The Fresh Loaf

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Pizza with Poolish - Looking for the right amount of dry yeast

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Pizza with Poolish - Looking for the right amount of dry yeast

I've been on a quest for the perfect poolish pizza lately and have compared lots and lots of different recipes with lots and lots of different ratios of yeast, types of flours, fermentation times...I'm lost!!!

My goal has been to achieve a very puffy ring with the least amount of yeast possible and the more flavor possible ;-)

I came to believe that pizza dough based on a poolish would tick all the boxes, but am a bit puzzled by all the different amounts of yeast that I've seen so far: for example, for a 24h dough, the range goes from a tiny amount (https://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/a-pizza-adventure-part-ii-new-24h-dough-recipe/) to a HUGE amount (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nZ3xXBmHEI&ab_channel=VitoIacopelliVitoIacopelliVerified)

Vito Iacopelli says that the amount of dry yeast will only change every 5 liters of water: so from 100g to 5000g of water, that's always 5g of yeast...So that would be the same amount of IDY for 1 pizza dough or for 50??!! Really ???

Here his recipe for 4 pizzas:

Poolish (300ml water-300gr flour,5gr yeast, 5gr honey) 100ml water 10gr salt 300gr flour

Final dough: all the poolish + 100g water + 10g salt + 300g flour + Olive oil + 5g honey

I would love to have some advice on what a reasonable amount of IDY would be for 2 pizzas with a 24h / 48h rest in the fridge, made with a poolish and using the Caputo Chef 00 / bread flour or AP flour depending on what would work the best for a long cold bulk....(and baked in a home oven)

 

Thank you very much in advance for any piece of advice and maybe for sharing your own experience with poolish,

 

Gaëlle

gavinc's picture
gavinc

The lightest pizza dough I have found from the dozens I tried over the years is Neapolitan style I use in our brick oven.

2 pizza crusts yield:

373 g 00 Flour (100%)

220 g Water, Cold (59%)

1.12 g Yeast, Instant (0.3%)

5.6 g Salt, Kosher (1.5%)

  • Start this early the morning the day before pizza day so you complete the mixing of the final dough and refrigerate the evening before.
  • Adjust the water temperature and chill/warm accordingly.
  • Weigh out all ingredients.
  • Place salt aside, mix remaining ingredients roughly until just combined.
  • Autolyse 30 to 60 minutes.
  • Add salt and mix until dough resists when pulled. Windowpane test the check. About 15 mins by hand.
  • Bulk ferment 12 hours at 22C (less time if warmer, longer if cooler). Use an aliquot jar to check for a rise of about 2 x volume.
  • Divide dough into 300g portions.
  • Allow the dough to proof for about 20-30 minutes at room temperature and then refrigerate for a minimum of 3 hours, or as long as 24 hours. (Sandwich size zip-lock plastic bags are perfect.)
  • Remove from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature 1-2 hours before making pizzas.

Cheers,

Gavin

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

This sounds like a more reasonable amount of yeast!! Thanks a lot Gavin!

Unfortunately, I don't have a brick oven but I'll try your recipe this coming weekend in my home oven :-)

 

semolina_man's picture
semolina_man

Gaëlle how were the results from the recipe you posted?  What did you like, and what didn't you like? 

 

I use a pizza dough recipe with approx 2.5g yeast for 300g flour weight and 67% hydration.  It is reliable and tastes good. 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Confession: I haven't tried it yet...I wanted first to have TFL's members' opinion about the 5g of yeast as it sounds really a lot compared to other recipes. I was just wondering what a reasonable amount of yeast would be for a 24h cold bulk dough

Do you cold bulk your dough for at least 24h? And may I ask what kind of flour you use?? Thanks :-)

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

From having seen other Vito Lacopelli's videos, he always uses fresh yeast. Did he give this amount for dry yeast in this video? (Sorry, I'm at work and can't watch it now)

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

He doesn't specify in the video if he uses fresh or dry yeast, and it's not visually clear in the video itself,  but he confirmed in the comments that this is dry yeast and not fresh..I find it hard to believe though....

mwilson's picture
mwilson

does he confirm it?

