Introducing The Dough Doctor
By Tom Lehmann The Dough Doctor Introduction by Tom Lehmann

For the past nine years I have traveled around the world a few times eating and talking pizza in places like Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Canada and the States. In that time I got to know not only a valuable friend, but the person considered to be the world’s leading authority on not just pizza dough, but all bread doughs. His name is Tom Lehmann.Tom is a very busy guy writing for several food publications, speaking at trade shows, conducting workshops, traveling and consulting, but recently I had the chance to persuade him to do some specific writing for PMQ’s Pizza Australia. In the nine years that I have known him I have yet to see a dough related problem that he couldn’t solve and now he is lending his expertise to Australia. Below is a brief bio Tom wrote and a sampling of some of the problems he has solved. I invite every pizza operator in Australia to take advantage of his years of knowledge to help you with any dough problems you have by emailing your questions to tom@pmqaustralia.com. Each question will be answered personally and some will appear in future issues of PMQ.

For those of you who are not familiar with me, I am a feature writer for both PMQ and Pizza Today magazines, plus I am an editorial advisor and Think Tank moderator for PMQ Magazine (US, Canadian and Chinese editions). As time allows, I’ve also written articles for Indian Baker, Cereal Food World, and Bellissimo Foods Newsletter. I have written a number of pizza related AIB Technical Bulletins, as well as many articles related to other aspects of the baking and allied ingredient industries.Within the duties that I perform for my employer,AIB International, I provide technical assistance and training programs to the entire baked foods industry worldwide. In fact, in this capacity while under contract with McDonalds in the mid 1980’s, I had an opportunity to get acquainted with the baking and retail pizza industries in Australia.When McDonalds went international I was one of the fortunate ones who was elected onto the McDonalds Bakery Products Task Force. One of my assignments was to work with various bakeries in Australia, helping them to produce the high quality buns demanded by McDonalds. During this time I was also introduced to pizza in Australia. I soon found that the locals and I had a common love, the love of pizza. Every opportunity we had to order out, we ordered pizza. It didn’t take long before I was at a favoured pizza store, near to the bakery in Liverpool just outside of Sidney.After striking up a conversation with the owner I was soon helping him with some everyday issues and providing him with a short course in pizza production technology, all while enjoying my thin crust pizza.This continued until I completed my assignment in Australia and I had to move on to New Zealand for an assignment with North’s Bakery in Auckland.

My 40 + years of experience in pizza covers all aspects of retail (small scale/pizzeria), commissary, and large wholesale, automated production. I have consulted with countless independent operators as well as the majority of large pizza chains (U.S. and international), and most of the largest wholesale manufacturers of frozen pizza, pizza dough and par-baked crusts.

As part of our mission at AIB International, we strive to disseminate information through as many venues as possible, so you will always find me participating in all of the major pizza shows and Expos.When I’m not traveling I’m writing columns in pizza related publications, doing research on some aspect of pizza, or working in our own AIB pizza training program that has been a success for the past 25 years. Most recently, I have been e-mailing with a few pizza operators in Australia to solve some of their ongoing problems.This has lead me to thinking that with the great number of operators, and

Depending upon the type of oven that you are using, you may need to adjust the baking time and temperature slightly when using risen dough directly from the cooler. Typically, you may need to reduce the baking temperature slightly and bake for a minute, or so, longer to help compensate for the colder dough going into the oven.

interest in improving both pizza production and finished quality, that it might be time to explore the possibility of bringing technical assistance right to your door step through PMQ Australia. Here are a couple of the questions that I’ve responded to recently;

Question: We produce deep-dish pizza, but we keep running out of bases when we get busy. Is there any way we can refrigerate the panned and risen dough so we can work right out of the cooler?

