Heckers and Ceresota flours are great for making the perfect pizza dough. To help you get the best pizza dough, these tips apply to all pizza doughs, regardless of the type of mixer used.

Assembling pizza dough

For most doughs, a good water temperature to start with will be 60°F.
Add the water to the mixing bowl first, then add the flour and all ingredients except for the oil on top of the flour.
Mix for 2-minutes at low speed and add the oil (if called for).
Continue mixing in at medium speed just until the dough takes on a smooth appearance.
Put mixer in low speed and pour a SMALL AMOUNT of oil down the inside of the bowl, allow mixer to run for about 10-seconds after adding the oil, this will make removing the dough from the mixing bowl much easier.
Check the finished (mixed) dough temperature immediately after mixing, in most cases a desired temperature will be in the 75°- 80°F range
The finished dough temperature is adjusted by increasing or decreasing the temperature of the water used to make the dough.

Managing pizza dough

1) Scale and ball the dough immediately after mixing. This must be completed within 20-minutes of completion of the mixing cycle.
2) Place the dough balls into plastic dough boxes and wipe the top of each dough ball lightly with oil.
3) Take the dough boxes to the cooler and cross-stack for approximately 2 hours, then down-stack and cover/lid the dough boxes.
4) Allow the dough balls to cold ferment for a minimum of 18-hours, 24 to 48-hours is typical for many pizzerias. The dough is usually targeted for use after 24 to 48-hours with any remaining dough being used on the third day. By adjusting the finished dough temperature to the 65°- 70°F range the dough can be held for up to 5-days in the cooler.

After the cooling period

To use the dough balls after the desired cold fermentation period remove a 2- to 3-hour supply from the cooler, leaving the boxes covered, allow the dough to temper at room temperature until the dough balls reach an internal temperature of 50°F (about 2 hours) before beginning to open the dough balls into pizza skins.
Once the dough balls are ready to use (50°F) they will keep at room temperature for 2- to 3-hours depending upon room temperature. Remember to keep them covered!
Any unused dough balls can be opened into skins, placed onto lightly oiled pizza screens and placed in a wire tree rack in the cooler (leave uncovered for 30-minutes, then cover to prevent drying) for use later in the day or during busy periods. To use these skins, remove from the cooler, allow to temper at room temperature for 30-minutes, then use as any other skin.
Note: Place the skins so the screen marks in the dough are facing down when using.

How to use scrap dough

Scrap dough can be added to new dough at the rate of 15% of the new dough weight. A dough based on 50-pounds of flour will weigh about 82-pounds so 12.3-pounds of scrap dough could be added to this dough.
To add the scrap dough, cut into pieces and add at the beginning of the mixing cycle, mix the dough by your normal manner.
Excess scrap dough can be converted to bread sticks or garlic knots for use as appetizers.
NOTE: If the dough is over fermented for whatever reason and the dough balls are showing signs of collapse, re-round the dough balls, and place back into the dough boxes and store at room temperature for use within a couple of hours or place back into the cooler for use after 3 or more hours. In this case allow the dough balls to temperature to 60°F before opening them into skins. They may not make the best pizza but they will be saleable and it beats the other option of not having dough ready when you need it.

More tips

Pressed dough may present problems with shrinkage/snap-back after forming, this can easily be addressed through the use of a dough reducing agent such as “dead yeast” or PZ-44 (L-cysteine – whey blend).
Pizza doughs should only be mixed until they have a smooth appearance, if in doubt error on under mixing.
If the dough is tacky during scaling and balling (aka “rolling”) correct this by giving the dough more mixing time.
Frozen dough should always be mixed to full gluten development.
Emergency doughs should always be mixed to a smooth consistency plus 3-minutes.

Need Emergency Pizza Dough? Read our tips

Download our pizza dough recipe