I would bet money it is fresh.

Fresh yeast is very popular and widely used in Italy, far more so than dried, and that goes for professionals and home bakers alike.

Also the quantities he describes per water are pretty standard, and apply to fresh yeast.

I'm sure it's fresh yeast.

PS. He also says something like "melt the yeast".

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

You're right about the ''melt the yeast'' but here is what I found in the comment section: that's why I'm confused...

 

mwilson's picture
mwilson

Despite that comment, you remain doubtful, as am I, and Ilya leapt to the same initial thought!

🤷‍♂️

Translation problem perhaps. The question asks "brand", dry is not a brand I ever heard of haha!

Worth asking him again you think?

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I've already tried to ask him directly in his video's comment section but he never replied...

But now I'm pretty convinced that he made a mistake and that he's using fresh yeast in his video...I'll try it with 2.5g of dry yeast and see how it goes...thanks for your help!

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

I am surprised he would use dry yeast. I've watched a few of his videos, and he always uses fresh yeast - except a few videos where he purposefully shows how to use dry yeast instead of fresh (or how to make faux-fresh yeast out of dry yeast even!).

For example, in another video with poolish he specifies fresh yeast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Fzmj05YrY

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Indeed, he's using 5g of fresh yeast in this video, with roughly the same proportion of flour and water as in the video I mention in my original post

It's starting to make sense!

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Also, usually fresh yeast are replaced by 1/3 of their weight of dry yeast, so I'd go with less than 2 g.

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

ok thanks a lot, I'll take that as a starting point for my own experiments then :-)

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

You need to take all the factors into account.

Vito does two  things which allow him to use "too much" yeast:

In one video his poolish is at room temp for only one hour, then goes into fridge, thereby stopping or slowing the replication of the yeast.

Second, I suspect in some recipes, the yeast is eating up all the available sugar in the poolish, and stops replicating at that point. So the excess yeast doesn't really matter at that point on.  The yeast "hit the wall" so to speak.

It's also possible that his recipes don't scale all that well, meaning that you have to use his exact amounts for those timings and can't vary the quantities or the timings much.

--

I've learned to trust established pizza/bread authors more. If they have a large following, that means their formulas work for a lot of people.

--

At the same time, there will always be people who try to follow a formula, but their ingredients just don't match close enough, or they make inappropriate/incorrect substitutions, or their weather/environment/fridge-temp just doesn't match.

Or, they misinterpret something the author said/wrote, and they just didn't understand what to do.

Those people often don't realize that they did not follow the formula close enough.

--

One thing most authors and videographers leave out is how to adjust hydration for different brands and types of flours, and different climates, humidity, and storage conditions.  Sometimes they don't even tell you what flour they are using.  

Even when they do, home bakers often don't understand the slight variations that make a big difference, like US versus Canadian flour, malted versus unmalted, protein percent, added bread improver, etc. 

At TFL we've seen people struggle and struggle until they finally realize "oh, my water is different" and try a different water, and finally get a good result. 

--

All this is to say:

--  you always have to adjust anyway, because you can never exactly duplicate someone else's formula, unless you live where they live (have the same weather), and use the exact same ingredients including the water.

 

 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Thank you very much for those words of wisdom, I totally get that and will do my own trials and errors, I just wanted to have a reliable starting point as far as the amount of dry yeast was concerned.

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

Hi Gaëlle, 

Let's try to look at this in another way: 

Let's say you have 360ml water and 600g flour, hydration: 60% 

 

In general, dry yeast take 0.5%-0.7% of the flour weight. Which is: 3-4.2g in this case if you just use dry yeast to make a straight dough. (means you use it right after it's proofed) 

If you would like to put the dough to the fridge overnight, you can half the yeast, which is 1.5-2g in this case. Because time will help us to do the job, doesn't need that much yeast. 

