Finally Am Trying to Activate My Starters

[Jackie Tran]

Norma after feeding and doubling, I re-measured using a measuring cup for liquids and got 186gm. 
My previous measure was 210 using the measuring cup for dry ingredients.   Obvious to me that the 2nd time around (186gm) that starter was much more frothier/bubbly at time of measurement. 

So I would say between 190 and 210, maybe 200gm for an average cup of active starter???

[norma427]

Norma after feeding and doubling, I re-measured using a measuring cup for liquids and got 186gm. 
My previous measure was 210 using the measuring cup for dry ingredients.   Obvious to me that the 2nd time around (186gm) that starter was much more frothier/bubbly at time of measurement. 

So I would saw between 190 and 210, maybe 200gm for an average cup of active starter???

Chau,

I used two different measuring cups and filled them to the top rim.  I also got different numbers than you did.  I don't know what an average would be unless enough members would weigh a cup of active starter.  I can't be sure if someone adds more flour or less to make their starter active,  but there could be a difference in the weight, in my opinion.  I just don't know.

Norma

[norma427]

I removed the sour dough ball from the refrigerator at 7:00 pm tonight.  It didn’t look like the dough ball rose anymore while in the refrigerator.  First picture is of dough ball right after I removed it from the refrigerator.  Second pictures is underneath dough ball after ½ hour warm up time.  Third picture is right before I opened the dough ball. Time for warm up was 1 ½ hrs.  This sourdough pizza was baked on my new soapstone.  I also took temperatures every 15 minutes of how hot my soapstone was getting.  I haven’t tested this soapstone out long enough, but the results I had today aren’t any different than my regular stone. The only difference I saw today was the pie was easier to load into the oven. As for the taste of the crust, I really enjoyed it.  I turned my broiler on to try and get the soapstone higher in temperature before I did the bake of this pizza, but even after 20 minutes the temperature only went up 30 more degrees.  I wasn’t going to fool around with the oven or soapstone more, because it was really getting hot in my kitchen.

This pie was dressed with my regular sauce from market, blends of Foremost Farms cheese, green small tomatoes, and grape tomatoes from my garden.  After the pie was removed from the oven, it was dressed with opal basil and regular basil.

This is the formula I used for this sour dough pizza


Sour dough starter spit with KASL  14" PIE

Total Formula:
Flour (100%):                269.92 g  |  9.52 oz | 0.6 lbs
Water (64%):                172.75 g  |  6.09 oz | 0.38 lbs
Salt (1.75%):                    4.72 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.85 tsp | 0.28 tbsp
Total (165.75%):        447.39 g | 15.78 oz | 0.99 lbs | TF = 0.102515

Preferment:
Flour:      5.18 g | 0.18 oz | 0.01 lbs
Water:    3.45 g | 0.12 oz | 0.01 lbs     some spit
Total:     8.64 g | 0.3 oz | 0.02 lbs

Final Dough:
Flour:           264.74 g | 9.34 oz | 0.58 lbs
Water:          169.29 g | 5.97 oz | 0.37 lbs
Salt:                      4.72 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.85 tsp | 0.28 tbsp
Preferment:         8.64 g | 0.3 oz | 0.02 lbs
Total:            447.39 g | 15.78 oz | 0.99 lbs  | TF = 0.102515

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures

Norma

[Jackie Tran]

Nice work Norma.  My experiment with the starter vs IDY today was a botch.  At least you got pies out of your experiment.  There were several reasons for the botched experiment, but I will spare you the details. 

chau

[norma427]

Nice work Norma.  My experiment with the starter vs IDY today was a botch.  At least you got pies out of your experiment.  There were several reasons for the botched experiment, but I will spare you the details. 

chau

Jackie Tran,

Can you just tell me what might have happened?  I was anxious for to see you try out the starter.  Thanks for saying the pie was nice work.    I wish I could have baked this pie in my oven at market to see what difference it would have made.  My home oven doesn't get to that high of temperatures.  Even with the soapstone, there didn't seem to be much difference in how my oven bakes.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Can you tell us  how the latest pizza compared from a crust flavor and/or texture standpoint from the Lehmann preferment pizzas with the commercial yeast? Any other salient observations?

