Tony Gemignani - Pizza Making Fundamentals

[heliman]

I found this 5 part video by Tony Gemignani quite interesting:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

[Lburou]

Thanks for the links

I enjoyed watching them and learning as he went along.

[scottz]

Cheers Rossco, some points to take when I try my first 3 day cold ferm. Good to watch too!

[Karangi Dude]

Hi Rossco,

I tried the Tony Gemignani method using Allied Mills Pizza Flour I convirted the percentages from the Video to metric it came down to;
1000 gms Flour
617 gms Water
12 gms Salt
3 gms Yeast (I use ADY)
I mixed the dough in our Kenwood mixer for 10 mins on low so as not to create to much heat, I then turned out the dough onto the work bench kneeded for a minute or two then balled it up into 270gm balls put them in separate containers (I use those cheap take away ones) and put them in the fridge.
I made the dough 7am Tursday morning put them in the fridge until Saturday afternoon and then let them warm up for a couple of hours before use.
Total fermentation time about 58hrs cold 2 hrs warming up.
Rossco, I was pleasantly surprised this dough worked really well for a dough that only has 61.7 % hydration. After the balls wramed up the dough was silky and smooth very easy to form into shape and cooked beautifully almost got the leoparding that you so often talk about, My temps were about 420c and I had flames up the side of the oven.
Taste was as good as I have made using the biga method, my Wife and Daughter certainly gave it the nod of approval.

Here are some pics the first was plain garlic (garlic and olive oil) the second classic margherita

[heliman]

Looks really great Doug... I think I'll give the recipe a go sometime too. Interesting to see the results with such a low hydration - definitely seems to produce a different texture when compared to my usual 66% mix.

[Karangi Dude]

Rossco,
The thing I like about this method (apart from the good taste) is the ease in preperation mix it, ball it and forget and cleaning up just the mixing bowl.
I will be using this method when I have our next party.
The mix netted 6 x 270grm balls so you could make multiple batches when you are having a lot of people over, just one thing less to worry about on the day.
Rossco, when you ball it up it does seem a little dry but after you take it out of the fridge and warm it up it is a lot more moist and great to handle.
I was a little apprehensive at the low hydration as I normally run at 67% myself.

[heliman]

Sounds good ...

One observation - there seems very little charring under the base .. could that be due to the low hydration?? At anything over 400 C I get lots of charing with my 66% brew...

[Karangi Dude]

It could be,
I normaly start at about 400c when I use 67% and the first pizza is cooked well clear of the fire.
I was watching a few videos of pizza places and they all seem to cook with a bigger fire on the side than I normally do, so I put this to the test and it worked great, I also held back on the rice flour on the peel and they came off just right.

[scott123]

Doug and Rossco, it's the protein in flour that traps water. The less protein in your flour, the less water you should be using. Even though Caputo pizzeria flour has a protein level in the vicinity of your Allied flours (11%ish), it's milled under extremely careful conditions to produce less heat/less protein damage, so it acts like a much higher protein flour. Even though Tony Gemignani is not that knowledgeable about Neapolitan pizza (78 hour fermentation?!), he's right on the money when he talks about the 00 acting like a much higher protein flour in the way that it absorbs all the water and isn't tacky.

If the Neapolitans are working with a flour that acts like it contains 12-13% protein and using a range of hydration from 56-62%, then, with your 11% flours, you should be using less water than they are. Either that, or you might want to think about giving the 12.5% protein Perfection Bakers Flour a try. That should give you much more Caputo-ish results, imo. Even with 12.5%, to achieve the leoparding that you're looking for, you never want to exceed 62% for Neapolitan pizza. And you want to be working with a hearth temp of at least 455 C. and a dome temp of 550, assuming you're working with a traditional firebrick hearth.