Sourdough pizzas using a rolling machine

I've been making SD pizzas for quite a while now, and in my view the flavour is superior to any yeasted varieties I've tried - which is a lot, including 3 of Reinhart's. I can understand why you'd be thinking as you are.

However, as you'd be well aware, there's a world of difference between home and commercial baking. I'm not just talking theory here - the stark difference between these two worlds really struck home for me when I had the opportunity to bake with Yozza in a commercial environment.

So, I understand that you do not have time to manually make your pizza bases. That would preclude the Varasano style pizzas I make, since the dough is too wet to toss, let alone run through a rolling machine.

I can make one suggestion, though. From time to time I make pizzas from simple white SD bread dough, and they rate a close secondbest in flavour to my usual Varasano-adapted ones. A bit of rye in the mix adds a little something different, too. My preferred SD bread mix for pizzas is also probably a bit too high in hydration for your rolling machine, but maybe you could try a SD bread dough with a slightly lower hydration that allows you to use the roller. If you want the SD bread formula I use for pizzas, lemme know and I'll post it.

Related to the topic you've raised, I've often wondered how Jeff Varasano makes his bases in his pizza retail business...I believe it's a successful business, so he must make a lot of pizzas. Does he and his crew hand-make them all? Anyone know?

Hope you devise a way to use your roller on SD bases. Hopefully, whatever it takes to make a SD base roller-friendly won't detract from the quality of the pizza base such that it ends up inferior to the Reinhart recipe you're currently using. Which one is it, by the way?

Cheers
Ross

That makes at least three of us on TFL - Yozza's the other.

Where's your pizza place, Hankus? I'm in Mount Hawthorn, BTW.

Cheers
R

Was seriously thinking about moving down your way a while ago, then left it too late and the prices got away. Love Albany and surrounds. Spent many a wonderful summer there and in a rented house next to the pub in Denmark as a kid, and ever since have returned whenever time and finances allow.

I know Mt Barker is firmly on the map as an excellent wine-producing area (have sampled a few good ones at the winery cellar doors...enjoying sipping our way through a nice case of Hazard Hill sem sauv blanc at the moment, actually). I've heard Mt Barker has really picked up as a gourmet centre, too.  Main drag was really coming on last time I was down there, but that was a while ago. Don't usually stop in Mt Barker.

Will do next time, though. What are your opening hours at Pollo? Believe it or not, I was toying with the idea of investigating opening a WFO pizza place in your vicinity, then realised my SD pizza base would not easily transfer to a commercial context.

Didn't see your post until now. Welcome!

Cheers
Ross