Answer: Yes there is. In order to maintain the flavour and tenderness of your existing crust I would recommend that you mix your dough as normal, but adjust the water temperature to give you a finished dough temperature of 80 to 85F/26.6 to 29.4C, scale and ball the dough immediately after mixing and place it into your dough boxes, oil the top of the dough balls with a little vegetable oil and cross stack the dough boxes in the cooler for 2.5-hours.Then down stack and cover the boxes. On the following day, remove the dough from the cooler and allow it to temper at room temperature for 90-minutes then form to fit your pans. I like to use oil in the pans rather than shortening as it provides for a crispier finished crust. Cover the pans and set aside to proof/ rise at room temperature for about 45-minutes then take the pans of partially risen dough to the cooler for storage.The dough will continue to rise in the cooler to some extent so you will need to experiment with just how long you allow the dough to rise for prior to going into the cooler to give you the desired total rise when you use the dough.When managed in this manner the dough will keep in the cooler for 24-hours or a little more.This means that the dough you make today will be ready to use tomorrow, but in a pinch it could be used later during the same day in which it is put into the cooler.Any unused, panned dough that is not used on the following day can be added back to the fresh dough being made to make more deep-dish bases.The amount of “old” dough that is added to the fresh dough should be limited to not more than 25% of the dough weight. For example, if you are making dough based on 50-Lbs./22.7 Kg. of flour weight you will have a total dough weight of approximately 81-Lbs./36.8 Kg., so the maximum amount of old dough that you could add would be 1/4th of this, or about 20 Lbs/9Kg. Just make sure you don’t exceed the mixer capacity by adding the extra dough. If this presents a problem here is a trick that I learned many years ago.When the dough is half mixed, pour a little oil into the bowl as the mixer is turning on low speed, then remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into two equal halves, put one half back into the mixing bowl along with half of the scrap dough, mix the dough to the full (normal) mixing time then take it to the bench for processing. Repeat this with the other half of the dough.

Depending upon the type of oven that you are using you may need to adjust the baking time and temperature slightly when using risen dough directly from the cooler.Typically, you may need to reduce the baking temperature slightly and bake for a minute or so longer to help compensate for the colder dough going into the oven.

Question: We are having a problem with our dough bubbling in the oven and it takes a lot of time away from our people as they have to keep watching the pizzas bake and pop the bubbles.

Answer: From what I can see from your dough formula and procedure you are making your dough fresh daily. In the work that we have done in studying bubbling of the dough during baking we found that

a minimum of 2.5-hours of dough fermentation at room temperature is needed to control bubbling.

If your finished dough temperature is not within the recommended 80 to 85F/ 26.6to 29.4C temperature range, this time could be considerably longer, and by putting the dough into the cooler you extend this time out even further.A variation to what you are doing I think will vastly improve the situation. I would recommend monitoring the finished dough temperature to ensure you are within the desired temperature range and then schedule your dough mixing so the dough balls have an opportunity to rise for 2.5-hours prior to being opened and dressed for filling pizza orders.Then, as you begin to see the dough getting a little old and gassy you can open all of the remaining dough balls into skins and place them onto screens, which will be placed into wire tree racks in the cooler for storage. Leave the racks of dough uncovered for about 30-minutes then cover with a food contact approved plastic bag to prevent drying.To use the pre-opened dough skins, remove from the cooler about 20-minutes before you anticipate needing them (leaving covered), then remove a dough skin as needed from the screen and gently reshape to a round circle of the correct diameter (very little re-shaping is needed), just enough to correct the distortion from removing the dough from the screen. If you bake your dough on a screen, DO NOT BAKE IT ON THE SCREEN without first removing it and replacing it on the screen.

Failure to do this will generally result in the dough adhering firmly to the screen during baking. Be sure to dock the dough before dressing it as an added step to control any bubbling.

I look forward to the opportunity to provide assistance to the pizza industry in Australia by hopefully answering any dough questions you might have, or finding resolution to some of your dough problems.With this said, I invite any and all questions you may have involving pizza bases and any other dough related items. In addition to answering all of these questions personally, each issue I will take a few selected problems and provide the answers for you here in PMQ’s Pizza Australia. Email your questions to tom@pmqaustralia.com. I look forward to hearing from you…