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

I enjoyed this crust more than any in the past. Although my temperatures in my oven weren’t hot enough like my BBQ grill set-up to make a really fast pie, the taste of the crust was the star.  The interior was soft and the crust had a slight crunch.  I ate 3 slices and am thinking about going back for the 4th.  This sour dough ball was easy to open and seemed about right in terms of being at the right time to open it.  At the last minute I turned the broiler on to try and get the rim darker, hence the darker rim.  There seemed to be good oven spring and the opened dough did have bubbles in it.  I think if I would have left this dough at room temperature all day, there would have been problems.  This pie was baked in 6 minutes.  I know I am going to enjoy experimenting with more sour dough.  My preferment Lehmann dough at market isn’t this good.  There wasn’t any sour dough taste to the crust. 

Norma

[scott123]

Norma, without broiling, what temp were you able to get the stone to? How long did it take for the stone to get to the peak oven temp? What's the distance from the broiler element to the stone?

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

It's good that you have been able to see the flavor/texture progression from the standard straight Lehmann NY style to the preferment version with the commercial yeast and, finally, to the naturally leavened version. It will be interesting if you can make some 16"-ers in your deck oven at market.

Peter

[Jackie Tran]

Jackie Tran,

Can you just tell me what might have happened?  I was anxious for to see you try out the starter.  Thanks for saying the pie was nice work.    I wish I could have baked this pie in my oven at market to see what difference it would have made.  My home oven doesn't get to that high of temperatures.  Even with the soapstone, there didn't seem to be much difference in how my oven bakes.

Norma

Well I have several theories of why the IDY ball was twice the size of the ischia doughball after 4-6 hours.  1st I don't think I used the ischia at it's peak activity as I mentioned before.  

The 2nd reason will surely give Peter a good laugh.  I have recently switch from using ADY to IDY and have noticed that IDY works about 25% better than my ADY despite using the appropriate conversions.  I quickly heard Peter's voice in the back of my head saying, "but Chau....you never rehydrate your ADY...coud this be the reason?"  With this truth, I must agree.   I had become so accustomed (read lazy) to using ADY un/partially rehydrated that I had naturally made adjustments by using a bit more.  So my conversion presented earlier may very well be flawed and not accurate.

3rdly, part of today's failure could have been due to the short ferment time of only 6 hours.  After some thought I realized that my original experiment comparing Starter vs ADY spanned the course of 4 days.  If memory serves me correctly they didn't rise equivalently the first day and only equalized after 2-3 days.  Both doughballs in the original experiment were sour after 4 days.  This tells me they were very fermented and that both yeast had ample time to work to their fullest potential.   Had I cut that experiment down to 6 hours like today, I'm confident i wouldn't have gotten the same result.   Just as todays experiment showed drastically different dough rise rates, had i let these balls go for 12+ hours at room temps, they may have equalized out, that I can't be sure.  
So my original conversion rate may not be accurate for several reasons.  1) I likely didn't rehydrate that ADY and 2) would likely only be accurate for long ferments (2-5 days) but not for same day doughs.

Anyone using that conversion should keep this in mind and make adjustments accordingly.  I did get to use the active ishcia starter today for tonight's pizzas for the inlaws and the flavor was good despite using only a small amount of it.  

Sadly b/c I'm not (currently) a huge fan of starters or cold ferments, I'm not sure when I will get around to finding an accurate conversion rate for same day emergency doughs.  

Chau

[norma427]

Norma, without broiling, what temp were you able to get the stone to? How long did it take for the stone to get to the peak oven temp? What's the distance from the broiler element to the stone?

scott123,

Without the broiler my oven temperature in an hour with the soapstone was 505 degrees F on the soapstone. My home oven doesn’t get very high.  There is only 4 1/2 inches from the top of the soapstone to my broiler element. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma,

It's good that you have been able to see the flavor/texture progression from the standard straight Lehmann NY style to the preferment version with the commercial yeast and, finally, to the naturally leavened version. It will be interesting if you can make some 16"-ers in your deck oven at market.

