Pizza Tips

Flour like Ceresota Unbleached All Purpose Flour can be used to make just about any type of pizza and it is sufficiently strong to allow for three or more days of refrigerated storage.

Simply, there is no one best flour for making pizza.  Different types of pizza may require different types of flour.  For example, a New York Style pizza is best made using a very high protein flour like Ceresota Premium High-Gluten flour to achieve the characteristic chewy crust.  However, most deep-dish type pizzas are best made using a comparatively lower protein flour to avoid the development of excessive toughness in the finished crust.  If a pizzeria is making both thin crust and deep-dish pizzas this does not mean that they will need to inventory two different types of flour. Instead, a strong bread type flour with a protein content in the 12% range like Ceresota Unbleached All Purpose Flour is probably the closest thing to an all-purpose pizza flour.  

While there are many methods for mixing pizza dough, the most efficient method that produces the most consistent dough involves adding the water to the mixing bowl first followed by the salt and sugar (if used), then the flour followed by the yeast. 

The dough is then mixed at low speed until it just begins to come together, and no dry flour is in the bottom of the bowl.  Then the oil is added, and mixing is continued at low speed for an additional minute.  At this point, the dough can be mixed on medium speed or continue mixing at low speed until a smooth appearing dough results.  Mixing beyond this point is not necessary nor desirable.

Despite what you might have heard about New York City water making the best New York City style pizza, this has been proven to be untrue. However, there can be differences in water chemistry that can impact both the dough and the finished crust quality characteristics. For example, in regards to hard and soft water, the hard water being higher in calcium content can exert a slight strengthening effect upon the dough while the soft water will contribute a softer, more extensible dough. Either one can be used to make great pizza dough, but if you have more than a single store, it would be best to determine if each location has similar water. For soft water, the solution is easy. The simple addition of 0.5% calcium sulfate to the dough as an added ingredient will negate any impact the soft water might have on your dough.

Another aspect of water that can impact your dough is pH/acidity. In many cases, municipalities attempt to return clean treated water back to a pH close to 7.0. However, the water can still have an elevated pH closer to 8.0 or higher than 7.0. This slightly alkaline water can impact the yeast by slowing it down resulting in slower or less fermentation within a given time than anticipated. To adjust for a slower or lower fermentation activity, any of the two following methods will be sufficient:

1. The yeast can be increased to restore normal fermentation.
2. An acid type yeast food (readily available from any baking ingredient supplier) can be added to the dough at 0.5% to buffer the alkalinity of the water and restore normal yeast fermentation.

The process of cross-stacking the dough boxes in the cooler is the act of placing each box perpendicular to the box above and below it which creates two open ends on each box allowing warm air to escape.  This method provides a faster and more consistent cooling of the dough and eliminates the problem of dough balls sweating in the dough boxes during the refrigerated holding period.  As a part of the cross stacking process, we typically oil the top of each dough ball which prevents it from drying during the cross-stacked period.

Dough snap-back, also known as dough memory, can result from any number of things but most common are the use of flour that is too strong (try using a lower protein content flour) or a lack of dough fermentation. Fermentation weakens the gluten causing it to become more extensible with less of the elastic properties resulting in excessive dough memory or snap-back.

The solution is simply to allow the dough to ferment for a longer period before opening the dough into pizza skins. Other ways to address this problem include increasing the finished/mixed dough temperature (increase the water temp. at mixing) which will help to speed up the rate of fermentation, so the dough will receive more actual fermentation within any given period. Slightly increasing the yeast level is also an effective measure as is just allowing the dough to temper at room temperature for a longer time after removing it from the cooler before opening it into pizza skins.

The problem might lie in your attempts to make the skin super thin.  What frequently happens is that the very thin dough allows heat to pass right through it where it dissipates into steam by the moisture released from the sauce and toppings.  Instead, try making your dough progressively thicker (increasing the scaling weight of your dough balls) until you see that the finished crust is coming out of the oven more crispy.

Another problem with a very thin dough skin is that the very thin resulting crust will readily absorb moisture from the top of the pizza causing it to go from crispy when it comes out of the oven to soft and soggy by the time it is delivered to your customer’s table.

There are a few things that you can do to enhance the pizza further during its trip to the consumer’s home. The first thing is the pizza box, a heavyweight corrugated cardboard box helps to insulate the pizza, keeping it warm and preventing moisture from the pizza from condensing on the inside of the box. The boxes should be made with steam vents, and the box should remain open when first placing the pizza into the box allowing the pizza to steam off for a few seconds after baking.

To help retain some resemblance of crispiness to the bottom of the pizza be sure to use one of the several different box liners. Some liners are made from a heavyweight embossed paper material, cardboard or plastic mesh material. All of these are placed under the pizza in the box and function by holding the pizza up from the bottom of the box, or pizza circle, allowing steam to escape from under the pizza making for a drier, less soggy pizza bottom.

The sucrose you are adding into the dough is inverted into simple sugars by an enzyme contained in the yeast (invertase).  This enzyme allows the sucrose to provide crust color during baking, but as you have discovered, sucrose is also a very sweet sugar, so it provides a level of sweetness to the finished crust if there is any residual not metabolized by the yeast.  The solution is to use a reducing sugar which will contribute to crust color but which has a very low sweetness value and is not metabolized by the yeast.

Fortunately, there is a sugar called lactose (AKA milk sugar).  The cheapest source for lactose is sweet dairy whey which is approximately 73% lactose.  You can begin adding whey at 5% of the flour weight and adjust from there to achieve the desired crust color.  One unique characteristic of whey is that it will require little if any adjustment to the dough absorption when used, and because lactose is the least sweet of all sugars, it will have no impact upon the sweetness of the finished crust.  Coincidentally, whey is a by-product of mozzarella cheese manufacturing.

This is a very common problem when using a “J” hook as opposed to a reverse spiral dough arm.  The problem is at its worst when mixing a dough that does not completely fill the bowl which is a very common practice at most pizzerias.  The only real solution is to invest in an inverse spiral dough arm.  Remember that all of the mixing attachments are specific to the make and model of the mixer as well as the bowl capacity.  With a reverse spiral dough arm, you can easily mix a dough as small as 25% of rated bowl capacity.