Rich's "Nearly-politan" Pizza Dough


 
Ooni has an app for pizza dough.

installed it and plugged in the ratios for Rich's and you can adjust the size of the finished dough ball and the number of balls and it does the math for you.

Also has some recipes.

I'll add a couple screen shots.
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When it comes to bread or pizza dough, one thing that I have found that makes a difference is a proofing box, temp controlled if necessary. I made a simple heat-only box out of a discarded Omaha Steak styrofoam container and a low-wattage incandescent light bulb. I used a temp controller but an ordinary lamp dimmer and thermometer will work, too.
 
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This seems like the right place for this one?

Anyway, I've posted my pizza dough formula a bunch of times in various places, but never here in the recipes forums. So, here's my version of pizza dough......

Formula for 1x280g dough ball. This should give you an 11-12" pizza depending on how thin you get the dough when you open it. The 00 flour REALLY makes this dough super silky and easy to work with, so it's worth the effort to find it if you can.......

171g Flour (50/50 All Purpose, and 00 flours)
104g Water
4.8g Salt
3g Olive Oil
.25g ADY

Mix until all ingredients are incorporated into a rough dough, then let rest covered in mixing bowl for 20 minutes. Knead for 5-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic, let rest in bowl @ room temp for 2 hours. Divide into 280g portions, form tight balls, place into oiled containers, cover and place into fridge. Keep it in the fridge for at least 12 hours, 24 is better, and you can keep it up to 48-72 hours. Remove from fridge 2-3 hours prior to intended cook time.

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Rich, is your salt Morton’s or Diamond kosher salt, or a different brand/type of salt?
 
So I pepped this dough on Wednesday night and cooked the pies on Thursday. I posted the cook here. I wanted to come back and share my experience with the dough.

First off I was really worried I was going to mess it up and the simplicity of Rich's (amazing) instructions didn't help, it just increased the anxiety. Do I mix the yeast with the the water or the flour? Ok I put the yeast with the flour and salt, do I add the oil or the water next? However, I just tried to not over think it and got all the ingredients mixed at the right amount. I got it into a sticky dough and covered it. After 20 mins come back and using my phone stop watch started to kneed the dough. Thinking, this is completely wrong, then right around the seven minute mark the dough changed and I thought this might be right. Let it rest for two hours covered. I brought them up in 280 gram balls and had four grams of leftover dough.
18 hours later I had my daughter take them out of the fridge when I left work and 20 hours after making it I turned them into amazing pies.
This dough makes as good of crust as my family's favorite two neopolitan pizza joints.

This recipe was so easy, keep it simple, just do what Rich says, don't make it bigger then it is, and bam I had amazing pizza.
 
So I pepped this dough on Wednesday night and cooked the pies on Thursday. I posted the cook here. I wanted to come back and share my experience with the dough.

First off I was really worried I was going to mess it up and the simplicity of Rich's (amazing) instructions didn't help, it just increased the anxiety. Do I mix the yeast with the the water or the flour? Ok I put the yeast with the flour and salt, do I add the oil or the water next? However, I just tried to not over think it and got all the ingredients mixed at the right amount. I got it into a sticky dough and covered it. After 20 mins come back and using my phone stop watch started to kneed the dough. Thinking, this is completely wrong, then right around the seven minute mark the dough changed and I thought this might be right. Let it rest for two hours covered. I brought them up in 280 gram balls and had four grams of leftover dough.
18 hours later I had my daughter take them out of the fridge when I left work and 20 hours after making it I turned them into amazing pies.
This dough makes as good of crust as my family's favorite two neopolitan pizza joints.

This recipe was so easy, keep it simple, just do what Rich says, don't make it bigger then it is, and bam I had amazing pizza.
Isn't it neat when the dough changes from a gloppy, sticky mess to a cohesive dough?? I love that change every time I make bread or pizza (and that's at least once a week!) I could add some clarity to the directions, but you got it right......just get everything in there and mix!!! I don't bloom or proof the yeast, I just add flour, yeast, salt and mix together. Then add water and oil and mix until it comes together as a shaggy mass. Rest, then come back and knead until smooth. 👍🏼
 
Dough ain't that difficult. I worked in a pizza place in high school during the summer, and my job was making the dough. I had to make the the dough for the next several days at a time. When making dough I was in a air conditioned room all by myself with the radio playing. That was a sweet gig for high school kid..... No washing dishes, no busing tables, no cleaning up the rest of the restaurant. When I wasnt making the dough I was cooking pizzas in the giant pizza oven. This oven was about 6-ft or more diameter and had giant rotating granite slabs, two or 3 levels. You could be cooking a lot of pizzas at once. When it broke once..... Same day we had a service guy flying in from Germany.

