Love those pizzas on the grill...!

[2mbb]

I have a recipe that I use that is 4 1/2 (+/-) cups all purpose flour, 1 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp instant yeast, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 3/4 cups ice water. I use these ingredients but follow the Jeff V. autolyse and wet knead techniques. In my kitchen-aid mixer I mix 3 cups flour and all the other ingredients then let it rest (autolyse) for 20+ minutes. I then use the dough hook and knead for 5 min, then start adding the remaining flour until there is a wet dough. Let the dough rest another 15+ min, then cut into portions (I make six "individual" pizzas) and refrigerate. I put each portion into an oiled ziplok sandwich bag. A couple of hours before pizza time, take the dough out of the refrigerator, form into a flat disc, and let it rise for 2 hours or so. then form into a 10" pizza. This makes a nice thin crust pizza. I cook them on stones and aluminium pizza plates at about 600F on my gas weber.

I find the aluminum plates are a little easier, especially when kids are making the pizza. You don't have to worry about the dough sticking to the peel when you go to put it in the oven. I only have one peel, but four plates, so we can be making and cooking at the same time. I do dust the aluminum plate with semolina flour to keep it from sticking.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Anyone know what's going on during the autolyse? And why you don't add the salt until the autolyse is done?

 

[spressomon]

2mbb ^ I'd eat that...nice looking pie!

 

[spressomon]

Anyone know what's going on during the autolyse? And why you don't add the salt until the autolyse is done?

Mucho debate on pre or post salt add to autolyse. You've probably read a ton about this...here's one explain FWIW:

Gluten strands can start developing on their own with just time. Autolyse is a technique that is simply allowing the water to hydrate the flour with no other additives. When water and flour by themselves are mixed just enough to come together two things happen. Protease enzymes break down the proteins in the flour so they can reform as gluten and amylase enzymes convert the broken starch into sugars. If you added salt to your mixture the salt would greatly reduce the abilities of the protease enzyme. This process only takes between 20 minutes and an hour. After the flour and water dough has sit incorporate the rest of your ingredients in to the dough ball via kneading.

 

[e9999]

the deed is done, the *Thing* is in the fridge. Looks like the making of the mother of all culinary disasters. Or a great B movie on alien invasion... What it doesn't look like is dough like in the movies... Yikes!
We'll see in a few days...

this was rough... Kinda like working on your 40 and when you're done it looks like a Heep....

 

[e9999]

used SAF Gourmet Perfect Rise Yeast - fast rising active dry yeast. This after careful consideration and much research and coming to terms with the fact that it was the only one I found in the cabinet.
I splurged, I used the Bb2015 one cuz I didn't want to give myself the bad yeast excuse...


I started measuring things to the mg. After a few minutes, when things started to unravel, I was throwing flour across the kitchen into the KA and guesstimating things to the closest fistful.... not happy....

I don't think I'm gonna be able to wait several days to try it out though...

 

[e9999]

OK, so I gotta ask the trivial (for a change ), you get the dough out, stretch it out in the general shape of a pizza, top if off with the goodies and then what? You figure out a way to slide the whole shebang onto a red hot pizza stone without getting burned? How? Should I get the flat shovel out of the shed? Or make my very own wooden gigantic spatula?

 

[spressomon]

#1. The dough will be sticky...super sticky. So before you dump the dough from the bowl/container dust the top side of the dough while in the bowl with bench flour. Then, using a silicone spatula, work around the circumference of the dough seperting the dough from the bowl as you dump the dough onto a well floured (like 1/4" thick) work surface.

Now push the dough out to a circle...if you're using 300-350g dough balls you'll get about 10"+/- pie. I suggest transferring the pie dough to a pizza mesh screen if you're not experienced with wet dough and peel action. Then put your sauce and toppings atop the pie dough that is sitting on the screen. I recommend getting a slab of smooth marble for your "bench"...makes stretching the dough easier with minimal bench flour.

Whether you use a screen or do the peel shuffle be sure not to have any holes in your dough...or it will be a mess and not a good outcome.

