2nd attempt at a Jim Lahey no knead pizza dough 3/27/2012

Jim Lahey’s no knead pizza did turn out okay, but there really wasn’t much of any flavor in the crust like I thought there should be. I don't understand why that is. I still don’t have any idea of why the dough didn’t feel the hydration that is was. The dough was balled and left at room temperature for about 2 hrs. before trying to open it. The pizza was made after about 18 hrs. total time at room temperature fermentation. The bottom crust did brown better than in my home oven and there was some oven spring, but I wouldn’t say this pizza had better flavors in the crust than other pies I have made.


Norma
 

Rehearsal Dinner Pizzas 3/30/2012

Steve was asked by a friend at his church if he would make pizzas for a rehearsal dinner yesterday. The rehearsal dinner was for the son of Steve's friend. Of course there were other foods served, but the pizzas were the hit of all the foods. Steve made 15 dough balls on Monday and prepared all of the toppings. Steve asked me if I would help him because there are two regular ovens in his church and said we both could be making the pizzas at the same time, so people would get fed faster. Steve never used the ovens in his church to make pizza before and bought along two pizza stones. Steve was heating both ovens for a little over an hour and we were becoming concerned because both of the oven doors didn’t stay shut the whole way. We didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, because we didn’t know if the bottom of the pies would burn or not. The bottom burner stayed on really long. We didn’t have an IR gun along, so we had no idea of what temperature the pizza stone was.


The people at the rehearsal dinner did really liked the pizzas and dressings and the ovens worked out okay for the bakes. Even Steve and I made a few mistakes in opening the skins to a 16” size and loading the pies on the 16” pizza stone. My wooden peel stuck part way over the sink, so a few times people that were washing something in the sink got part of my wooden peel slightly damp before I had realized it was a little wet on the one side. Of course the skin wanted to stick where the peel got damp. I thought how Steve prepared the skins before the actual bake was interesting. We both partly opened the skins and then just put the checkered board paper between the skins. That method worked out well, because the skins were already partly opened and the partly opened skins didn‘t dry out. It was then a breeze to open the dough balls the rest of the way. Steve and I got to taste some of he pies near the end and they tasted very good. I really loved the Mesquite BBQ chicken combos. I never thought to try Mesquite BBQ chicken in addition to other dressing on a pizza before.

Norma
 

the progress of the regular Lehmann dough for market 3/27/2011

After a couple of weeks of experimenting with the preferment Lehmann dough and the regular Lehmann dough pizzas. and my customers and my taste testers telling me they couldn’t tell the difference from my preferment Lehmann dough pizzas and the regular Lehmann dough pizzas I was making, I decided to try the regular Lehmann dough again for market again. I started out with the regular Lehmann dough for market.


As I posted in Reply 940 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg175315.html#msg175315 and Reply 984 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg177357.html#msg177357 in the Lehmann dough thread I tried Steve’s formulation and did like it. Since then I have made some Lehmann doughs and preferment Lehmann doughs to let my taste testers and customers taste to see if they could tell the difference.

I sure don’t know how the switch will be, or if I will go back to the preferment Lehmann dough. The preferment Lehmann dough seems like an old friend of mine since I have used it for about 2 years. I hate to leave an old friend that gave me such good mileage. The regular Lehmann dough is easier to make and saves me a little time. I think I will be able to either change the yeast amount or the final dough temperature to be able to make the same dough consistently though out the changing temperatures of market during the course of different seasons, but I am not sure.

I did make two different Lehmann doughs for yesterday with one having a little less oil in the formulation. Really, no differences could be told with using a little bit less oil. I might tweak the formulation of percentage of oil more in the next couple of weeks with a test batch of dough.

The Lehmann dough pizzas did seem to have good oven spring, decent browning on the rim crust, and decent bottom crust browning. The Lehmann dough also did seem to make a decent Greek style pizza, cheesy bread sticks, pizza pinwheels and garlic knots. The reheat of the slices and holding the pizzas in the heated cabinet also went well.

I only took a couple of pictures of the Lehmann dough pizzas yesterday along with one Greek pizza.

Steve had asked me to help make pizzas at his church on Thursday and has told me he modified the Lehmann dough more. I will see how those pies bake and look on Thursday.

Norma