If you would like to use poolish and you have 12hour for the poolish, in general we need 0.1% (weight of the flour that you are going to use for the poolish) dry yeast. And then you will decide how much poolish you would like to add to the final dough. Whatever you do, as long as the hydration of the final dough stays the same, it'll be fine. 

To answer your question (I would love to have some advice on what a reasonable amount of IDY would be for 2 pizzas with a 24h / 48h rest in the fridge, made with a poolish and using the Caputo Chef 00 / bread flour or AP flour depending on what would work the best for a long cold bulk....(and baked in a home oven): 

lf hydration is 75%, for 2 pizza, usually what i do is: 

bread flour: 400g

water: 300g 

salt: 8g

dry yeast: 2.8g or: 

poolish: flour 200g, water 200g, yeast 0.2g, give 12hours 

final dough: flour 200g, water 100g, yeast 1g ( the final dough flour 200g X 0.001 = 1g) , and poolish , olive oil 

so if you know your flour weight, you can calculate according to the fermentation method (dry yeast, poolish, biga, levain) you want. 

hope it helps. 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

That's tremendously helpful! thank you so much BirdieandBear!

Do you form the balls before the cold bulk or right after? and how long before baking would you take the dough out of the fridge??

And lastly, what kind of rise (and at which point) do you aim for? (for example, do you aim for the dough to double in size before going into the fridge?)

(Sorry if I'm not making myself super clear, English is not my first language)

Thanks again for your help

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

To answer your questions:

Do you form the balls before the cold bulk or right after? and how long before baking would you take the dough out of the fridge??

[This is a very good question. It depends. If this is going to be a pizza, you can shape it to a ball or after, because anyway you're going to stretch it and roll it in the air :). But if you do a bread, it would be better to do the shaping before you send it to the fridge. Because the fermentation is going on, it keeps building up gas inside. If you shape it after the low temperature fermentation, you will damage the hard work of the yeast. 

I tried both. take it out, do the topping, directly send it to the oven. take it out, wait until it goes back to room temperature, send it to the oven. I suggest you try both and discover. But from what i see, (i do pizza very often in summer), in summer you need to be careful, because once the dough is out, it starts sweating, this is not good at all. It's going to be sticky and hard to handle. ]

And lastly, what kind of rise (and at which point) do you aim for? (for example, do you aim for the dough to double in size before going into the fridge?)

[ it depends which fermentation method you use. If you use dry yeast, it will double pretty fast, so i send it to the fridge when the size increase 50% of the original volume. Because it's going to keep rising in the fridge. You need to let it slow down...otherwise it might overproof in the fridge. If you use levain you can wait until it doubled, because they are rather slow] 

Hope it helps :)  

 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Fantastique!! That's exactly what I needed to know!!

I'm used to baking SD bread but not really pizza, and not really using yeast, so that's s why I'm a bit in unknown territory here...

Thank you so much for having taken the time to give me those explanations, that's really helpful!

 

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

It's my pleasure. I had exact same questions when i started to do pizza and bread. I understand how you feel. 

SD pizza is really worthy to try. I also tried to make a dry yeast pizza dough and put it in the fridge for up to 5days. 

It's super delicious. It developed some flavour in depth. :)  Have fun in your pizza journey! 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Up to 5 days ? May I ask what kind of flour you use? I've tried a few rh or 48h recipes but always ended up with very flat ( as in not puffy at all) and very dry pizzas...I know it depends on multiple factors, and the oven type / t° being one of them, but I would really appreciate if you could share your own tried and tested recipe or process with me :-)

:-)

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

I actually tried all kinds of flour. Any bread flour has protein content more then 11% works just fine. 

What else ingredients did you put inside? honey? 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I've never tried honey or sugar, just olive oil.

