When Dough Attacks: Brother-In-Law Pizza & The Mystery Of The Conflicting Rise

​Yes, it sounds like yet another spellbinding tale from The Sherlock Holmes Baking Mystery Series. The good news is, the answer to the mystery is an important tip for every home pizza maker.
 
It was a Friday morning. I was at my desk, pretending to craft the Saturday Morning Pizza Post when my cell phone chimed, letting me know there was pizza distraction afoot.
 
My brother-in-law, who is a disciple of the fermented arts, sent a photo of his latest incarnation of living and metaphorically breathing pizza dough.
 
The photo was of two identical glass containers with plastic lids sitting on a kitchen counter. Inside one was a civilized ball of pizza dough.
 
Inside the other container was the dough ball that ate Cincinnati. It was had pushed itself up against the glass and was attempting to climb out of the container and attack the camera. It was a veritable Roger Corman kitchen horror movie in the making.

Brother-In-Law said that he wasn’t concerned. (Such folly!) But he was wondering why the one ball was behaving while the other ball was attempting dastardly acts.
 
I puzzled over it for awhile. What the heck was he doing to this dough that was resulting in both an Average-Joe dough and an overachieving menace from the same batch?
 
I looked at the plastic lids and thought, Ah-HA!
 
I said to him, “You’re stacking these in the fridge, aren’t you?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Is the bigger one on the top or the bottom?”
 
“The bottom.”
 
“Never stack these containers. The dough is fermenting. Fermentation causes warmth.
 
“When they’re stacked, the dough ball on the bottom is fermenting at a higher temperature because of the dough ball on top. The container on top is like a brooding hen on her nest. She’s keeping the bottom container warmer.
 
“As a result, you have two different ferments happening. Unstack the containers.”
 
Mystery solved.

ABOVE: A group of pizza peeps at a Brother-In-Law's Pizza Party trying desperately to remain anonymous and not be associated with the problem pizza dough. (Some of them work for the federal government and still have jobs and others work in public education and wish to remain non-controversial.) PHOTO CREDIT: Benjamin Cohn

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If you’ve ever seen a pizzeria stacking their white, plastic, rectangular dough boxes, you’ll notice they’re always cross-stacking them. Every other box is turned 90 degrees to the one above and below in the stack.
 
The reason for this is precisely because of what was happening in Brother-In-Law’s fridge: lining up all those boxes in a nice, tidy stack inspires premature fermentation.
 
By cross stacking the boxes, there’s better air flow. Cold air can circulate around the boxes, so all the dough balls inside can experience a similar same rate of cooling.
 
But when you have two containers of identical shape stacked uniformly (and remember, too that glass is an insulator), the bottom container becomes the egg and the top container becomes the chicken. The Brooding Hen Effect is in play! It stays nice and warm and tries to hatch into a monster.
 
Or maybe your mileage will vary.
 
Just remember that pizza dough is alive and it is your friend. It requires care. However you make it, whatever is in it, it’s a yeasted being and behaves best when you treat it well. 

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