Is your pizza dough raising for the occasion?! 

Nowadays pizza manufacturers have a very challenging job to get done! To meet consumers’ demand for authentic products they need to make a pizza crust with fresh taste using the most natural Clean label ingredients. In some instances, if pizza manufacturers are into frozen pizza doughs, they also need to make a dough that will keep its qualities throughout shelf life, guaranteeing a pizza crust with a good volume, a nice crumb cell structure and overall great organoleptic properties (smell and taste).

With these requirements in mind, manufacturers must also generate pizza doughs that will maintain its qualities throughout shelf life, especially if stored frozen, and provide a pizza crust with a good volume, a nice crumb cell structure and overall great organoleptic properties. Thankfully there are many dough development solutions available to help you overcome these challenges.

Solving Pizza Crust Shrinkage Problem

To produce thick pizza crust, wholesale bakeries normally use the sheeting process. The dough must be handled carefully in order to maintain its consistent thickness and texture without tearing.  Equally important is the absence of any shrinkage of the pizza dough right after cutting or during baking. Shrinkage results in poor perceived quality due to lack of correct diameter.

For a thin pizza crust, wholesale bakeries will normally use a stamping process. In this case, the mixed dough is divided to the desired weight and then given an intermediate proof for relaxation. The dough balls are then transferred to a hot press that stamps the dough to the desired thickness to achieve the target diameter. As for the sheeting process, the stamping will require a dough with maximum extensibility without being sticky to achieve the desired size and to prevent shrinkage. For topped pizza shells, the crusts are normally par-baked or fully baked then cooled before application of the topping and freezing.

Automated pizza production places tremendous pressure on the handling qualities of the dough as well as on shrinkage problems. Traditionally, chemical reduction either by cysteine or sodium meta-bisulfite was the answer. But recent trends are moving away from these products and have created the need for consumer-friendly ingredients. Fermaid GSH inactive yeast products are a natural source of dough reducing agents (glutathione) that can be used to provide dough extensibility needed to sheet the dough piece to the desired diameter and avoid shrinkage.

Is your goal to make a thick crust pizza?!

If your goal is to make a thick pizza crust with a chewy and bready texture, you need to increase the crust volume. In that case dough, dough conditioners should be used to support the development of a strong “Gluten Matrix”. This will ensure more gas retention and increase the crumb thickness. Enzymes such as glucose oxidase and phospholipase can be used to provide extra dough strength and to replace traditional chemical dough strengtheners – achieving a “cleaner” ingredient label. To help prevent drying of par-baked pizza shells during re-heating, the use of a crumb softening enzyme such as maltogenic-amylase could also be considered.

Lallemand offers a variety of innovative solutions that can aid in improving your pizza dough and crust quality. Fermaid Relax, Super Relax and Super Super Relax products provide dough extensibility needed to sheet the dough piece to the desired diameter and avoid shrinkage. Our protease-based enzyme blends Fermaid ENZ “P” provide dough relaxation and dough conditioning effects. Our maltogenic-amylase-based enzyme blends, our Essential SOFT products, provide crumb softening that should be considered for par-baked pizza shells to helps to prevent drying of the shell during re-heating. Lallemand products are backed by skilled technical support staff that will be happy to assist you in determining which product best suits your process and application.