I tried AP flour (from Canada, so higher in protein than US AP ones) and 00, but not yet with the poolish + long cold bulk version

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

I also tried some Canadian flour yes they are higher in protein. When you send the pizza dough to the fridge, did they double the size? Or they doubled, but after the fridge they become flat and dry? 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I only have very few trials under my belts, but so far my yeasted pizza doughs have never budged once placed in the fridge (4C). They never rise much after being placed in the fridge, neither afterwards when I take them out, unless I let them rest at RT for at least a good 4-5 hours (my RT is usually around 20-21 C)

That's also where I'm confused: some recipes recommend placing the dough in the fridge after just an hour rest at RT, when others recommend letting the dough rise at least until it has doubled in size before retarding them..I'm lost again :-)

The other issue I have encountered is that every single time, my doughs end up being either wayyyy too stretchy (meaning stretching out under their own weight) or way too tense and elastic, even after a good rest between my attempts to stretch them out (meaning refusing to stretch out a single bit)

And they all ended up flat and dry once baked (I've tried different methods: pizza stone, pizza steel and cast iron pans....) :-(

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

Have you tested your yeast? Is it possible that the yeast is dead..? Usually when you take it out back to room temperature they should rise up unless the yeast is dead or not very active. 

I tried both. rest at RT 1hour and sent to the fridge/ doubled in size and send to the fridge. From what i see, it depends on how active the yeast would be. If the dough rise up too fast then better send it to the fridge. 

''The other issue I have encountered is that every single time, my doughs end up being either wayyyy too stretchy (meaning stretching out under their own weight) or way too tense and elastic, even after a good rest between my attempts to stretch them out (meaning refusing to stretch out a single bit)''  [This one you really got me! Same flour behaves differently? Or different flour? What about the hydration? Before you sent to the fridge, did you do the windowpane test? ]

Maybe you would like to check this video. This is my channel, it's a pizza video. Hope it helps :) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWlcGl_QO3g&t=491s

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

''TSunnyGailhe other issue I have encountered is that every single time, my doughs end up being either wayyyy too stretchy (meaning stretching out under their own weight) or way too tense and elastic, even after a good rest between my attempts to stretch them out (meaning refusing to stretch out a single bit)''  [This one you really got me! Same flour behaves differently? Or different flour? What about the hydration? Before you sent to the fridge, did you do the windowpane test? ]

I used different flours for each one of my tests, and they all lead to different results...

My yeast is very active and alive, I don't think this is the issue..I think the main issue is the type of flour correlated to the length of the BF, but I'm not sure, that's where the amount of yeast comes into play in my conundrum...

To be honest, I only did a few ''blind'' pizza tests, meaning I just followed the recipes a bit like a dummy,  without giving it much thought and without paying attention to the type of flour I used or the RT...If the recipe said: 1 hour at RT before going into the fridge, I would just do that without doing the windowpane else or anything else...I plead guilty,...That's why I'm here, to educate myself and learn how to apply all the knowledge I've learnt about SD bread baking to pizzas..But to me, it seems like 2 different worlds!! 

Thank you for the link to your video! I'm going to love your channel: bread and Asian cuisine: my 2 passions!!!

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

Base on what you told me, i highly recommend you try the windowpane test before you start bulk fermentation. 

1. Just put flour (any flour with more than 11% protein content ) and water ( cold water, hydration less than 75%), make sure you really well mix them. Just these 2 ingredients, and wait for 2hour, room temperature, and see if the dough can pass windowpane test. If they start tearing, you can try to give a few stretch and fold and wait another 30mins-1hour see if there's any improvement. 

2. If finally they can't, the bulk fermentation will not be good, the result will not be good. (For example, at the end become shaggy or flat or doesn't rise up and puffy) But it'll allow you to save time and stop here, try another flour. 

3. If the dough is good. Then you can add salt, yeast, oil and start bulk fermentation. 

By doing so, you can rule out all the other factors. Just to see if the flour can really develop good gluten. Hope it helps :) 

 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Thanks for the help BirdieandBear!! I really appreciate it :-)

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

Hi Sunny, this is a pizza book that i've been reading. I think it's a must-read pizza book. 

here is the link on amazon for your reference. Hope it helps. 

https://www.amazon.com/Pizza-Bible-Neapolitan-Deep-Dish-Wood-Fired-ebook/dp/B00JYWW490

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

There seem to be lots of recipes in this book, but not so many about the dough basics..Or is it just an impression? I don't care too much about the ingredients, I'm more interested in the dough itself and the ''technical'' steps...Thanks :-)

BirdieandBear's picture
BirdieandBear

there is another book name: 'flour water salt yeast' maybe it would interest you :)  You're welcome. 

