I do everything correctly. Measure my portions accurately, mix it w hand mixer. Knead it properly. Refrigerate it for a day, keep it at room temp 2-3 hours before stretching but it never stretches beyond 6-7 inches. 280g ball of dough. Starts getting holes after stretching a little.
I have watched 100s of videos of stretching dough and I minic what they do but it tears up all the time. It never gets as thin as they get it. Help
by zeusakash
34 Comments
What flour are you using?
It’s hard to say without watching ur process, but what flour are you using? You could also be over-kneading. I don’t even knead; I just fold until smooth.
Looks like your not mixing it enough to me
After the rest is your dough passing the window pane test?
You need to let the gluten rest and do stretch and folds to allow it to get stronger.
If using a mixer, get everything incorporated which should take like 4-8 minutes, then rest it for an hour, covered. Do a set of stretch and folds, and rest it for 30 minutes. It takes me like 3-4 sets of stretch and folds until it passes the window pane test, which is a lot of patience and waiting
What is your hydration?
It’s the little things they do not tell you I the vids. Most of them are kind of pro so these minor things are omitted or natural for them.
What I do is pay more attention to how things should look like at certain points and than adjust (like should the dough be more mois, stretchy etc)
Some points to take care about:
Using the right flour ( as in the vid)
Hydration might need adjustment (room temp, flour, water temp all make difference)
Ait tight containers
Proofing temp and location
Kneeding vs mixer
Always take care about top of the balls
Work with olive oil /coating
To me it seems you should try more hydrated dough and you’ll definitely have more stretch with enough proofing to build gluten.
There are a lot of variables involved so it’s hard to know for sure. Are you kneading or folding at at any point after you take it out of the refrigerator? The gluten needs to rest for a good while up until the moment you start stretching, otherwise it will be too elastic.
Please include your hydration. Over or under hydrating can cause the same problems. Ideally should be between 60 and 70 for AP flour. Also keep in mind that oil counts as effective hydration. Furthermore, how much sugar do you add, and how much yeast? What kind — instant dry yeast? Too much sugar and/or too much yeast, can cause the yeast to completely eat the strength out of the dough, leaving you with a very weak dough with no gluten structure.
I always think it’s humorous when someone starts off by saying “I do everything correctly” when seeking advice after “failing” (op’s word).
That doesn’t look properly kneaded.
I had that exact thing happen to me last time I made pizza, and I know exactly why it happened. I left the dough in the mixer too long.
I use 68% hydration and normally mix for 10 minutes at low (Kitchenaid stand mixer). With that combo, and the usual 1-hour rest followed by three stretch-and-folds with 20 minutes rest…and then 24-48 hour cold ferment…it usually stretches like a dream.
Last time I forgot about it in the mixer and it mixed for 30 minutes. It looked usable — texture pretty much the same — but it rose more than usual and was an absolute bear to stretch — made lots of holes and looked exactly like yours.
So that’s my guess. See what happens if you increase your hydration (if you’re lower than 68%) and/or decrease your mixing time (from whatever you’re at now).
Five things:
* Let it relax. Avoid over working the dough. If you work the dough before trying to stretch the gluten will tighten up and make it difficult to stretch.
* Too Cold. Gluten tightens when cold too. It sounds like you’re letting the dough warm enough.
* Does your recipe contain oil? Apply some oil to your hands and surface. It only takes a little bit.
* Use some 00 flour. 00 makes the dough pillowy and soft. I don’t completely use 00 but I use 00 to make up about 1/3 of the flour I use.
* Kneading. This one is hard to explain. Knead your dough for long enough, but don’t over knead it. I hand knead for probably 1-2 minutes, just a simple fold over and re-incorporate for a several times.
I have to admit I hardly think about my dough anymore. My recipe seems to be pretty forgiving. I’ve made it by hand mixing, I’ve made it by mixer, I’ve made it in a food processor. I’ve never had a problem with it, and I’ve gotten praise from guests how good my crust is.
I stopped doing a bulk rise and after kneading portion and put it in the refrigerator and cold ferment over night. I’m still getting amazing crust.
If it won’t stretch I let it sit for 5-10 minutes then it stretches with no problems. I had minor problems with dough not stretching when I first started making pizza, but since I incorporated 00 flour, I’ve never had a problem.
