My pizza crust is very hard and tough and not light and crispy, why?
I'm having trouble getting my pizza crust light , airy and crispy. I'm not sure if it's the mixing of the dough because I'm using a smaller mixer 20qt as opposed to my old 60qt. The bowl is not smooth and shiny and the dough hook doesn't appear to get close enough to the bottom of the bowl. It looks like the bowl was used to for everything except for making dough.
Do these sound like conditions that would cause my crust to be tough? The dough is stiff and is difficult to work with when I remove it from the refrigerated proofing box. It's elastic like.
This is frustrating because I owned a pizza shop a year ago; I had a recipe from New Haven and my crust was perfect: light, airy and crispy. I now reopened in a new location with a different oven and I'm still using my old recipe and the pizza crust is awful and I can't figure out why.
The recipe is as follows:
4-gal water
4oz yeast cake
12oz salt
50 lbs flour-gold medal bromated bleached flour full strength
The recipe is fine since I had a perfect new haven style thin crust using it for a year at my old location.
Best Answer
Your 60 qt mixer is going to mix dough at a much different rate than your 20 qt, even if their rotation speeds are the same. Your hook to bowl clearance shouldn't be an issue unless you're getting an excessive amount of crusty dough on the bottom of the bowl. The condition of the bowl is negligible too. Most likely your issue will be over/under development of your dough.
Does the dough from your other location pass a windowpane test? How about your new dough? Assuming your relative humidity, proofing box temperature, and oven temperatures are the same, its going to be dough development. Experiment with different mixing times until you find the sweet spot. Also, if you are scaling a recipe down, occasionally you'll need to adjust hydration levels just a touch.
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Quick Answer about "My pizza crust is very hard and tough and not light and crispy, why?"
Your pizza crust is too hard because either your dough wasn't hydrated enough, you knocked out all the air with a rolling pin, you cooked it too long, or you didn't let it proof long enough. In fact, it's very likely that your pizza crust is so tough due to a combination of all of these things.Why is my pizza crust so hard?
Sometimes when too much flour is added, dough will come out hard and stiff. This can be caused by overworking the dough either by hand or with a roller. Overworking dough will pop all the tiny bubbles that make pizza crust so airy and fluffy once cooked. The hard crust can also be caused by the type of flour you use.Why is my pizza crust not crispy?
In order to get crispy, enough water needs to evaporate in the oven. Baking time and temperature play an important role, but also the type of dough and toppings you use. You can compensate for the lack of heat in your oven by baking the pizza longer at a lower temperature. But a too long bake will dry out the crust.How do I make my pizza crust lighter and airy?
To add a more airy texture to your pizza, Let the dough feel sticky after you knead it, and when it's ready to shape, use your handle and apply minimal pressure on to the dough. Shape it by stretching and pulling rather than pressing.What do I do if my pizza is too hard?
You can try high hydration flour. go to 75 percent hydration dough. It will be harder to handle but will be more fluffy. Another thing, heat your oven as high temp as possible. use around 2% yeast as well.Why is my pizza crust hard? 3 possible reasons
More answers regarding my pizza crust is very hard and tough and not light and crispy, why?
Answer 2
where is the oil? you are missing oil in the mixture, that dough seems awfully plain and very boring, I would add olive oil, and vinegar to the mixture, so this is ho wi would make it as follows,
4 gallons of water, 1/3 cup of sugar mix into water with a whisk, add your yeast cake, leave for 15 minutes, add the oil and vinegar pour in half the flour and all of the salt( never ad salt directly to the yeast solution ) turn on mixer at slow speed until ingredients are mixed together gooey like then add the rest of flour and mix for 15 minutes on medium speed. What the vinegar does is gives the crust a nice crunchy texture and inside will be very light and fluffy.
4-gal water
4oz yeast cake
1/3 cup of sugar
1 cup olive oil
6 TBLS of vinegar
12oz salt
50 lbs. flour
ad ingredients in that order.
I love my pizza, I make it at home every week, I also am a chef for the last 26 years and have fed a lot of people, I am told I make an amazing pizza. I have a special dough that I wont give out however the adjustments to your dough I just made will be extremely satisfactory and leave your customers coming back for more.
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