Dump sacks of flour in the big hobart mixer, and the blocks of Budweiser yeast, some water ,some oil, salt. Turn the giant mixer on let it do its thing. When the dough was mixed take it out and spread it into bus pans, cover them with towels, set them in a warm spot to rise for a few hours. After the dough had risen , I think I might have pushed it down and let it rise again. Or maybe not I don't really remember. Then run it through the rollers to make 8 ft long 18" wide, about 3/16 in thick , use big circle cutters and cut the dough circles needed in the various sizes, , place on wax paper squares and stack them up and put them in the walk in cooler. I've made thousands of pounds of pizza dough, cutting every one of them circles by hand with a knife and a stainless steel ring. Trimmings get recycled and sent back through the rollers
 
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Dough ain't that difficult. I worked in a pizza place in high school during the summer, and my job was making the dough. I had to make the the dough for the next several days at a time. When making dough I was in a air conditioned room all by myself with the radio playing. That was a sweet gig for high school kid..... No washing dishes, no busing tables, no cleaning up the rest of the restaurant. When I wasnt making the dough I was cooking pizzas in the giant pizza oven. This oven was about 6-ft or more diameter and had giant rotating granite slabs, two or 3 levels. You could be cooking a lot of pizzas at once. When it broke once..... Same day we had a service guy flying in from Germany.

Dump sacks of flour in the big hobart mixer, and the blocks of Budweiser yeast, some water ,some oil, salt. Turn the giant mixer on let it do its thing. When the dough was mixed take it out and spread it into bus pans, cover them with towels, set them in a warm spot to rise for a few hours. After the dough had risen , I think I might have pushed it down and let it rise again. Or maybe not I don't really remember. Then run it through the rollers to make 8 ft long 18" wide, about 3/16 in thick , use big circle cutters and cut the dough circles needed in the various sizes, , place on wax paper squares and stack them up and put them in the walk in cooler. I've made thousands of pounds of pizza dough, cutting every one of them circles by hand with a knife and a stainless steel ring. Trimmings get recycled and sent back through the rollers
That sounds like a fun high school gig, Martin!! My dad worked at the ice cream plant, loading refrigerator train cars, and my f-i-l worked at a brewery in St Louis (not Budweiser.) Also pretty good gigs for a couple of young men looking for some pocket change (and, in my dad's case, all the ice cream he could eat!) :)

....and, yes, at its core, dough is pretty simple.....flour, water, salt, and yeast. Of course, you could say that about beer, and we all know how many permutations there are to make beer. You can make both bread and beer as simple or as complicated as you want. Many different ways to arrive at a destination, and many destinations at which to arrive (kind of like BBQ!) :) I'd actually love a chance to work in a pizzeria or bakery with a huge mixer like you describe above.....but my days of hauling sacks of flour are over......don't even get me started on mashing in even a nano brewery sized batch of beer.....then cleaning the spent grain out of the mash tun! 🤣

One thing I know for sure......fermentation is fun. When you get to throw pepperoni on top of it, it's even better! 🤣🤣
 
That sounds like a fun high school gig, Martin!! My dad worked at the ice cream plant, loading refrigerator train cars, and my f-i-l worked at a brewery in St Louis (not Budweiser.) Also pretty good gigs for a couple of young men looking for some pocket change (and, in my dad's case, all the ice cream he could eat!) :)

....and, yes, at its core, dough is pretty simple.....flour, water, salt, and yeast. Of course, you could say that about beer, and we all know how many permutations there are to make beer. You can make both bread and beer as simple or as complicated as you want. Many different ways to arrive at a destination, and many destinations at which to arrive (kind of like BBQ!) :) I'd actually love a chance to work in a pizzeria or bakery with a huge mixer like you describe above.....but my days of hauling sacks of flour are over......don't even get me started on mashing in even a nano brewery sized batch of beer.....then cleaning the spent grain out of the mash tun! 🤣

One thing I know for sure......fermentation is fun. When you get to throw pepperoni on top of it, it's even better! 🤣🤣
Like all cooking, once you nail the recipe..... You can just repeat it at will..

I make tortillas by hand, and the recipe for the dough for that is super critical to have them come out the way you want. And it's just flour water salt and lard or oil. Do it wrong and you get a tough rubbery little disc that you can't roll out, and shrinks back as soon as you roll it.

Do it right and you get a supple little dough disc thats relaxed and puffs up and looks like a football when it's cooked, and is oh so soft and delicious. . You got to have the right ratios of water and oil / lard. And you also have to not overwork the dough and make it tough. Making tortillas is a good education in the trickery of getting dough just right.
 
Like all cooking, once you nail the recipe..... You can just repeat it at will..

I make tortillas by hand, and the recipe for the dough for that is super critical to have them come out the way you want. And it's just flour water salt and lard or oil. Do it wrong and you get a tough rubbery little disc that you can't roll out, and shrinks back as soon as you roll it.

Do it right and you get a supple little dough disc thats relaxed and puffs up and looks like a football when it's cooked, and is oh so soft and delicious. . You got to have the right ratios of water and oil / lard. And you also have to not overwork the dough and make it tough. Making tortillas is a good education in the trickery of getting dough just right.
My m-i-l swears that the Krusteaz beer bread mix in a box makes the best bread. :) And she's happy, so I'm happy. :)
 
Marvelous tales guys. Definitely beats my dishwasher time. 😄 And let's not get into KP. But did get great reviews for my renditions of Roy Orbison -- especially when I hit the high note in "Only the Lonely". Never again...
 
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No, not quite. 2 hours at 76F, then 38 hours at 37F.
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About 20 or 40 mins later...

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2 hours later...
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See ya Friday!!!
 
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