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I have this book and have tried a few recipes but without much success...I'm a picky one !!! ;-)))

albacore's picture
albacore

Funnily enough, I too am thinking of trying poolish with my pizza dough. I found this recipe that looks pretty credible, though I haven't tried it yet - it might be worth a look.

Also, there is a phone app called PizzApp that has a poolish option which can be enabled in the settings. It's a great app - very easy to use.

 

Lance

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Oh, this recipe seems to tick all my boxes!! Thanks a lot, Lance!

I have heard of the Pizz'app but am not sure if it's reliable or not...Maybe I should give it a try...Have you??

albacore's picture
albacore

I tried the poolish recipe I linked to over the weekend, but with a few tweaks. I went for 1/3 of the flour in the poolish - 225g of flour with 0.3g IDY. 225g cold water at about 10C. 12 hours at 20C.

Main dough 450g flour with 0.35g IDY and 190g water + poolish, hand mixed and balled up an hour later. 9 hours at 20C. I think the 0.6g IDY in the recipe is pretty much spot on.

Strong flour in the poolish (Caputo Nuvola W280) and weaker in the main dough (Pivetti Pizza & Focaccia, W probably about 220).

The pizzas were OK, but the cornicione was a little bready - not as fluffy as I'd hoped for. I might try it again with 100% Nuvola.

I do like the process tho - nice and easy, no messing with fridge proofs. Our fridge space is precious and I don't like making room for dough boxes.

 

For a domestic oven, you might need a bit of sugar or malt to assist with browning.

 

Lance

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

The source of your frustration finally dawned on me when I read this:

"That's also where I'm confused: some recipes recommend placing the dough in the fridge after just an hour rest at RT, when others recommend letting the dough rise at least until it has doubled in size before retarding them..I'm lost again :-)"

I don't think you've quite grasped the concept that time and temperature are ingredients, especially when it comes to yeast and preferments. Or at least all the ramifications of varying time and temperature.

Amount of yeast (or preferment, ie biga/poolish/levain) is intimately tied to time and temp.

Different recipes just call for different ingredients (including time and temp). 

It's a three-dimensional relationship for straight dough.  6 dimensions when using a pre-ferment like biga/poolish/levain.  and then double that if you use both a room temp ferment and a fridge ferment.

Yeast : temp. Higher temp, needs less yeast. -- Lower temp, needs more yeast.   Because yeast replicate faster and work faster at warmer temps.  "work" means eat sugar and make CO2 and alcohol and flavor.

Yeast : time.  More time, needs less yeast. -- Less time, needs more yeast.  Yeast replicate themselves, so with time, the yeast make more yeast while also working.

Time : temp.  Higher temp, needs less time.  Lower temp, needs more time.  Again, because yeast make more yeast over time, and work and replicate  faster at higher temp.

--

Example for a poolish (or biga):

  1. What percent yeast to use in the poolish?
  2. what room temp is the poolish going to be kept at?
  3. How long to keep poolish at room temp (before putting in fridge)?
  4. What is fridge temp?
  5. how long to keep poolish in fridge?
  6. Do you bring poolish back up to room temp for the mix?
  7. what percent poolish to use in final dough?
  8. what room temp is the final dough to be kept at (before putting in fridge)?
  9. How long to keep final dough at room temp before putting in fridge?
  10. what fridge temp is the final dough to be kept at?
  11. How long is the final dough to be kept in fridge?
  12. do you bring the final dough up to room temp before baking?

So, I hope it's apparent that there are at least eleven (percentage/time/temp) factors that affect "how much yeast goes into poolish".

