Pizza Sputnik...

[ponzu]

Thanks Scott. 

Since there is nothing measurably wrong with the starterin terms of appearance, activity, or smell, I will try this;  extra feedings and a 3 % starter bulk rise.  I hope this will balance out the dough and allow it to get to Nasa quality!

Results to follow.

AZ

[scott r]

give it at least 2 feedings if not more out of the fridge, and possibly feed more than you usually do.   (it will take longer to be ready for re feeding and use of course).   a healthy looking/smelling starter is not enough, the final bake determines if a starter is ok or not, and you are having issues there.   

[ponzu]

Tonights bake was a terrible dissapointment.  In the interests of full disclosure I will report in all of its gory detail.

Dough was 59% hydration, 3% starter (40 % hydration starter), 2.5 % salt,  100% caputo.  Standard mixing routine described above.

Observations.

1.  Starter:  I gave the starter extra feedings-6 in all, with a higher percentage of flour.  It is very interesting how different the starter acts at different hydrations.  This was almost like a wet dough.  It doubled in a couple of hours with a very spongy structure, but didn't explode out of the contaner like my 45% hydration starters had been doing.

2.  Dough after mixing.  I was so excited.  It was truly NASA quality in terms of sheeting and strength.  Smooth.  White.  beautiful dough.

3.  Fermentation: I bulk fermented at room temp for 16 hours, during which time it doubled in volume and developed lots of tiny bubbles.  When i dumped it out of my cambro container onto the counter the dough tore into 2 pieces one sticking to the bottom of the container.  The inside of the dough was like a sponge with a honeycomb of thousands and thousands of gas bubbles.  The dough balled nicely and felt loose and elastic.  I proofed in ball form for 4 additional hours.

4.  Shaping:  At first I thought, "this dough feels great."  It opened up so easily.  Absolutely no rebound.  But then with my normal slap technique it just continued to open up stretching into windowpane thiness that could easily tear.  I had to really baby the dough to shape it and load it.  Not my most beautiful skins.

5.  Taste:  Sour with poor structure and inadequate oven spring.  The dough was moist but not gummy.  No crispness.  Much sourer than my 7 day CF dough with 1O % starter.

Given the taste and the flimsiness of this dough I strongly suspect over fermentation.  Especially considering how strong this dough felt out of the Bosch.  I guess next time I will bulk rise intil it expands by 50% instead of 100%.

Another bump on my road to better pizza.  The show must go on.

Below is photo documentation of the carnage.

Criticicism, contructive or not, is welcome.

AZ

[scott r]

Knowing that you have never made a wild yeasted dough that had texture as good as commercial yeast, I suspect you have a sick starter on your hands.   Have you ever tried a wash?   Unfortunately I know first hand what its like to have an imbalanced starter  I suspect that even with half the rise, you still would have had a sour crust.   

[ponzu]

Knowing that you have never made a wild yeasted dough that had texture as good as commercial yeast, I suspect you have a sick starter on your hands.   Have you ever tried a wash?   Unfortunately I know first hand what its like to have an imbalanced starter  I suspect that even with half the rise, you still would have had a sour crust.   

Scott,

At the risk of sounding like an abused woman in denial about her assaulter....

I'm not willing to give up on this starter just yet.  It has a lovely smell.  It rises beautifully.  It has absolutely no sourness in less than 4 day cold fermentations.  The dough has good structure in these formulations, even if not as good as the IDY dough.

I've had a starter go bad before and it looked/acted nothing like this one.

I'm changing up too many things at a time to assume that this starter, and not my technique is at the root of my poor bakes.
Again, this dough could not have been better in structure coming out of the Bosch.

I have never had a great bulk rise dough in any form.  I am very likely missing the sweet spot in terms of the timing of the bulk rise.

All that being said,  I am not aversed to the idea of washing the starter and trying again.  I just wish there was a more objective way of determining that the state of my starter was not strong.

