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I've tried making pasta several times now, and every time it turns holey after I run the dough through a standard crank machine:

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Ingredients I use:

  • 200 grams all purpose flour
  • 2 jumbo brown eggs
  • Bit of olive oil
  • Bit of salt
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user852367
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  • Look here: http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/36892/can-anybody-help-make-homemade-pasta-foolproof Note that both methods involve resting the dough. – Jolenealaska Mar 31 '15 at 01:12
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    are you progressively adjusting the machine smaller and smaller, or just running it through on the setting (size) you are wanting? If you are progressively adjusting the machine as the dough gets thinner, then you may need to let the gluten's in the dough rest longer, or you need more flour on the machine wheels. – Chef_Code Mar 31 '15 at 06:33
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    are you kneading (developing gluten) before you try to use the machine? – Chef_Code Mar 31 '15 at 06:38

3 Answers3

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The site below basically covers all the possible reasons. Some of the tips that worked for me:

  1. Flour the dough after each pass through the machine - lack of flour causes dough to stick to the machine as it's being rolled through, creating tears

  2. Send in the dough vertically and through the center of machine. Hold the dough by folding over back of hand. Get your hand close to the entry of the machine to help with vertical angle before cranking the dough through. Gently tug and pull (not too much) to make sure that the dough stays vertical as it's being rolled through throughout the process

  3. Don't go into high level setting too quickly - this can cause dough to fold with itself, leading to possible tears

https://seasonedcooks.com/why-does-pasta-dough-tear/

PastaLover
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I watched this video and saw I was adding an extra step. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KhbS3q5b8

After making pasta again tonight, which came out perfect, I realized I was "re-kneading" the dough after I passed it through the machine.

Tonight I folded the dough once, and resent through the machine over and over, and it came out great! Hope this helps someone!

user852367
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  • This jibes with my experience. My advice was to rotate the dough 90 degrees between folding / rolling lamination steps. Once I stopped rotating it the dough stopped having this problem. I wonder if the gluten proteins all align in one direction? – Nelson Apr 09 '20 at 03:33
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I am a new pasta machine user as well, and as one I can only offer my own theories based on my own experience: It always seems to happen to me early on in the cranking process, and goes away as you work the dough more. My theory is that it has to do with several things: the temperature of the dough (the holes go away as the dough warms up), the gluten in the dough (as the flour absorbs moisture, it gets more elastic from the gluten and thus the holes go away), and finally the moisture content of the dough (too little moisture will tend to cause it to break). I may be completely incorrect, but it makes sense to me. If anyone knows for sure, I'd love to hear the reason(s), too.

franko
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