Other factors, aside from percentage/time/temp that influence the amount of yeast:

  1. Type and mix of flours. Flours with bran and germ (high extraction and whole grain) ferment faster, so they need less yeast. Rye and spelt ferment fast, and need less yeast. 
  2. added sugar/honey. More sugar, less yeast is needed, to a degree.
  3. Is the white flour malted or not? Malted flour ferments faster. Unmalted flour ferments slower.
  4. did you add diastatic malt on your own?

Also... "less yeast" can be translated to "less time" or "lower temp" (within limits) at any step along the way.  Because less time and lower temp means that the yeast will replicate themselves slower, and will ferment (ie, eat sugar and produce CO2/alcohol/flavors) slower.

So the only technically correct answer is "it depends on the recipe."  And that's why you see such a wide variation.

---

 Bottom line:  People generally choose a recipe that fits their schedule as to amount of time available, and when the dough will be ready.

You can pick recipes that will have pizza dough ready in 1 hours, 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, and up.

But that also is constrained by the style of dough/pizza you are making (New York, Neopolitan, pan style, Sicilian, Roman, Chicago, Detroit) And even within a particular style, you can have different flavors of dough by how long you ferment the poolish, and how long you ferment the final dough.

--

Warning: You can never exactly duplicate someone else's flour, water, humidity, room temp, fridge temp, etc., so almost all things will have to be adjusted anyway.

 A good recipe author tells you what to _look for_ and admits you have to adjust things like hydration and times.  

I noticed that the recipe Albacore gave, at https://mypizzacorner.com/pizza-dough/easy-poolish-pizza-dough-recipe-neapolitan-poolish-pizza/

specifically talks about adjusting yeast for time and temp, so that is good. And he also says that the percent of poolish in the final dough can vary too. That is also good to mention.  But he did not give the protein percent of the flour, or say if it was malted or not malted. 

Bon chance, et bon appétit.

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Thank you so much Indaveindy for taking the time to give me such detailed explanations..they make so much sense! I feel like a complete idiot now, not because of you of course, but because I should have taken the time to think things through in the first place! I totally understand the intricacies and correlations between all those different components and part of my frustration is that I have to accept that I have to do my own experiments and trials with my own ''ingredients'' in order to find the perfect recipe and method that suit my needs and taste...I wanted to find an easy shortcut, but thanks to you I understand that it's only me who can go through that process of finding the perfect recipe.

Lesson learned :-)

semolina_man's picture
semolina_man

Gaëlle how are you coming along with pizza making?  Can you post any photos of your recent pizzas? 

 

I haven't seen on this thread a discussion about opening the crust (forming the dough) or baking.   These are essential steps in pizza making.   

As desired in the original post, a puffy ring is achieved by:

- dough recipe

- forming (opening the crust)

- baking

 

Recipe for pizza dough is the least of the concerns in my view.  I use a straight dough from Bruno Albouze, and let it ferment overnight in the fridge.  Easy and good, with 67% hydration which is the sweet spot for my flours and kitchen.   I use between 50 and 100 slap-folds with this dough; I stop when it looks and feels right. 

Opening the crust is critical.  The Iacopelli video linked in the original post did not show him opening the crust.  There are very many videos on how to do this.   A thin center with a thicker puffy ring is done in the opening/forming step.  The dough needs to be taken to near window pane thickness in the center, when forming the pizza.  The dough needs to be opened on a well-floured bench, and many bakers flour the doughball in a large bowl of flour.  The doughball needs to have zero friction with the bench as it is opened into a pizza.   I used a bench heavily covered in cornmeal.   

Baking is critical.  Very high heat and a deck-type oven is needed for proper New York style thin pizza.  Heat greater than 600degF and a large thermal mass provided by a firebrick lined baking volume (oven) is needed.   Anything else is a compromise.  I bake pizza at 550degF in a basic consumer grade oven. The flavor is outstanding, and the top crust and toppings are properly cooked.  However, the bottom of my pizzas are not to my expectations because of the lack of thermal mass in my oven and the inability to achieve 600degF or more. 