Peter

Peter,

I am glad I have been able to see the flavor/texture progression from when I started making the Lehmann dough, forward to the preferment Lehmann dough and now finally to the naturally leavened pizza.  It will be interesting to see if I can make a 16" pizza with a naturally leavened version of the Lehmann dough.  That might take a lot of work and I am not confident if I will be able to do that, but I am not one to get up too fast.  Did you ever decide on anything from the starters Chau and I measured?  I was also thinking about using one of my glass measuring containers, but didn't do that today with the active starter.  I can see how someone that doesn't use weight measurements can have problems in making a pizza, just as I did when I first starting making pizza.

Norma

[norma427]

Well I have several theories of why the IDY ball was twice the size of the ischia doughball after 4-6 hours.  1st I don't think I used the ischia at it's peak activity as I mentioned before.  

The 2nd reason will surely give Peter a good laugh.  I have recently switch from using ADY to IDY and have noticed that IDY works about 25% better than my ADY despite using the appropriate conversions.  I quickly heard Peter's voice in the back of my head saying, "but Chau....you never rehydrate your ADY...coud this be the reason?"  With this truth, I must agree.   I had become so accustomed (read lazy) to using ADY un/partially rehydrated that I had naturally made adjustments by using a bit more.  So my conversion presented earlier may very well be flawed and not accurate.

3rdly, part of today's failure could have been due to the short ferment time of only 6 hours.  After some thought I realized that my original experiment comparing Starter vs ADY spanned the course of 4 days.  If memory serves me correctly they didn't rise equivalently the first day and only equalized after 2-3 days.  Both doughballs in the original experiment were sour after 4 days.  This tells me they were very fermented and that both yeast had ample time to work to their fullest potential.   Had I cut that experiment down to 6 hours like today, I'm confident i wouldn't have gotten the same result.   Just as todays experiment showed drastically different dough rise rates, had i let these balls go for 12+ hours at room temps, they may have equalized out, that I can't be sure.  
So my original conversion rate may not be accurate for several reasons.  1) I likely didn't rehydrate that ADY and 2) would likely only be accurate for long ferments (2-5 days) but not for same day doughs.

Anyone using that conversion should keep this in mind and make adjustments accordingly.  I did get to use the active ishcia starter today for tonight's pizzas for the inlaws and the flavor was good despite using only a small amount of it.  

Sadly b/c I'm not (currently) a huge fan of starters or cold ferments, I'm not sure when I will get around to finding an accurate conversion rate for same day emergency doughs.  

Chau

Chau,

Thank for explaining what happened today.  I think these starters are supposed to be long room fermented to get the best flavors in the crust out of them.  I still have a lot of learning to do with them, also. You just have to be patient, in these long ferments 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I plan to review the numbers tomorrow. In the meantime, can you tell me how much starter you used by volume?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

I plan to review the numbers tomorrow. In the meantime, can you tell me how much starter you used by volume?

Peter

Peter,

Do you mean for the preferment dough formula I used today?  If it was that it was 5% of the water on the preferment calculating tool.  I figured preferment percentage of water was 40%.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Noprma,

Your numbers are correct. You may have weighed the starter rather than measuring it out volumetrically, but I estimate that you used a bit over 1 1/2 teaspoons of the starter. Does that sound right?

Peter

[norma427]

Noprma,

Your numbers are correct. You may have weighed the starter rather than measuring it out volumetrically, but I estimate that you used a bit over 1 1/2 teaspoons of the starter. Does that sound right?

Peter

Peter,

That sounds about right of the amount of starter I used.  I can't be sure, because I was just watching the numbers on the scale, but will remember that I can measure by volume the next time.

Thanks,

Norma