Transporting Dough.

[hotdog]

Hi Mobile Pizza folk.....When you travel away from your base how do you keep your dough...Do you chill it to prevent over proofing ? Do you keep it in one big lump & then cut bits off when needed....??...just contemplating how the mobile pizza thing works....any responses appreciated.

[DuncanM]

Hi Hotdog,

My advice - although I must stress I neither own a portable oven, nor have cooked at an event that isn't considered my base (i.e. renting an oven) is that you need to minimise the amount of time required to prepare whilst in the "making money" phase - that is at the event with the oven roaring.

The quicker you can turn around pizzas the more profit you can make. So it would be sensible to preportion your dough in advance meaning you have a constant size that is ready to be rolled out (if not already), covered with the toppings of choice and cooked.

Dough management is very important and will probably depend upon numerous factors. For instance the time taken to get from your base to the venue and how much time in advance you want to prepare.

Chilling will actually improve the flavour of certain dough - if it's a cold ferment although I believe this might be down to individual taste.

Driving 20 minutes down the road for an event starting in an hour you wouldn't need to keep the dough chilled. Travelling 200 miles through the early hours of themorning then you'd probably need to chill it.

Oh - and that's not including any requirements by the food safety people - they might suggest or force it to be refigerated.

Although you will need refridgeration for other components (meats, vegetables) so it's probably best to have one than the other way around.

Having said all of the above, you'll have to wait for people with actual experience to give you proper information - mine is just all my own opinion.

Good luck with whatever your venture may be!

[conic]

Dough trays work well for transportation. 200g of dough will make the perfect 10" pizza.
Make half fresh in the trays to last half the day e.g 50 pizzas and then take 50 frozen doughballs out the night before and they will be just right by dinnertime.
I was recently in Las Vegas at a festival and this guy had a converted fire engine with an inbuilt WFO, he must have sold about 800 pizzas that day, the bases were rolled out and tomato sauce topping on then he had a glass fronted upright caninet about 7 foot high with lots of shelves. the pizza were chilled in there and ready to go with any other topping and onto his production line, Taste was very good and 5 dollars each

[cannyfradock]

Hotdog

I also use frozen pizza balls. I find that 180gms gives a nice thin 10" pizza which is ideal for Neopolitan 90 second pizza's. Sometimes refrigeration is impossible in some mobile wood-fired ovens but most local authorities will allow you to use the freezer blocks to keep your dough at the minimum temperature.

Again I also use trays having chilled thawed doughballs in some trays and still frozen balls in other trays. It's always difficult to get this dough management correct.....but trial and error helps. The ideal temp of the doughballs I found is 3 degrees c. This way the pizza base stays flat and doesn't need docking.

I found that you can part roll the balls but don't stack them more than 6 high.

Terry