Confused Pizza Discuss Confused in the Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart forums; How long did you let it rise? BTW... I'm near Chicago. Where did you find 00 flour?...

[PizzaPolice]

How long did you let it rise?
BTW... I'm near Chicago. Where did you find 00 flour?

[Timmy Pizza Man]

I let it rise for about 2.5 hours. It turned out like *$*%. I'm doing one right now. I'm letting it rise. I switched to a teaspoon of yeast, 1 tspn of olive oil, 4 teaspoons sugar, 3/4 cup warm water (I bought imported water instead of the hard tap water I have, also a new idea). Now I'm heating the coals and crossing my fingers. I'm gonna try to cook the dough for 2 minutes each side, then top it then put it back on. this way it will be evenly crispy ( i hope). Go down to Bari at 1120 W Grande. They have 3 types of 00 flour to choose from for 3.79. Do you have a brick oven? I live in Wrigleyville in an apt and i use a Weber charcoal grill. I put three bricks on the grill then I put 4 quarry tiles on the bricks. I dust it with cornmeal, it gets hot.

[texassourdough]

You are still a bit light on yeast - if you want to make dough fast. Normal would be about 1.25 t. instant yeast for 500 grams of flour/4 cups.

If this doesn't show life and rise you need to check your yeast - what kind are you using, what is the expiration date, did you just mix it in or did you proof it first to make sure it was alive?

[dmun]

Unless your yeast was dead and ancient, you should have had some rise. Tell us what kind of yeast you're using, and your procedure for putting together your dough. We'll try to help.

[Timmy Pizza Man]

I bought some fancy mineral water instead of tap water for the dough. any thoughts?

[dmun]

Doesn't Chicago have GREAT tap water, right out of lake Michigan? Bottled water is only indicated if your tap water is nasty.

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Chicago's water is not that good at all. I got swimmer's ear from swimming in Lake Michigan. They shut down the beach every other day because of bacteria. The reason I ask is because its like I follow the recipe with super good flour but no matter what the crust ends up tasting the same and its NOT like the crust from a restaurant which I want. It all has this taste to it I can't really describe it, so I just thought that changing the water would help. Since I was was using 2 tablespoons of yeast for 4 cups of flour, is there a chance my pizza had a "yeasty" taste? THanks.

[texassourdough]

Timmy!

First, there has to be something fundamentally wrong that you are doing - or not doing. Commercial yeast and flour and water do not NOT rise unless something is very wrong. Given you haven't had much rise it is hardly surprising you don't get much/any good flavor though there are enzymes in flour that do work even if the yeast is dead that do contribute flavor.

One observation is that you seem to always want to make dough in a couple of hours. The longer you take within reason, the better the dough will be. I spend roughly 24 hours making my dough from the time I start to baking. And it is superb (just like my 24 hour focaccia). You can't make great dough in 2 hours or 4 hours. Good dough begins at maybe 8 hours and gets better up to at least a day. To do that it will need to be retarded (chilled in the refrigerator) until about 2 hours before you want to bake. If you are using Tipo 00 or bread flour I would suggest making the balls about 1/2 hour after mixing and immediately put them in the fridge. If you use AP you can make the balls at the 2 hour mark when you take the bowl out of the fridge.

Now back to your rising problems. Proof the yeast for your 4 cup recipe in about 1/4 cup of tap water. That would be about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast and about 1 teaspoon of sugar. The water should be no warmer than 100 degrees or so. Plain ordinary room temperature is fine. IF the yeast is not bubbling in 10 minutes it is dead and all of the yeast in that batch should be discarded. And there is NO POINT in trying to make pizza with it. If it is bubbling then you should be able to make a dough that rises but if you persist on 2 hour-4 hour dough it will NEVER be GREAT!

Good Luck!

[Timmy Pizza Man]

Tex, thank you very much. I can't wait to get home and make dough (for the following day of course!). You know I have worked at 8 pizza places and we always let the dough rise for a day or two but I never really thought about it. I thought it was just something we did because of the large amounts of pizza we were preparing for (to sell). NOOOW I know, and I hope that with the combination of less yeast (healthy, living, young, vibrant yeast!), and everything else I make a great pizza.

Let me ask you this, do I place the dough in ziplock bags? Do I leave them partially open when putting them in the fridge? Do I drizzle olive oil on them? Thanks Tex.

[dmun]

Bags can be a mess. I use round plastic food storage containers. They can blow the tops but i poke a little hole in the top of each lid. You can oil the container, or the ball, but with a silicone spatula you really don't need to, you can scoop the dough right onto your floured work surface with minimal handling.

Other people do other things. Wooden proofing boxes are tradtional. The main thing is that once you've portioned your dough and popped it in the fridge, you want to handle it as little as possible.