Pizza Today - July 2019 - 22

few short minutes ago.
Once the dough has achieved the
smooth, satiny appearance stage of mixing,
stop the mixer and check the dough for
stickiness. If it still feels sticky don't be
afraid to mix it for another minute or so.
As soon as the dough takes on a slightly
tacky (but not sticky) feel it's most likely
properly mixed.
If you're using a planetary-type mixer
and mixing only in first speed this may take
something close to 20 minutes to achieve.
However, if you have to mix only in low
speed, in all probability you are trying
to mix too large of a dough size for your
specific mixer. You will find that you will
get much better mixing action and shorter
development times if you can do the bulk
of the dough mixing at second or medium
speed. Typically we see total dough mixing
times in the 8- to 10-minute range when
planetary-type mixers are used.
When spiral-type mixers are used,
regardless if they are single speed or two
speed, the total mixing times are about the
same at 8 to 10 minutes. But if a VCM

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(vertical cutter mixer) is used you can look
for a total mixing time of 70 to 80 seconds.
I hear a lot about operators using the
"window pane" test to assess the dough
for proper gluten development. This is
really not a very accurate test for a pizza
dough since pizza doughs are not mixed
to anything even remotely close to full
gluten development (which the window
pane test does a good job of showing).
For those who might not be familiar
with the window pane test, this is where
a small quantity of dough (about the
size of a hen's egg) is carefully stretched
between the hands to expose the gluten
film. When the film is very clear and
almost transparent, the gluten is judged to
be fully developed. This is fine for bread
production - but in pizza production it
would be considered to be well overmixed.
Judging gluten film development during
the early development stages is very
difficult and of questionable accuracy. This
is not to say that pizzas doughs do not
have a fully developed gluten structure.
They most certainly do. It's just that the

bulk of the gluten development is left
to what we refer to as bio chemical
gluten development, which takes place
during the fermentation period. With
bio chemical gluten development
the developed gluten structure is
very fine and very relaxed/extensible.
If the gluten were to be developed
mechanically to this stage it would not
be as fine of a structure and it would
be considerably more elastic, which
would make the dough more difficult
to effectively open into a pizza skin
(and the resulting crumb structure
of the finished crust would be more
breadlike than the open, porous
structure we all like to see).
Q: REDUCING AGENTS ... WHAT ARE
THEY AND WHY ARE THEY USED?
A: Reducing agents are ingredients
that are added to our doughs to
either reduce the mixing time or to
increase the extensibility of the dough.
Reducing agents can include any of
the following: L-cysteine, glutathione
(a.k.a. dead yeast), deodorized or nondeodorized vegetable powder (onion
and garlic), and protease enzyme.
L-cysteine blended with dairy whey
has been around for a very long time
and has been extensively used in both
the pizza and baking industries to help
reduce dough mixing time and provide
a softer, more extensible dough
structure.
Glutathione (an amino acid present
in yeast) is a relative newcomer, but
it functions in essentially the same
manner as L-cysteine. The only
difference is that glutathione, sold as
"dead yeast", might have a marketing
advantage. Since it's yeast (just dead)
where required, we can label it right
along with our regular (active/live)
yeast.
Then there is dehydrated vegetable
powder. This is an interesting product
as it reacts with the flour proteins
in a slightly different manner than
L-cysteine or glutathione. With either
of these an overdose can completely
liquefy the dough. But with the
deodorized vegetable powder-based
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Pizza Today - July 2019

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