Then after the pie bakes for 50% of the time use the peel to transfer from the screen to the stone if you have to boost yourself. Otherwise the screen works perfectly fine for the full bake especially with home oven temps. Then when you remove the pizza from the oven do not immediately set it on a cutting board...but let it sit on a mesh cake pan insert/cooling rack...this will keep the bottom side of the crust from getting mushy from steam effect. Then after 5-10 minute rest move the pie to a cutting board and cut & serve.

And...assuming you are making Neapolitan dough and not New York style you only want the thinnest hint of oil on the walls of your dough bowl/vessel...literally put one drop of oil in the container then wipe the bowl with a paper towel...oil on the surface of your dough will only make working with the dough and final texture, related to Neapolitan, worse.

You WILL have some disasters...and just when you've built confidence to show off for dinner guests you'll get thrown a curve ball or three. But you will get more comfortable with the total process...just takes practice!

And you'll never squak again about paying $5 for a real slice of Neapolitan pie...if you're lucky to find such a place!

 

[Cruiserdrew]

I started measuring things to the mg. After a few minutes, when things started to unravel, I was throwing flour across the kitchen into the KA and guesstimating things to the closest fistful.... not happy....

See...you learned something already! This is entirely normal/expected. You measure to get close, but you fine tune to the consistency you want as you go.

I have a pizza peel, but the back of a cookie sheet that you've pre-treated with corn meal or semolina works well too. You could also flatten it out on Parchment paper and toss the whole thing in.

What flour did you use?

I'll bet that dough ball will be like the godzilla that ate the fridge by morning.

 

[e9999]

See...you learned something already! This is entirely normal/expected. You measure to get close, but you fine tune to the consistency you want as you go.

I have a pizza peel, but the back of a cookie sheet that you've pre-treated with corn meal or semolina works well too. You could also flatten it out on Parchment paper and toss the whole thing in.

What flour did you use?

I'll bet that dough ball will be like the godzilla that ate the fridge by morning.

I may have made a mistake about the flour while getting this done in the middle of dinner. I used generic all purpose flour whereas I subsequently found out we also had some unbleached bread flour by KA, which sounds better somehow.

So if you throw a pizza on parchment paper on a hot stone, will the crust still be nicely browned and will the paper not end up incorporated in the pizza?

It was not a dough ball... it was more like the Blob with the flu...

 

[spressomon]

Then when you've mastered pizza dough we'll move into the espresso arena

 

[e9999]

Then when you've mastered pizza dough we'll move into the espresso arena

nah, espresso I know a bit about.

But I'm sure you will be able to teach us a lot about Garlic before too long now that you live up there, no? Or even better: Artichokes with Garlic...

 

[spressomon]

The garlic is all the same hybrid stuff. My sis sent down some bulbs she's been growing from some 50+ year old stock from our G-Parents garden...strange no heirloom type garlic here in the land o'garlic...

But am enjoying super duper flavorful produce!

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Mucho debate on pre or post salt add to autolyse. You've probably read a ton about this...here's one explain FWIW:

Gluten strands can start developing on their own with just time. Autolyse is a technique that is simply allowing the water to hydrate the flour with no other additives. When water and flour by themselves are mixed just enough to come together two things happen. Protease enzymes break down the proteins in the flour so they can reform as gluten and amylase enzymes convert the broken starch into sugars. If you added salt to your mixture the salt would greatly reduce the abilities of the protease enzyme. This process only takes between 20 minutes and an hour. After the flour and water dough has sit incorporate the rest of your ingredients in to the dough ball via kneading.

I appreciate your thoughts. I ask, because I am familiar with the enzymes contained in grains, and the reason that wheat is NOT used as a primary ingredient of beer, is that it is relatively poor in enzyme content. Barley, on the other hand, is rich in amylases and proteases-and in fact has enough of those to bring the other grains along in the process. That's why Miller can be Barley + Corn and Bud can be barley plus rice.

The interesting thing is, those enzymes take heat to activate, and none of the autolyse instructions involve heat. I'm wondering if it's anything real, though I assume it is.

I have sort of settled on making half my final dough the slow fermented sour dough culture. It seems to work extremely well like this with enough power to rise the dough and all the flavor tones of the slow ferment. I'm still playing with it though. The last 2 bakes have been breads. I started out to make a boule, but my dough was a little too wet and the rise was a bit flatter than I would have liked, but the flavor was killer. It was round like a boule, but semi-flat like a Ciabatta. I gotta get one of those basket things.

