20 hours ago, Robenco15 said:My only issue is the crumb. Seems too tight. I used Cairnspring Glacier Peak bread flour but I’m not sure it was the flour this type of pizza.
https://cairnspring.com/products/glacier-peak-bread-flour?variant=35913921233061
QuoteGlacier Peak is the lighter, more sifted sibling to our beloved Trailblazer bread flour. We start with the Yecora Rojo varietal, and sift off a bit more bran and germ. You still get all of the delicious flavor, but it will perform more like a white flour.
By acting like tiny little knives in the dough, bran is effectively a crumb killer. If a fluffy open crumb is the goal, then it's not about reducing the bran, but about removing it entirely. Considering that you're using what I'd classify as a transitional whole wheat flour, you're achieving pretty amazing results, but, if an open crumb is your goal, you'll want to follow the Detroit playbook and use white flour.
As far as which white flour to use... Buddy's is the OG Detroit Pizzeria, and it's been confirmed that they use bromated flour. There is no such thing as bromated all purpose, which would leave bromated bread flour or bromated high gluten. At the thickness of Detroit, high gluten would be too chewy, leaving bread flour as the likely choice for authentic Detroit style pizza. This being said, I've used both all purpose and bread flour, and I kind of like the softer crumb I get from all purpose- and I've seen some respected pizza guys use a mixture of both AP and bread. Flour choice is a balance between openness/volume and chew. The more protein in the flour, the greater the potential volume, but, also, the greater potential chewiness. With all purpose, the crumb can be very soft, but not quite as open as bread flour, and with bread flour, that's reversed- very open, but not quite as soft. Since you're looking for an open crumb, I might start with bread flour and see what you think.
Protein dictates water absorption, so bread flour will require a bit more water than all purpose. For Detroit, all purpose is happiest around 67% hydration, and bread flour is probably best around 69%. Any more water than that and you're limiting the potential volume- by weakening the gluten framework and hindering oven spring. Technically, neither flour is made to handle this much water, but, you've got to reach the high 60s in order to get the dough into the pan without too many rests.
Bread flour will also take longer to proof than either your existing flour or all purpose, since it's capable of being proofed to a higher volume. No recipe can ever tell you exactly how long to proof dough for, since there are too many environmental variables that are unique to you. Make sure every ingredient is exactly the same temp every time, and proof at the same temp, and use trial and error to find the time frame where the dough is just about to collapse, but hasn't collapsed yet. This is how you'll achieve the most open crumb possible.
Lastly, the thickness you have now is about right for Detroit. As you move into a more open crumb, the final volume will be a bit too high, so you'll most likely need to scale down the dough a bit.
