nutrient and excess of acid work to significantly slow or halt yeast activity after several hours in a typical pizza dough formula. Cooler dough temperatures will slow the rate of fermentation, decreasing acid formation and nutrient metabolism, allowing for a longer sustained fermentation period for the dough. Also, from a mechanical point, doughs having a lower temperature are easier and faster to cool when taken to the cooler. Doughs that are too warm, may be difficult to cool efficiently resulting in over fermented, or “blown” doughs. So, as you can see, if the dough temperature is not controlled, your entire dough management procedure can become unraveled overnight, resulting in lost doughs, or at best, inconsistent dough performance or finished product quality characteristics.


How important is it to have the water temperature right at the recommended 100 F to 105 F for activating my active dry yeast?

The water temperature used to activate any type of dry yeast is really pretty important if you have a concern over yeast performance, and I think we all have an interest in that. In al cases, active dry yeast must be hydrated before it can be added to the dough, and in some cases, instant dry yeast must also be hydrated. Take note that the correct water temperature to use when hydrating IDY is 95 F. If the water temperature is too hot the yeast cells can be heat/thermal damaged, but if the water is too cold, you stand the risk of allowing some of the plasma material contained within the yeast cell(s) to leach out during the hydration process. This material, when removed from the cell, can result in the development of an unusually soft or in some cases sticky dough consistency, and extensive damage to the yeast cells from which the material was removed. All in all, good things do not happen when dry yeast is allowed to hydrate in water at a temperature other than that which is recommended by the manufacturer.
Also, while we’re on the topic of hydrating dry yeast, keep in mind that when the directions say to hydrate the yeast in water at say, 100 to 105 F, only a small quantity of the total water needs to be at that temperature, only about five times the weight of the yeast. The rest of the water should be at a temperature that will give you a finished dough within the desired or targeted, temperature range.

Question: I am new to the pizza industry and I have read about “proofing” dough. Would you explain what this is and why it’s done.

Answer: Proofing, or rising, is done primarily to allow the dough to achieve a greater height, or lightness than it would if it were taken directly to the oven without the benefit of proofing. Only doughs containing yeast are proofed. During the proofing time the yeast generates gas, which imparts a level of aeration (leavening) to the dough just prior to the baking stage.

Typically, only thick crust and pan pizza doughs are proofed prior to baking, but we have seen some instances where even thin crust doughs were proofed before baking. The result was a finished crust with a somewhat thicker dimension and a more open, “airy” internal crumb structure with a more tender, eating characteristic. When making thick crust or pan pizzas, proofing is an important part of the quality equation as it allows you to achieve the desired finished crust thickness without excessive dough weight. This results in a much lighter, more tender finished crust with excellent bake-out properties.

We typically have three options when it comes to proofing the dough. We can cover the pans of dough and allow them to set at room temperature to rise, we can place the pans of dough on or near a heat source such as our oven(s) to allow the dough to rise, or we can use a temperature-humidity controlled cabinet (proofer) designed specifically for this task. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each;

1) Proofing at ambient room temperature is nothing more than covering the pans of dough to prevent drying, and placing them on a rack, which might have a plastic rack cover over it to help control temperature and humidity within the rack’s environment. This can be an acceptable method of proofing if the room temperature and humidity is constant and provides you with properly proofed dough within a reasonable time expectation. The negative side to proofing at room temperature is the potential for room temperature fluctuation as the outside air, or shop temperature, changes. When this happens you might find yourself in a situation where you have customers and orders, but the dough still isn’t ready. If you are lucky to have an environment that doesn’t experience much change, proofing at ambient might work quite well for you.

2) Since heat accelerates the rate of fermentation, it is only natural to want to proof our dough near a source of heat. A lot of times we find pans of dough being placed on an oven to proof. This can be acceptable if only a few pans need to be proofed, but if a number of pans are to be proofed it’s common practice to stack the pans on top of the oven. When this happens, the bottom pan receives plenty of heat, but it also acts as an insulator for the other pans, so they will get none of the heat; hence, the bottom pan rises quickly, but the other pans don’t rise nearly as fast, if at all.

We can also put the pans of dough on a wheeled rack and move them to a warm spot in the shop such as near the oven(s) or a warm air vent from the furnace. The problem here is that now we have pans on only one side of the rack getting the heat while the pans on the other side get little of the heat, so they end up proofing slower. Sure, you can make the argument that the rack will be turned every 10 minutes to minimize this inconsistency in temperature exposure, but the reality of it is that it just doesn’t happen.

3) Our other option for proofing the dough is to use a temperature-humidity controlled cabinet, also known as a “proofer”. If you’re really serious about making a lot of deep dish-pizzas and want to maintain as short a turn around time on your orders as possible, this might be your best option. Because both the temperature and humidity within the proofer are set by you, there is a high degree of control over the proofing of the dough. You can have it proof faster (higher temperature) or slower (lower temperature) with a relative humidity level that will prevent crusting of the dough (75 percent). More importantly, the temperature and humidity within the proofer are constant throughout the day.

By using a proofer, you can also manage your proofed dough by allowing it to rise to a specified point (height) in the pan, and then taking it to the cooler for chilling. While in the cooler, the dough will continue to rise for a period of time. The trick is to take the dough to the cooler at just the point where the dough will rise to the desired height, and then significantly slow or stop rising, allowing the dough to be held in the cooler, for several hours or a day, at a condition where it is ready for dressing and baking at a moment’s notice.