Pizza dough seems tough

Susan Egglaine · February 2010

First time I have used high gluten flour ( used the recpie in recpie section) just seems hard. Is this the way it is suppose to be? This is my second batch. First one was to salty. One and a half tablespoons salt? Anyway the salty batch is rising the second batch in fridge for Sunday.

I have a 50 pound bag of flour and no where to go. I am open to any suggestions or recipes. Getting a foot of snow on top of the foot we got last weekend :ohmy:

AZRP · February 2010

Susan try this. -RP

2 Cups flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp olive oil

Boilermaker Ben · February 2010

Wow! 1.5 Tablespoons? Unless it makes enough dough for about 10 pizzas, it sounds like a typo...maybe 1.5 teaspoons instead? I wouldn't be surprised if you had problems getting that batch to rise, with so much salt in there.

One of these days, I'm going to give this guy's recipe/ method a try: http://www.varasanos.com/pizzaRecipe.htm

WessB · February 2010

Randy...does that yield one crust or 2?

Susan Egglaine · February 2010

AZRP wrote:

Susan try this. -RP

2 Cups flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp olive oil

Can I use high gluten flour and a slow rise?

AZRP · February 2010

One 14-16" crust, knead it with the dough hook for about 15 minutes then let it rise. -RP

AZRP · February 2010

Absolutely but you have to vary the amount of yeast you use depending on how long of a slow rise you are going to do. This recipe is good for an overnight rise in the fridge, if you want to go for a four day rise cut the yeast down to about 1/4 tsp. I used to do the long cool rise but gave it up because I really didn't find it any better. -RP

AZRP · February 2010

I use high gluten, got the 50 lb bag at RD too. I portioned it into 1 gal ziplocks at 5 lbs each and store it in the freezer. -RP

gdenby · February 2010

I've tried Varasano's recipe. I did it all manually, and, being a novice, it was really hard working with such wet dough. Also, I made it with a stone at 600, not the 800+ he gets, so it wasn't as nicely charred. I used a second batch yesterday, a little drier. Still hard to work with, but cooked a little better.

The flavor from the long rest in the fridge is really good, tho, so I will keep trying.

mkc · February 2010

One long ferment one I like (makes 1 14" NY style) is

258 grams high gluten flour (KA Sir Lancelot or All-Trumps) (or 1 Tablespoon vital wheat gluten plus enough bread flour to make 258 grams)
170 grams room temperature water
1 1/2 teaspoons Morton kosher salt (use only 1 teaspoon if table salt)
1/4 teaspoon instant dry yeast

optional - a drop or so of honey or barley malt syrup for very long ferments (more than 4 days).

Mix 170 g of the flour (or flour/VWG mixture) and all the water. Let stand 20 minutes.

Add remaining flour (you can also sub white whole wheat flour in here), salt, yeast, and honey/malt if using. Knead about 4 minutes, no faster than speed 2 on your Kitchenaid or by hand.

Place in lightly oiled bowl and turn dough ball over so it's completely oiled. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Into the fridge and cold ferment 2 to 6 days.

Take out 1 1/2 hours before you want to bake the pizza. Preheat the stone to 475-525 for at least 1/2 hour before baking.

Michelle

Fidel · February 2010

If it was tough my guess is you over kneaded it and overdeveloped the gluten chains.

Your dough should be very slack when it is done. Do you know how to do a bench test?

Roll the dough into a tight ball then remove your hands and see what happens. The ball should relax slightly and slowly. If it falls quickly it is too wet and if it doesn't relax much (or at all) then it is too dry.

WokOnMedium · February 2010

I learned recently learned that the difference in volume between table salt and kosher salt, but even that is a lot.

Susan Egglaine · February 2010

Thanks fort the tips and recipes. The recpie by Danby777(pizza dough) needs to be edited. I gonna get a mixing

HungryMan · February 2010

that's a lot of salt. more water. wetter dough

3Pedals6Speeds · February 2010

Did you by chance add water late in the process? I've learned recently:

http://italiandish.squarespace.com/imported-20090913150324/2008/2/28/pizza-the-homemade-kind.html

that adding water after you get going is a bad idea. Probably not a cardinal rule, but might explain a number of bad batches I've made in the past.

FatMike · February 2010

Here is a great dough I use with HG flour and comes out great every time. Recipe from Tom Lehmann "the dough doctor"
www.pmq.com/tt2/recipe/view/id_150/title_Traditional-American-Style-Thin-Crust-Pizza/

There are other great dough recipes on this site

Pizza dough seems tough

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