So my points on this thread:

- dough recipe and hydration are minor players for successful pizza

- forming is equal in importance to 

- baking which needs to be done at very high temperature with large thermal mass

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I understand...All the different components are starting (slowly but surely!) to make sense and to fit together in my brain, like pieces of a puzzle, but now what I need is practice ...Lots of practice, and experimentations...

My first real ''conscious-of-what-I'm-doing'' pizza dough is sitting as we speak in my fridge...Baking planned tonight...

 

Here is the process I followed (from ''My pizza corner''):

00 Caputo red bag ''chef'' flour / 58% hydration

0.3g of yeast in the poolish / 10h at RT 22°

FInal dough mixed then rest 1h at 24°

Then kneaded by hand until window pane test passes

Rest 1h at 24°

Divided and formed into 2 balls

proofed at RT 24° for 8h then retarded in the fridge (2h) until ready to bake

Taken out of the fridge 1h prior to baking

Baked in a cast iron pan in home oven 280° 

I'll try to be very careful when forming the pizzas to keep the middle extremely thin while keeping as much air as possible air in the ring...

I'll post the results tomorrow :-)

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Not as puffy as I expected...

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Could be many things. But 58% hydration is low, if you want to get an open puffy edge! Try more like 58%. And all the comments above of course are very important, like the way you shape/stretch the pizza is key to getting nice cornicione: lots of videos on youtube, from Vito Lacopelli too and many others.

Still looks like a tasty pizza though!

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

E.g. here an experiment about hydration: https://youtu.be/tTas4Fn9xk4?t=569

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Vito<s experiment is very interesting indeed, but he<s baking his pizzas in a professional oven and not in a home oven..And my understanding is that it changes everything in terms of the best hydration for a pizza dough...

What do you think?

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

I think in a professional oven you can get away with lower hydration because the pizza is cooked very quickly and doesn't lose much water. And at home we have to use wetter dough. I make sourdough pizza following Maurizio's recipe from theperfectloaf.com with around 70% hydration and get amazingly light and fluffy edge (I also have a baking steel, but it doesn't affect the edge - only helps get the bottom more crispy).

Also I have to say, the flavour from sourdough spoilt me, and when I get a pizza even from a great place, I miss that aspect.

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Oh really? light and fluffy edge... using sourdough...?? I'm sold :-)

Next weekend then (arghhh the weeks tend to be very lonnnng when you can only bake on weekends!! :-)

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Yeah, I am no expert on shaping or anything, but the home-made sourdough pizzas are AMAZING, even if I say so myself. I make them Neapolitan-style, with very big and fluffy edge. I haven't tried making home-made yeasted pizzas though...

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

And how do you bake them?

Actually, would you mind sharing the whole process ?? :-)

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

I basically just follow Maurizio's recipe - as close as I can, depending on timing (the only thing is I might add a little diastatic malt for easier browning). The dough can sit in the fridge longer if needed, or more at RT and less in the fridge... It's pretty flexible really. But to be honest, the first few times I made it using the most simple recipe from Patrick Ryan and that worked great too (just mix dough and stick in the fridge! - then ball up for a few hours before baking).

For baking I preheat my steel at the highest temp of my oven for at least 40 min, then shape/top pizza, and slide onto the steel - with the grill (aka broiler) on. The grill annoyingly cycles on and off (would be perfect if it was on all the time!), but it still gets cooked nicely in a few min (I never measured how long - just check it frequently, until it's browned to my liking).

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Yeah..My grill does that as well..That's annoying indeed!

And may I ask what kind of flour you use?? 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Right - if I have I use a stronger 00 flour (with just regular whole wheat flour for the small whole grain component), if not - just bread flour (and my bread flour is not super strong with 12.3% protein, in the UK). Or a mix of the two, if I don't have enough 00. I kinda believe that 00 is better, but haven't actually noticed any difference myself (but I never compared side by side).

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Thanks a lot,  Ilya! That's really useful for me to know those things as now I have a better understanding of the overall battle plan 😊 

Thank you again for your time and your detailed replies, that's really appreciated 

I'll post ny next pizza baking results next weekend, hopefully a sourdough version this time, if my starter survives the heat wave that we have right now! I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep it in the fridge during the week as its smell is starting to worry me despite all my efforts to keep it healthy...

