Pizza dough un stretches itself?

jdMyers

So why when stretched out does my pizza dough shrink back small before i can even sauce it?  

paqman

The dough needs to “relax”.  I let my dough balls sit at least 2-3 hours at room temperature before using them.

What is your dough making process?

jdMyers

Ah.  It was fresh out the fridge.  

ColbyLang

You could have over mixed it as well. If you over develop the gluten, it will pull back on you. Watch your hydration level as well. 

jdMyers

Do you happen to have a recipe you could part with.  I have on hand caputo 00 pizza flour, saf red inst yeast, regular flour, Seminole flour, a digital kitchen scale and open to learn....

TEXASBGE2018

This is the 24-48hr dough ball recipe from the ken forkish Book. This recipe makes 2-4 dough balls depending on how big you make them. I usually get 2 and make 2 14” pizzas.  I highly recommend you pick it up.

dmourati

Here's one recipe I have used to great success in the past:

 300g of All Purpose Flour • 300g of Bread Flour • 400g of Filtered Water (Room temperature) • 7g of Active Dry Yeast (1 packet) • 12g Salt • 8g Honey • 7g Extra Virgin Olive Oil • 4 (2 cup or larger) plastic containers

You make it 2 days in advance, put 1/4 of the dough into each of the plastic containers coated with olive oil. Then, on pizza day, take each dough ball out, put it on a work surface dusted with flour, and assemble the rest of your ingredients.

ghyman

JD...Paqman is dead on....gotta let the dough ball breath in room temp for a couple hours.... we buy ready-man dough at Trader Joes....know that shrinking issue well....finally let mine rest last night and it make all the difference!

paqman

6 dough balls (280 grams each)
1000 grams flour (Caputo red bag)
650 grams water (cold tap)
30 grams salt
0.6 grams instant dry yeast (IDY) or 0.75 grams active dry yeast (ADY)

I use a KitchenAid stand mixer

Mix the flower and salt with a fork, sprinkle the yeast over the flour (yeast and salt don’t play super well together) and start mixing slowly adding water.  At first you want the dough to stick a bit to the floor of the bowl but it will eventually form a ball around the dough hook.  I go by feel but that’s usually 7-10 minutes of mixing.

Spray a container with oil (I use a cambro and kirkland oil spray)

Wet your hands with cold water and slide your fingers along the dough hook to remove the dough from the mixer container.  Wet your hands again if the dough sticks to your hands.  Make a big ball with the dough closing the open end and place in the container for 12 hours at room temperature for bulk fermentation (20 celsius).

Split the dough in 6 dough balls (280 grams each)

Shape the dough balls closing the open end (look this up on youtube, there is a technique for that.  You can use some flour on the counter top and on the dough to help with handling but I usually try to avoid it.

Store the dough balls in deli containers with covers (both sprayed with oil).

If you plan to use the dough balls right away, let them sit 2-4 more hours at room temperature and store the others for 1-5 days in the fridge.

Get yourself a drug dealer scale to measure the yeast:



That’s the container I use for bulk fermentation.  I think this was 5x210 grams dough balls:


After bulk fermentation:


Deli containers I use to store the balls (You can see the oil spray in the background):

1voyager

I make the dough in a food processor instead of a blender, so the directions on how to blend are a bit different. Everything else is the same. This recipe is the right amount for one 14" pizza.

9 ounces Caputo 00 flour

1/4 teaspoon SAF instant yeast

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/10 teaspoon Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon oil

5 1/2 ounces lukewarm water

Combine flour, sugar, salt and instant yeast in food processor.

Pulse dry ingredients  2 - 3 times to mix

Turn on food processor then slowly add mixed water and oil. 

Run food processor until mixture forms a ball. (30 seconds to a minute.)

Transfer ball to lightly floured surface and knead the dough until a smooth ball is formed. 

Place ball into a lightly oiled bowl. Allow expansion of up to 2X original size.

Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 3 - 4 days.

Remove dough from container and place on floured surface at room temperature. Form to a circular shape but don’t knead*. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest until dough reaches 60 degrees. (About 2 hours.)

Flatten the dough with fingers from the center outwards. Spin and flip then lift to expand. Place on parchment paper and peel. 

Coat with 1 - 2 tablespoons of EVOO.

Add toppings and bake immediately.

(Preheat pizza stone @ 550 degrees for at least 1 hour. Load pizza onto stone and bake for 8 minutes, spinning once.)

* The reason I typed "don't knead" in bold is because if you knead after cold fermenting, that's what causes the dough to shrink back.

jdMyers

WOW THANKS i will keep you informed.  Trader joes yes sir.  The cold dough fight what a learning lesson.

CPARKTX2

@paqman great idea to use the deli containers, I have the big flat trays but they take a ton of room in the refrigerator 

CPARKTX2

@jdMyers I find a minimum of 90 minutes out the the refrigerator to relax, and if doing multiple pies (I usually do 5-6), then no kore than 2 hours or the later pies are overly relaxed and hard to work with. There is a happy medium. 

Another trick is to star forming the pie, then let it rest about 3-5 minutes, and re-sretch  before adding the toppings. 

jdMyers

Ima have to try both.  Pies were about 10 inch and made 6 total.  

smak

You might want to check out PizzaApp+ 

Let's you enter your desired parameters (number/size of dough balls, temperatures, time, type of yeast, etc) and then it calculates the weights of all the ingredients.  

jdMyers

Thanks

KiterTodd

@jdMyers I have had great success with store dough, or picking it up from a local pizza place. (they'll usually sell a dough for $2 or less).  I don't always plan 2 hours ahead as pizza is often a last minute idea in our house. I'll take the dough out when i start to prep the egg and such. Leave it on the counter.  When I am ready to prep pies, I'll hand stretch the dough and let is sit for a minute... usually it then relaxes and you can stretch it some more.  Repeat as needed any time it gets tight on you.

I always buy dough, but this thread makes me want to finally try making my own.  All those recipes are completely different though. I like the simple approach of the Forkish recipe, 4 ingredient, hand mixed.  But a couple of those are using the Kitchen Aid or a Food Processor.  With sugar, honey and oil added.  Where to start?!?

Which is the best dough newbie recipe?

1voyager

@KiterTodd - If I can do it, you can do it. There will be hit-and-miss dough results, just like it takes time to understand how to cook on BGE.

Here is my "go to" pizza forum. Pizzamaking.com. There's lots of great advice for beginners, intermediates and professionals alike. 

paqman

smak said:

You might want to check out PizzaApp+ 

Let's you enter your desired parameters (number/size of dough balls, temperatures, time, type of yeast, etc) and then it calculates the weights of all the ingredients.  

PizzaApp+ was broken a while ago, I assume that they have fixed it by now but I basically built tables using one of their older version for the few variations of timing that I typically use.  It was a great app though, their W flour mix calculator is unique I think, I haven’t seen it anywhere else.