Brew water for...pizza?

That's right, has anyone manipulated their own water supply to mimic NY's water? I think that'd be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with pizza made with your own water at home.

mtbfan101 said:

That's right, has anyone manipulated their own water supply to mimic NY's water? I think that'd be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with pizza made with your own water at home.

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As far as I know their water is quite low in minerals, so RO would be a decent approximation.

NYC water analysis 2011:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate11.pdf

Too complicated for me.LOL

bosco

I'll tell you what works better than tailoring your water for pizza dough. That is tailoring you water for good beer and then using the beer instead of water in the dough. This just makes really good pizza. Subtle malt sweetness comes through as does a bit of the hops. I really recommend this.

ajdelange said:

I'll tell you what works better than tailoring your water for pizza dough. That is tailoring you water for good beer and then using the beer instead of water in the dough. This just makes really good pizza. Subtle malt sweetness comes through as does a bit of the hops. I really recommend this.

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I wouldn't, however, recommend using part of the yeast cake for the dough. It's wicked bitter with all of the oils attached to the yeast.

ajdelange said:

I'll tell you what works better than tailoring your water for pizza dough. That is tailoring you water for good beer and then using the beer instead of water in the dough. This just makes really good pizza. Subtle malt sweetness comes through as does a bit of the hops. I really recommend this.

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An ounce or two of maltodextrin in each pound of dough really adds to the texture. Same for homemade bagels.

bosco

afr0byte said:

I wouldn't, however, recommend using part of the yeast cake for the dough. It's wicked bitter with all of the oils attached to the yeast.

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No indeed. That you spread on toast (if you are an Ozzie or a Pommie).

Vegemite? Love that stuff. Any idea what else is added to it? My yeast cake are tan, vegimite is very dark.

There must be quite a lot of salt, afaict.

Yes, after I posted that I thought Salt!

"...blending with salt and celery and onion extracts..." according to the Wikipedia article. Read it, it's kind of interesting. Note that is says the yeast are autolyzed first. Yuck!

And Dan loves it? It was once explained to me that the only people who could eat it were ones that had been forced to by Mum when they were kids.

Haha.. I never had it until I was around 23-24 years old. Ex-wife was Australian and she introduced it to me. I liked it best on toast with a slice of cheddar cheese. Great stuff! Marmite is okay but vegemite is so good!

mtbfan101 said:

That's right, has anyone manipulated their own water supply to mimic NY's water? I think that'd be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison with pizza made with your own water at home.

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I'm going out on a limb and saying it would be a waste of time. Even a high-hydration dough, like pizza dough, is mostly flour. As such, water has way less effect on the taste of bread than of beer.

Since your in Raleigh, I'd suggest getting Lindley Mills flour (if you haven't already) as a good start for better pizza dough.

Well everyone knows that NY has the best pizza in the world. Everyone from NY that is. And the explanation that is often given is that it is the water. But the only way you could convince me of that would be a double blind triangle test involving NY water, which is (or was) very good and some other water.

ajdelange said:

Well everyone knows that NY has the best pizza in the world. Everyone from NY that is. And the explanation that is often given is that it is the water. But the only way you could convince me of that would be a double blind triangle test involving NY water, which is (or was) very good and some other water.

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I think homemade, with a pizza stone, is probably going to taste the best. The idea almost makes me want to get a corona mill to make fresh flour. That'd be the ultimate.

Bread flour makes the best pizza dough, since it has been modified so that it can produce more gluten.

A couple of important things to remember in making good pizza dough. Kneed it and kneed it some more, when you think you've kneaded it enough, keep doing it!! If your kneading by hand it will take at least 15 minutes. A good hot oven is another, as high as your oven will go, mine goes to 550 so that is what I bake my pizza crust at. I blind bake it 3/4 of the way through, then add toppings and sauce before I finish baking it, (or broiling depending on my toppings).

My family DESTROYS my homemade pizza anytime I make them, they say they could just eat the crust by itself, and I'm not one to bragg a lot but I'm very proud of that compliment.

I find the 'secrets' to be
1. As mentioned earlier, substitution of beer for water. That even gets the subject back to the one on which this forum is based
2. Using some corn meal with the flour (which should be bread or pizza dough flour)
3. Using a bread machine for the initial mix, knead, rise.
4. Punch-down and additional manual kneading after coming out of the bread machine.
5. Allowing to rest in a warm place for a second rise followed by punch down and further kneading.
6. Allowing the dough to 'relax' over night in the fridge (tough to do if you are making it for pizza tonight).
7. Don't load on too much stuff - especially sauce
8. Stone surface temperature of about 500 °F and dome (Big Green Egg) temperature as much over 600 °F as you can get
9. Eat it while drinking the beer you made it with. Or any other beer.

If you want to make great dough, read this. It's horribly formatted but there is a lot of good info. Water is not the secret ingredient. I've been doing a lot of experiments this past year with dough. Surprisingly, Saflager W-34/70 is a great easy yeast to use for cold rise dough. It also has a more predictable viability than the grocery store red star crap. I like to get my oven to 750F and use a 16" paver from home depot as a stone. 2-2.5 minutes and it's baked perfectly.