In case you wanted to try it:
Pizza Dough (thin)
★★★★★
Dough, Crust
Prep Time: 30 minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 2 12″ pizza crusts
Ingredients:
1-2 Tsp Yeast
1/2 Tsp Honey
1 2/3 cup All Purpose Flour
1 cup 00 pizza flour
1 Tsp Salt
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Cup of Luke Warm Water
Directions:
Proof yeast: combine warm water with honey and add the yeast, wait about 5 minutes for mixture to become frothy. Combine all of the ingredients in a mixer or food processor. The mixer makes a slightly better dough, but the processor is the easy button, this dough makes a fine pizza either way. Either mix with a dough hook until a ball forms, or hit the dough button on a processor.
Cover your surface with a decent amount of flour. Take your ball of processed dough (mixed or processed) and knead for 5 minutes replacing the surface flour as it incorporates and the dough gets sticky. Portion to two balls, place in two small containers and place in refrigerator for a cold ferment. The dough can be used with good results in a few hours, it’s best when left in the fridge for 24-36 hours though.
You do everything correctly and it’s failed 20 times? Seems very hard to believe.
Curious, how after watching 100s of videos did you arrive at making a dough with 43% hydration? This is far less than bagel dough.
In addition to bumping up your hydration as others have recommended, try an autolyse. [https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/how-to-autolyse/](https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/how-to-autolyse/)
I think you are over mixing it. When I use my stand mixer it’s only mixing for a few minutes
Are you coating the balls with enough flour before stretching?, could be they’re soft and wet.
This is a very easy no mixer needed pizza dough, never had issues. Search for:
The Practical kitchen, overnight thin crust pizza dough (with baking steel instructions.)
I use King Arthur ap, the little glass blue label yeast. Diamond crystal kosher salt, light olive oil from Costco. FYI
I now use a dough whisk, but spoon used to work just fine.
I’ve changed the measurements to make 3 bigger balls with great success.
I always thought that 50-55% was for hot ovens like an Ooni and 60-70% for home ovens
If I remember correctly, you can make bread flour by adding a few things to your AP flour, might be worth a Google. Also, a tiktok page named davespizzaoven has the easiest, most dependable recipe I have used out of a few different tried. I believe you can browse for it without an account on a desktop and he has a 24 hr dough recipe pinned to the top of his page. Good luck to you! Pizza is always attainable with tinkering! 💖
Just use this recipe. Works like a charm:
260g water
410g flour
1 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp yeast
Impressive!
Follow this recipe and make sure to read all of it. There’s a lot of good info.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pizza/wiki/recipe/urkmcgurk/
https://preview.redd.it/nktfvavcq0ue1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f61302ff1165d5329bb62878035e5e1e38437c52
Try this one. I’ve had good outcomes. Use it for a fat deep dish, divide in two for two hand toasters, or into 4 for a stretched thin as possible 4 kinda New Yorkers.
I think you have a bad batch of flour. I have been making dough several times a week for over 20 years, then I bought a large bag of caputo and no matter what I do the results I get look exactly like yours. It makes stretching and working the dough extremely frustrating but the end result is still decent. Change up the brand and or buy a new bag.
I think overall the moral of this story is not to trust AI (especially AI recipes).
The advice in this comment section is derived from a combined thousands of hours of real life experience.
Good comments. I’ve used verifiable recipes from magazines, books etc. I use 2 different flours. Bread flour and AP. I let the dough rise, covered, on a warm stove top. Cut and form into balls. Then I refrigerate.
When I want to use the dough I “re-animate” the cold dough ball, covered, on a warm stove top for 30 minutes.ish
I also don’t kneed the dough too much. Maybe for 2 minutes max. Use olive oil.
Plus I don’t use the “pizza” yeast but the regular instant yeast. HTH
Better flour like bread or 00, At least 60-65% hydration, try an autolyse (just flour and water for around 30 mins), knead it and let it rest a bit before putting it in the fridge.
Bro these comments are wild lol I can’t believe you only watches videos for the stretch part and never changed your recipe after all those fails
Apparently you’re not actually doing everything correctly.
Maybe your yeast is bad? I had something similar where the pizzas were not turning out. Only thing I did was swap to new package of yeast and saw a big improvement.
mix everything except flour, add 1 glass of flour, mix, leave for 5 minutes, repeat until it stretches properly, leave overnight in room temperature
It may not be perfect but it works and it’s a starting point
Dang, that’s like pizza every 4.5 days. That’s crazy, dude. Have you tried rolling it out? I’m not the most knowledgeable for “thin crust.” I like my dough to be puffy.
Usually, what I do is I make the dough and then let it rise in a large bowl on the stove while the oven is pre-heating. In my mind, that extra little bit of heat that comes from the oven helps to make the dough rise. I have done the refrigerator thing before, but I feel it just takes up a lot of room and then you have a slimy dough the next day, which I don’t like.
Make bread before zzza