Dear PMQ,
If possible, can you please send me or tell me where I can find the issue with the article and photos regarding portable pizzerias? I will include my address.
                                                                                                                        Sue

Absolutely. That article was in the September 2006 issue and was titled Portable Pizzerias (page 60). The article can also be found at www.pmq.com/mag/200609/article.php?story=portablepizzerias but I will be happy to drop a fresh copy in the mail for you today.

Dear PMQ,
I am looking for a list of the top 10 pizza franchises based on gross system sales for each of the past 10 years.  Also I am looking for the number of stores open (franchise and corporate) for each of the top franchises for the same time period. I don't know if this is data that PMQ has but if you do have this information, is it possible for you to send it to me?  If you don't have it, do you know of other publications or other sources for this 
information? Thank you very much for your time,
Brian

Each year PMQ does an annual report on the pizza industry. You should be able to find what you need in PMQ’s Pizza Power Reports, which are located at http://www.pmq.com/industrystats.php . You can also get additional information from Technomic, Info USA and NPD Crest. The National Restaurant Association’s web site is also a great resource (www.restaurant.org).

Dear PMQ,
I have a pizzeria and we are getting a lot of thin spots in our dough. I always tend to blame the prep guy for not rolling the balls properly, but I can't figure out what he's doing wrong. What could be causing these air pockets in my dough? Are you inclined to blame the dough ball roller? And if so, can you describe how to roll the dough properly?  Thanks
                                                                                                                        Steve

I get a lot of dough questions, and this is one of the reasons I am so glad we have a resource like Tom “The Dough Doctor” Lehmann to fall back on. Tom says that in all probability, your bubbles are due to either too much yeast in the dough formula (maximums are 1.5% compressed/fresh yeast; 0.5% IDY; 0.75% ADY), these percentages are based on the total flour weight, or excessive finished dough temperature (80 to 85 F. is desired) in most situations. Or, it could also be due to allowing the dough balls to set out at room temperature before putting them into the cooler after you have formed the dough into balls. Tthe dough should go directly from the mixer the bench where it is scaled, balled, and placed into dough boxes and immediately taken to the cooler. You might also be failing to cross stack the dough boxes in the cooler. Cross stacking allows the dough to quickly and uniformly cool. If you don't cross stack, the dough can over ferment and become excessively gassy, or it might even "blow" or become wet and soggy due to excessive condensation in the dough box. You should always cross stack the dough boxes for 60 to 120 minutes (smaller dough pieces will take the shorter time and larger pieces the longer time) and then down stack and nest the boxes to prevent drying. If this doesn’t help, you can reach Tom directly at tlehmann@aibonline.org or shoot him a question in PMQ’s Think Tank by going to www.pmq.com and clicking on “Think Tank” in the navigation bars on the left.

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