%% Category::<h1><span class="material-symbols-outlined">join_right</span> </h1> %% ![[bannerjo.webp|p+tcc banner]] <h1><span class="material-symbols-outlined">join_right</span>How I make keeping a dough journal easy.</h1> Added: Fri, Mar 28th ## Everyone's Environment Is Different! If you want to make good pizza, you need a good dough recipe, but to make truly great, dare I say it, perfect pizza, you need to keep a dough journal. No one's kitchen environment, constituent ingredients and tools to make pizza are ever the same for one, but even if you were able to fully and faithfully recreate that internet pizza, how would you know it truly is the best possible instruction manual for the particular pizza that you want to make unless you try some other version of it? ## Dough journals are not just about improving recipes! They are about improving you, as a pizza maker. Keeping a thorough dough journal and reflecting back on what might be giving your pizza any given attribute is one of the best ways to improve your pizza making abilities in general. Of course, you should combine the journaling with reading up on, or at least watching videos on pizza making and bread, but the journaling will advance your knowledge about the craft exponentially. This is because the focus has been taken away from a mere list of ingredients and basic instructions, and has centered on individual components. ## Component x Time + Temperature x Technique = God Pizza! Making pizza dough, any dough for that matter, is an alchemy that takes a lot of experience to truly harness. Unlike any other food you can mention, all of these properties are paramount and synergize to give wildly varying results. Dough is a living thing and the most important factors in the making of it require time keeping. Soon as you add water to flour the clock starts ticking. Unlike an actual clock though, there are many ways we can "bend time" to our will. - We can slow fermentation down or speed it up by manipulating the components added - Or by not adding certain components altogether - Temperature is also instrumental in warping time when it comes to fermentation time. - At what stage salt or fats are added - How long it's mixed for - The method of mixing it - How long you bench proof it or cold ferment Then! Each one of these factors modify the next. If you combine all of those factors into the equation and then you start changing the temperature of individual kitchens, fridges and ovens etc. you can see why some recipes just don't seem to yield the results promised by the author. ### You need to clock in to do work. I think by now you can see a common element to all of this, and that is time. Out side of the ratio of ingredients, the timing of things is crucial to getting things just the way you want them, and just having a vague idea just isn't a substitute for keeping a detailed log. All you need is an easy and effective way to do it while you are at the task at hand. Good news for you is that I will show you my process here : [[How I make keeping a dough journal easy]]