Elements of Pizza Second Fail

Lowcountrygamecock · December 2019

Let me start by saying we’ve been making home made dough for pizza in the oven for years. I’ve never tried my dough recipe in the kamado because I was afraid it would burn. We’ve been searching for a dough that’s high heat safe to use in the kamado and have tried two recipes from the elements of pizza book and neither have had any rise to them.
Here’s my original recipe which we love from the oven.
2 packages of fleishmans active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cup hot water for yeast/sugar mixture
add yeast/sugar mixture to 4 cups all purpose flour
made 1-2 TBS of oil
add water as needed until consistency is correct.
Roll out dough into 3-16” pizzas and bake at 350 with no ferment time
Always results in great pizza.
We’ve tried two different elements of pizza recipes and the dough never rises at all. It’s very dense and has no give to it and doesn’t rise at all. we’ve tried the “I slept in but I want pizza tonight” dough and the “Saturday pizza dough” and neither have been right. I see pics from people using these recipes and their pizza looks totally We’ve tried those two recipes multiple times in the kamado cooking at about 500-550 and in the oven at 400. They’re ok but no chew and very tough dough. We followed the recipes to every little detail. We used caputo red bag 00 flour and saf-instant yeast and followed every detail exactly.
Any ideas what’s going wrong with my elements of pizza attempts? Or better yet how do we high heat proof my normal recipe?

JohnInCarolina · December 2019

So I use recipes from that book all the time. A couple of questions:

1) what temp are you cooking at?
2) what hydration level are you using?

Photo Egg · December 2019

@JohnInCarolina
with him using 00 and a dough designed for high heat but only cooking at 500-550, essential medium heat, could that be the issue. Just not cooking hot enough to get the dough to pop before it dries out?

JohnInCarolina · December 2019

Photo Egg said:

@JohnInCarolina
with him using 00 and a dough designed for high heat but only cooking at 500-550, essential medium heat, could that be the issue. Just not cooking hot enough to get the dough to pop before it dries out?

I think the hydration levels in the book are designed for a home oven, so that temp should be fine. He may just not be giving his yeast enough time, I’m not sure.

hoosier_egger · December 2019

Water too hot?

JohnInCarolina · December 2019

ColtsFan said:

Water too hot?

Shouldn’t be if he’s following the Forkish recipe to the letter.

alaskanassasin · December 2019

JohnInCarolina said:

ColtsFan said:

Water too hot?

Shouldn’t be if he’s following the Forkish recipe to the letter.

You have that right, I make those doughs and any slight variation in the process makes a big difference.

Using measuring cups on the same recipe Saturday morning dough, two weeks ago I had a sticky bubbling dough, the following week a heavier denser dough.

As a brewer of beer I know it can be difficult to recreate awesome without absolute accuracy, I believe he states earlier in the book that time and temperature are also ingredients.

I think I could nail perfect dough every time with some kitchen scales

Lowcountrygamecock · December 2019

I weighed everything out to exact amounts and used a therma pen to get the exact temperature of the water. It wasn’t terrible, just no rise and nothing to get excited about

steel_egg · December 2019

I’ve tried those doughs a few times as well. No rise. I went back to my other recipes that have you add a small amount of sugar. That seems to kick the yeast activity up to get a good rise.

JohnInCarolina · December 2019

Lowcountrygamecock said:

I weighed everything out to exact amounts and used a therma pen to get the exact temperature of the water. It wasn’t terrible, just no rise and nothing to get excited about

I’d try one of the recipes that requires a bit more fermentation, like the 48-hour dough recipe. You may also want to try a different yeast - possible you just got a bad batch.

I use the Enzo recipe all the time with pretty good results. Every once in awhile I do have a dud though like what you’re showing there. I use a bit more yeast than what it calls for, as it’s barely measurable.

JohnInCarolina · December 2019

steel_egg said:

I’ve tried those doughs a few times as well. No rise. I went back to my other recipes that have you add a small amount of sugar. That seems to kick the yeast activity up to get a good rise.

Sugar helps activate the yeast. It’s fine to use, but you don’t want to be cooking pies much over 500F with it, as it’ll burn. That’s one of the reasons you won’t find any recipes using sugar in the Forkish book.

fishlessman · December 2019

have had good packets of fleishmans outside the expiration date, and bad packages still fresh. nothing worse than a dead flat pretzel

Eggcelsior · December 2019

Try blooming your yeast to make sure it’s still alive. I also use this book and SAF yeast but have never had an issue. I cook pizza with a Roccbox at over 900 F, though. Enzo’s and the biga dough are my favorites.

paqman · December 2019

This one just works: https://www.fornobravo.com/blog/recipe/authentic-vera-pizza-napoletana-dough/

It has no sugar so it can take high temperature in the egg.

Lowcountrygamecock · December 2019

paqman said:

This one just works: https://www.fornobravo.com/blog/recipe/authentic-vera-pizza-napoletana-dough/

It has no sugar so it can take high temperature in the egg.

We’ll give it a shot. Looks good.

Elements of Pizza Second Fail

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