Beer in Pizza Dough?

[DBhomebrew]

'Gravy' isn't Italian

 

[redrocker652002]

Got it. Have a nice conversation. I'm out.

 

[PCABrewing]

As for grandmothers, mine grew her own heirloom tomatoes and canned them, and in spaghetti sauce, they were as good as, or better than, anything I can buy today. Unfortunately, tomato growing is not a good option for every part of the US, and if restaurants had to grow tomatoes, they'd go broke.

I still grow heirlooms. I found a paste tomato that is fantastic. Problem with growing the heirlooms is they are susceptible to a handful of problems.
Yeah the life of a restaurateur is not well matched to farming. You gotta be nimble in both games.

 

[redrocker652002]

I don't think you've read everything that was written here. It's like you're talking about a different thread.

We were talking about pizzerias and commercial pizza sauce, which is tomato paste. In the industry, it's called "sauce." See above. The brand I use contains nothing but tomatoes, basil, and citric acid. I don't feel like explaining the citric acid, but there is a reason for it. The other major brand doesn't use it. You can't buy a can of commercial pizza sauce and eat it as it is. It's a base. Again, it's tomato paste. Thick tomato paste.

I don't think anyone even mentioned jars or pasta sauce.

As for grandmothers, mine grew her own heirloom tomatoes and canned them, and in spaghetti sauce, they were as good as, or better than, anything I can buy today. Unfortunately, tomato growing is not a good option for every part of the US, and if restaurants had to grow tomatoes, they'd go broke.

I didn't know there were Italians who didn't call sauce

You seem to know a lot about a lot. I'll bow out and let the experts chat.

By the way, I was trying to be funny. But hey, you got the info and it's your thread. Enjoy

 

[acrowe]

Homegrown tomatoes in anything basically can't be beat by store bought (IMO). I am pretty lucky because my mother in law gardens hard and in a big way, and loading us all up with fresh vegetables and preserved stuff for her is perceived as duty and love. So I often have access to homegrown properly ripened tomatoes, but when I buy store sauces it is a letdown so I was really interested in Yeastwood's claim about what restaurants use - I had vaguely heard this before and wanted details. His claim checks out when you look into the products he is talking about which seem to only be available in 6lb cans (indicating commercial kitchen use). I am considering trying to get some and freezing in manageable portions

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I can help you.

First of all, this stuff is incredibly cheap when you consider how many pizzas you can get out of it. You have to dilute it at about 2:1, so a #10 can is really two #10 cans.

Second, a guy at pizzamaking.com gave me a good idea for freezing it. Assuming you go through it reasonably quickly, you can move it to several gallon freezer bags. Don't fill them. Put enough in to get frozen slabs about an inch thick. You want to be able to get this stuff out of the bags and put it back, and it has to be thin enough to cut.

When you make a pizza, use a chef's knife and cut off as much sauce as you want. Then put the slab in the bag, or wrap it, and freeze it again. It will keep well for weeks.

You should get a gram scale and weigh it out. I put a measuring cup on a scale and drop chunks into it until I get the weight I want. For a 12" pie, this is about 110g of Stanislaus Full Red or 95g of Saporito, and it makes around 6 ounces of sauce. These figures should get you in the ballpark so you can make your own recipe. I make most of my 12-13" pies with 180g flour and 120g GFS flour.

If you can't get high-gluten flour, bread flour with a little added gluten will work. This is for NYC style. Don't ask me about Neapolitan. Everyone who makes it swears by Caputo 00.

Stanislaus uses citric acid to kill bacteria so they don't have to cook the tomatoes as hard. Escalon, the company that makes Bonta sauce, doesn't use citric acid. Some people hate the added zip the acid gives. Others love it because they grew up on Stanislaus paste and didn't know it.

Escalon supposedly makes tomato products under a different label you can find at Big Lots, and the cans are smaller. I don't know anything about it.

Both companies make tomatoes as well as paste in case you want chunks, and you can also buy finished sauce.

If you have to use grocery products, I've done okay with Muir Glen tomato paste, and Cento Italian-style tomatoes are pretty good. For some reason, their genuine Italian San Marzanos didn't do it for me.

There are other companies that supply pizzerias. I don't know much about them.

Grande makes pretty reliable cheese. Boar's Head mozzarella is also good, but it's marked way up. Boar's Head provolone is disgusting because it's low-sodium. Believe it or not, cheddar can add life to bad mozzarella.

Trying to think of other things to tell you. Never cook sausage before putting it on pizza. On the other hand, always cook onions a little, and if you want pepperoni with less grease, you can put it on a plate on a paper towel and nuke it for 20-30 seconds. Get an aluminum peel and forget the ridiculous wooden ones. Cut the handle short so it's convenient for you.

Dilute the daylights out of the sauce. If it's too thick, it tastes like ketchup. If it forms peaks when you stir it, it needs more water.

Another tip: you don't need to knead dough for ordinary NYC pizza or Sicilian. Use a food processor with the chopper blade that comes with it. Blend the dry ingredients first. Blend the water in for a few seconds and then use a silicone spatula to scrape everything that flew up in the sides back into the bottom. Blend for around 30 seconds if you're using oil, then wait 5 minutes, add the oil, and blend for 30 more seconds.

You can create a starter, use long fermentations, and fiddle with getting more flavor into the dough. I made a starter using kimchi juice, and it made phenomenal garlic rolls. I don't fool with all that because it's not necessary for NYC pizza. My pizza goes from scratch to table in around two hours.

Pizza trays like the one I use suck the heat out of pizzas, but mine aren't around long enough to get very cold.

Pizzamaking.com is a much better source than I am.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Also, Escali scales stay on a long time. Don't get an environmentalist scale that shuts down after a minute. They should be banned.

 

[PCABrewing]

My brother worked at a pizzeria for several years.
I loved their pizza especially their stuffed.
The component that really tipped the scale for me was their sauce which they made onsite.

That place is now under new management and of course not the same.
The original owner and wife retired and moved to FL.

I've always craved that pizza.