chembake,

After considering all you told me so far, My first attempt will be to follow
your first suggestion: change the hydration to about 60% and see how that
changes everything. I went through your reply and inserted my comments
throughout (below):

"chembake" > wrote in message
ps.com...
> Hello Rich
> You did not give the timing for your dough make up., resting period
> after mixing, after scaling and rounding, etc.

I benched the dough for about 20 minutes before I portioned it into 2.25 oz
balls. The temperature in the bake shop was about 75 degrees that morning.
The proofing box was set at 80 degrees with 80% humidity. I proofed the
balls about a half hour before baking them.

> Your recipe appears underhydrated...you need...at least 60%.

I agree. I need to rework this formula. It is not "mine." I got it from my
baking instructor. I love to use MS-Excel for this purpose. I can simply
change the percentages and voila! The numbers all change accordingly.

> Did you ever rest the dough balls before rounding and molding...?
> A freshly divided firm dough is easy to round...but if overrested
> ...it becomes bucky...to mold that it does not form a ball easily...but
> deforms to an odd shape.

Yes. As I said in a previous paragraph, I rested it on the bench for about
20 minutes at room temperature with a clean plastic garbage bag over it.

I'm a little unsure what "Bucky" means. I did a Google search on "bucky
dough" and got results like underhydraded, overkneaded, dough that's too
cold, underproofed and overproofed. These web sites told me why the dough
might be bucky but didn't really explain what bucky means. I can infer from
your explanation that bucky means that, "it does not form a ball easily
....but deforms to an odd shape." If that's true, then yes. My dough was
definitely bucky.

> Controlling the dough temperature is one way to prevent this from
> occurring; warm dough rise fast and difficult to mold...

One problem I have in the mornings is that I have too many things to do to
allow proper rise. Maybe I could mix the dough the night before and
immediately--without allowing any rising--put the dough into an oversized
*lightly* oiled stainless steel bowl with plastic film over it and place it
in the "reach-in" refrigerator overnight. Then in the morning I could take
it out of the refrigerator and as soon as the dough reaches room temperature
form the balls and proof. That could give the dough a chance to rise much
more slowly. Would that help or make the situation worse?

> Another thing is if the dough was exposed to the ambient low humidity,
> the surface dries up fast making it difficult to round/mold as well.
> Cover your dough while resting with a damp cloth.

Southern California is more arid than some other places. I used a piece of
plastic to cover the dough instead of a damp cloth.

> Another way if the dough balls appear dry to the touch and difficult to
> mold
> In that condition...I wet my hands slightly with water before I round
> /mold the dough...and it helps...

I do that. Actually, I keep a little cup of water on the bench and, as
needed, I wet my fingers and wet the bench with the tiny bit of water on my
fingers so that the balls don't slide around on the bench when I'm trying to
roll them out. The tiny amount of water seems to give the balls a little
trackion on the bench

After considering all you told me so far, My first guess is to follow your
first suggestion: change the hydration to about 60% and see how that changes
everything.

Thanks a lot!

Rich Hollenbeck