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

@Ilya, just for future reference, here are the Caputo 00 Chef (Cuoco) specs:

http://www.mulinocaputo.it/en/flour/la-linea-cucina/cuoco

13% Protein, W 300 to 320, P/L .5 to .6.

As I understand it, the flour is not malted.  So that may affect fermentation a bit, and also how much it browns or spots in a home oven.

--

Btw, pet peeve, Vito's last  name begins with "i" (aye) not an "ell".  His logo and most sans-serif fonts cause that confusion, where a capital i looks like a lower case l (ell).  

He uses serifs on his name on his Youtube logos, but the way it's styled, sort of cursive, it also looks like an "L". 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Thanks Dave! Indeed, I've used that flour, but also other ones and would be hard pressed to find any difference, at least without a side by side comparison.

And I know about his name, but keep forgetting/not thinking about you - you are right I should be more careful, having suffered from exactly this confusion myself.

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Also by the way, indeed, in Europe most flours are not malted unless explicitly stated, the natural enzyme activity is higher than in North American wheat as far as I understand and generally sufficient for most purposes on its own. For pizza at home a little malt might help with quicker browning, with proper professional wood-fired (or gas) ovens this is also not necessary.

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I don't know much about malted flours and discovered their existence only a few weeks ago, to be honest, when I started looking into pizza flours...I, therefore,  immediately bought a bag of diastatic malt powder because it felt like this was the thing to do, but without having any clue of what it is supposed to change in the recipe (ok, I got that it's supposed to create more browning on the pizza crust..but what's the point in using it for bread; the crust maybe?? I haven't looked into it yet...My brain is all over the place right now, trying to figure out how to produce decent SD bread, to understand why my bread is this or why my crust is that, how to keep my starter alive, how to get a fluffy pizza crust, how to deal with the warmer weather, how to find a suitable Canadian replacement for European flours, for US flours, how to adapt the hydration to the specifics of my flour/temp, how to convert a 100% starter into a stiff or liquid one (grrrr..Hamelman!!!), how to figure out a way to get at last a crust that is not the usual super dense type, etc......:-))))

But thanks a lot for your insights and your help Ilya, again that's extremely helpful and hopefully, all of these pieces will soon start to make sense in my presently completely overwhelmed brain!

But as a starting point, I intend to follow your steps and give Maurotzio's pizza recipe a try this coming weekend, using your recommendations...

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Just had our pizza night, at last!! I followed Maurizio's recipe to the T: the flavor was amazing! I love the addition of whole wheat. I'm really happy with the results (sorry I could not take any pictures!) and the ring was not too far from my Holy Grail edge (puffy and airy)...

I baked it on a baking steel and used the grill like you described in another comment.

I'm being very picky here, but I still need to work on that fluffy edge...I'm getting really close!

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

That's great to hear! I agree the flavour is outstanding, and addition of a little whole grain helps with that.

Without seeing a picture and not knowing what exactly you are aiming for, can't really say what you could try to improve it. Something I haven't tried but that is usually recommended with a home oven, is to pre-bake just the crust with tomato sauce until it puffs up, and then add the toppings. Not sure it would affect the edge. Or just practicing shaping would help? I'm no expert though.

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Ilya, what do you mean by:

Try more like 58%

??

 

Ilya Flyamer's picture
Ilya Flyamer

Ooops sorry, I meant 68!!!

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Thanks for the clarification Ilya :-)

albacore's picture
albacore

Gail, your crumb looks rather similar to mine. I have since seen a comment about poolish on www.pizzamaking.com suggesting that poolish tends to give a bready crumb, not open and fluffy.

Biga might be better in this respect, but biga is a lot more work.

 

Lance

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

Interesting!! I don<t mind some extra work as long as it<s for a good cause ;-)

Thanks for the tip, Lance!

SunnyGail's picture
SunnyGail

I forgot to ask: have your tried biga and have you seen a difference in the final result,?