Mitch, although the recipe you're working with has given you good results up until now, as far as pizza recipes go, it leaves a lot to be desired. While 40-70 seconds total processing time is pushing the gluten development envelope for cold fermented dough and balling just prior to forming is a massive pizzamaking no no, the true Achilles heel of this recipe is the extended baking time/one size fits all thermodynamics.
Magazines like CI and authors like Reinhart perpetuate this belief that anyone can make great pizza with any equipment as long as they have the right recipe. This is complete and utter garbage. Variations in stone thickness/materials/thermal mass/conductivity all produce different baking times. A 10 minute pizza will never have the oven spring of a 4 minute pie. No offense, but a 7.5 minute pie might, on the outside look mouthwatering and the crumb might appear relatively open, but it won't be as open as if it were baked for 4 minutes. Time is the enemy to good oven spring/great pizza.
I
spoke with Andrew Janigian, the author of the CI piece, about thermodynamics while he was researching the article, and, while he agreed with what I was saying, his hands were basically tied by editors that wanted to appeal to the widest number of readers. Since mediocre pizza, like mediocre sex, is still pretty good, I'm sure there are scores of CI readers that are happy with the results they're seeing from this recipe. I am deeply saddened, though, that CI, with their, imo, smarter than average membership, had the opportunity to push the pizzamaking knowledge envelope further than it's ever gone in a mainstream publication, but, instead, catered to a very small percentage of their readership who are uncomfortable ordering merchandise online or going through the trouble of finding hard to source materials locally.
Anyway, back to your oven spring issue. Basically you're using an equipment-agnostic process that isn't optimized for volume and adding an anti-oven spring ingredient. The bran in the whole wheat has sharp edges that slice through the gluten framework whenever the dough is manipulated, which, in turn, produces a denser end product. I've never tested this myself personally, but I believe that whole wheat flour with a finer grind will produce a crust with bigger voids. I would give a coffee/spice grinder a shot, making sure to monitor the temperature closely so as to not overheat the flour.
If you can, going with a higher protein flour should also help a little bit. If, say, you're using 12%ish flour (KABF), then track down some 14% protein from a restaurant supplier. And, although more protein helps, the type of protein matters. Imo, vital wheat gluten is not the solution to your problem. VWG is damaged gluten and never achieves the full extensibility of the virgin product. It will give you increased chewiness, if that's what you're looking for, but I wouldn't depend on it for volume.
This may not be something you want to hear during a cleanse, but bromated flour is a proven oven spring enhancer. The parts per million in which it's added to flour and parts per billion that end up in the final product make it harmless, though. The added volume may not be all that dramatic with bromated flour, but when you're working with whole wheat, every little bit helps.
Higher protein bread flour, bromate and a more finely ground WW flour are just a drop in the oven spring bucket when compared to the effects of improved oven thermodynamics. When water converts to steam, it expands 1600 times. The goal with pizza is to generate as much steam expansion in the shortest time possible with high heat and thick, conductive materials. If you really want to send your crust soaring (with or without WW), get a thicker more conductive stone and trim that baking time to as far as the style will take it (about 3-4 minutes for NY style).
Sam Kinsey turned me on to soapstone a couple years back. From a perspective of conductivity and thermal mass, 1.25" soapstone slab completely conquers every stone in the retail market. Preheated to 550, it has no problem pumping out a 3 minute pizza. It can be hard to track down and expensive, though, and doesn't really provide enough conductivity for weaker (<525) ovens, so I've taken to recommending 1/2" steel plate. I've seen some half decent Heston Blumenthal inspired cast iron pan pies produced, but the gauge is just too thin to store enough energy. 1/2" steel plate is a cast iron pan pushed up to 11
There's also oven tricks and mods, and while those have quite a few devoted fans, I tend to feel a bit safer trimming bake times with thick conductive stones. Cordierite is the stone of choice for most commercial pizza ovens, and, while the 5/8" or less cordierite you see in retail baking stones (pampered chef, old stone, etc.) is pretty much worthless at 550 or below, as you increase the thickness to 1" your chances improve dramatically at hitting that magic 4 minute bake time mark. 1" cordierite kiln shelves can be found at local and online ceramic suppliers. Even if 1" cordierite doesn't doesn't quite cut it, you're still talking about a substantially easier oven mod. It's a lot easier/safer pushing an oven 50 degrees above it's peak temp than a 150 or more degree shove.
Summing up, I recommend
Balling BEFORE fermentation
Kneading for less time (maybe 40 seconds total, not 40-70)
14% bread flour (All Trumps is the pizzeria favorite)
Bromated flour
Finer grind of WW flour
but, most importantly, I
highly recommend a thicker more conductive stone. In the land of the best NY style pies, it's a race against the clock- a race with no more formidable of an ally than the right stone- and no more formidable of an enemy than the wrong one.
Edited by scott123, 18 January 2011 - 02:25 AM.