If you get a chance though, make a big batch of your pizza dough at about 62%, Let it slow rise for a day or two in the firdge, then rise for real as a round loaf. Toss it in a pre-heated dutch oven and bake at 450, the last half with the top off. This makes absolutely great rockin' bread that is nothing like pizza dough, but from exactly the same source.

 

[e9999]

oooh yeaaa!

For all you DIYers out there:

the $4 homemade pizza oven!

(not my idea)

and yet again, the Weber gas grill will conquer all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1O1x4bdpC0

(0:44 is all you need to get your creative DIY juices flowing )

now to scour CL for firebricks...

 

[2mbb]

the first couple of times I made pizza dough (or pie crust and pasta for that matter) it was a mess. In the end it turned out OK (well, the first pasta batch ended up in the garbage..but that's another story) It takes some experience to know how wet the dough should be. I think the dough can be a lot more wet than you think it should be. Dust it with flour and dust your hands with flour and it should be OK.

Kneading the bread is also important and that's where the wet knead really helps. At least with my kitchenaid and bread dough, if you add all the flour to the water, you get a ball that just hangs on the hook and doesn't really get excersized much.

The other thing I found out is to not let the dough rise too much on the second rise. Two hours from fridge to oven is about right. Four hours is a little too long. We had a long pizza making session one night and the last dough to be cooked was getting a little difficult to work with.

Your first pizza will taste great, but your next ones will be even better!

 

[spressomon]

e9999, the firebrick trick can't hurt. What I've learned, though, with any bottom heat source its easy and quick to over-char the bottom side of the crust when the pie is put directly atop the stone, CI, whatever.

This is where I found much more success using the pizza screen "pans" when baking on any bottom heat only source oven; kamado included. It provides just enough air flow/separation to allow the bottom of the crust to bake slower to better match the rate at which the top bakes; makes assembly easier too. Then I'll, using the peel, near the end of the pizza pie bake, place the pie directly on the stone to finish it off...but this element only takes 30-seconds or so.

For those with GE or similar being able to elevate the cooking grid to get it more into the dome will help big time too.

 

[2mbb]

when I was looking for more stones to allow me to get more pizza's on my weber, I ran across this site with these "pizza posts". It's a similar idea to the homemade pizza oven. You would cook pizzas on both levels, but I suppose the pizza's on the lower level would get some radiant heat from the stone above.

http://www.californiapizzastones.com/pizza/stones/pizza-posts.php

 

[e9999]

e9999, the firebrick trick can't hurt. What I've learned, though, with any bottom heat source its easy and quick to over-char the bottom side of the crust when the pie is put directly atop the stone, CI, whatever.

This is where I found much more success using the pizza screen "pans" when baking on any bottom heat only source oven; kamado included. It provides just enough air flow/separation to allow the bottom of the crust to bake slower to better match the rate at which the top bakes; makes assembly easier too. Then I'll, using the peel, near the end of the pizza pie bake, place the pie directly on the stone to finish it off...but this element only takes 30-seconds or so.

For those with GE or similar being able to elevate the cooking grid to get it more into the dome will help big time too.

I don't have one of those although I have a perforated veggie basket that would work in a pinch and I may try that. But anyway with store bought pizze I have not had any problems using a solid metal griddle. The bottom crust was nicely toasted and the top nicely melted. Just great. I imagine with control over both temp and time one should be able to do it.

I don't have a peel and that I may need to do something about. DIY of course...

 

[e9999]

when I was looking for more stones to allow me to get more pizza's on my weber, I ran across this site with these "pizza posts". It's a similar idea to the homemade pizza oven. You would cook pizzas on both levels, but I suppose the pizza's on the lower level would get some radiant heat from the stone above.

http://www.californiapizzastones.com/pizza/stones/pizza-posts.php

look nice but not much improved over a brick really.
It's not that obvious to me though that the "oven" approach is necessarily much better on a grill. You would have some more radiation but less convection. More thermal mass though so you could peek in more often without adverse effects.
I will still try it for the heck of it though.