Pizza Secrets....

Kaptainsteve's Best Dough Recipe.*
The BEST dough recipe for one 16' pizza.
You can scale it up for more pizzas.
(There is absolutely no better or simpler dough recipe).

Above: Eggplant Parmigiana Pie.


Recipe is for ONE 16" pizza:
Ingredients;
1 heaping teaspoon instant dry yeast.
1 heaping teaspoon salt.
3/4  cup cold water for thin 16" pie.
Bread Flour (apprx. 2 or 3 cups).



Simple Double Rise Refrigerated Method 1:
1. Pour COLD water in bowl. Add salt, stir.  Add yeast, stir. (Yes, yeast, don't worry).
2. Gradually add flour (mixing with dough hook in mixer) until it cleans the sides of the bowl, apprx. 5-10 minutes.
3. Allow to bulk ferment in room temperature overnight. 9-12 hours (until 50% increase in size less than double in size or full fermentation).
4. Fold dough into itself a few times, ball and refrigerate (the most 24 hours), take out 4-6 hours before use.
Suggested schedules:
Night schedule: Mix dough late at night (6-9pm), let rise  overnight (9 hours) and early in the morning fold dough into itself a few times, ball & refrigerate until 4-6 hours before needed same or next day.
Day schedule: Mix dough early morning, let rise 6 hours, fold dough into itself a few times, ball and refrigerate until 4-6 hours before needed next day.



Above: Half eggplant, half brocoli rabe pie.


Comments:


The secret to great pizza is the dough.  Dough is the MOST IMPORTANT PART of pizza, period.  Anything put on top of a great dough will taste good.
Most dough recipes stink.  They add oil or sugar and are no good because this is a substitute for the proper fermentation length.  Without the proper fermentation period the dough will lose color and flavor and people add sugar and oil to compensate for this.  It may help the color, but not the flavor.  Proper fermentation times make sure that the flavor and texture are fully developed.


If the secret to pizza is dough, the secret to good dough is the rising times.  You can't let the dough over-proof or it will have no color and bad texture. Under proofing is no good either.   Stick to the schedule above and the dough will most certainly be fine with the one exception being if the ambient temperature during the first rising is too hot.  That's why you should use cold water.  If the ambient temperature is hot, then shorten the time of the first rise to 3 or 4 hours.  Try not to play with the amount of yeast too much as that will start to really complicate things. First rise should be 6-8 hours, and the last should be 2-4 hours.

Longer fermentation time will give your dough added texture, color and a special flavor all on it's own.  There is no real extended kneading and complications to this recipe.  The kneading is done by the mixer  (5-10 minutes only) and when you ball the dough by folding it into itself a few times.  That's all that is needed.  There is no need to complicate things! Higher quality flour (high protein bread flour) doesn't need excessive kneading and baby sitting.  The folding it into itself develops the gluten and helps create tension to keep the dough and shape a bit tighter.
 
Do NOT use all purpose or you will be disappointed.


Always bake at highest oven temperature, the more leoparding or char spots, the more flavor depth.

*Please, Do not copy and paste this recipe without giving acknowledgement.


Dough....

The temperature of four elements – the flour, the water, the room and the heat generated from the mixer – must be taken into account to result in dough that is between 23 degrees and 24 degrees Celsius.  [/size][size=17]The dough is then left to rest for around 24 hours in a large wooden box with a lid, where it rises.
In the morning around 9am, the pizzaiolo portions out the dough and lets it rest again until lunchtime, when it is shaped and baked to order.

Alessandro Bortesi, Kytaly/Source Here.

The dough is quite wet, at 68.5 per cent hydration, and is no more than 24 degrees Celsius. Ferrini lets it rest for seven hours at room temperature and then overnight in the refrigerator at 10 degrees for a total of 36 hours.

Pizzaiolo Maurizio Ferrini at Casa Don Alfonso in the Grand Lisboa hotel /Source Here.

To make the dough, the flour is mixed with natural sea salt, dry yeast from Italy and water. Like at Kytaly, the dough also has a hydration of about 70 per cent. At first the dough is left to ferment for eight hours at room temperature. Once it reaches a certain size, it is placed in the refrigerator for 24 hours, where it continues to rise, although at a slower rate.

Black Sheep Restaurants co-founder Christopher Mark/Source Here.

The dough is made the night before.  With fresh yeast.

The next morning....

Depending on the ambient temperature, it is balled and rested for 1-3 hours, then refrigerated .

Until needed (up to 2 days), and allowed to come up to temperature before use (1 or2 hours)....
Francis Roselli, Frank Pepe's New Haven



Joe Arena on NY style dough, slightly different/simpler straight to fridge method.


Neapolitan Pizza Recipe

25Kilos/55lbs flour
15L/4 Gallons Cold Water
750g/27oz Salt
15g/1/2oz Fresh Yeast
Combine water, yeast and salt.
Gradually add flour.
Rest 1 hour.
Then:
Bulk ferment 12 hours room temperature, ball, 12 hours room temperature, use or refrigerate.
or
Ball, 8-10 hours bulk ferment, use or refrigerate.