AZ

[scott r]

too sour too early is a bad sign, but im not saying to give up on it!

[Jackie Tran]

Is this 3% starter of the flour weight or the dough weight?  Your dough very well could have been overfermented.  I guess the way to tell is to redo the experiment with a smaller batch so you don't waste a large batch.  Do you think it could have doubled and stayed that way for awhile before you noticed? or did you divided as soon as it doubled?

A bulk rise to double shouldn't lead to overfermentation unless it sat there doubled for an extended time.  Also the dough structure that you described sounds appropriate and unlike an overfermented dough.  Maybe let it bulk for a shorter time dividing it as soon as it doubles?

Chau

[ponzu]

Is this 3% starter of the flour weight or the dough weight?  Your dough very well could have been overfermented.  I guess the way to tell is to redo the experiment with a smaller batch so you don't waste a large batch.  Do you think it could have doubled and stayed that way for awhile before you noticed? or did you divided as soon as it doubled?

A bulk rise to double shouldn't lead to overfermentation unless it sat there doubled for an extended time.  Also the dough structure that you described sounds appropriate and unlike an overfermented dough.  Maybe let it bulk for a shorter time dividing it as soon as it doubles?

Chau

Thanks for your thoughts Chau.

It seemed to be still expanding when I balled it.  One thing that was striking was how there appeared to be tons of Tiny bubbles on the suface of the dough, the inside of hhe dough was just completely sponge like indicating ferocious fermentation activity.

The starter was 3% of flour weight.

I baked the final 2 dough balls today for breakfast.

Later I will post a photo of a dough ball from this AM documenting what I believe to be the appearance of overfermentation ( a blown out dough ball.)

also a photo of a margarita with egg.

In other news I have ordered some ceramic insulation tape to make thermosleeves with a longer time of action.

[ponzu]

Is this 3% starter of the flour weight or the dough weight?  Your dough very well could have been overfermented.  I guess the way to tell is to redo the experiment with a smaller batch so you don't waste a large batch.  Do you think it could have doubled and stayed that way for awhile before you noticed? or did you divided as soon as it doubled?

A bulk rise to double shouldn't lead to overfermentation unless it sat there doubled for an extended time.  Also the dough structure that you described sounds appropriate and unlike an overfermented dough.  Maybe let it bulk for a shorter time dividing it as soon as it doubles?

Chau

Also, chau why does the dough structure not sound overfermented to you?  In my experience sourness and loss of gluten strength are signs of overfermentation.  Is this not the case in your experience?

[scott r]

sorry to jump in here, and I hope chau still responds, but if your dough had only doubled it should not have been overfermented, unless maybe it was in the fridge for many days (where you can't judge fermentation at all by volume expansion), but I believe you are dealing with room temp doughs.  I have had many doughs made with healthy starters that were able to double, be punched down, and then doubled again without too much sour flavor.  Two signs of an inbalanced starter are a dough that is sour without much volume expansion, and a dough with broken down gluten without lots of volume expansion.   Another sign is lack of easy browning, and I noticed in this pic the browning is only on the very top of the dough, and not around to the sides.   

[scott r]

Do you think it could have doubled and stayed that way for awhile before you noticed? or did you divided as soon as it doubled?

Chau

This doesn't make sense to me.   With my starters the dough definitely does not stop rising when it has doubled.   With almost every flour I am able to at least close to triple before it stops rising.   Does your dough stop rising at double? This is another bad sign, but your pizzas do look very good chau, so im sure yours is fine!

[Jackie Tran]

   Hey guys, just a little miscommunication going on here.  Let me just clarify what I was thinking and trying to say...

Alexi from your initial post #22, I read that the dough structure had thousands of tiny holes and glanced over your description of it being "honeycombed" or sponge like.  Thousands of tiny holes doesn't necessarily mean overfermentation to me, but honeycombed and spongelike definitely does to me.  This falls in line with the sourness & lost of dough strength you experienced and to me it does sound like a well-fermented dough.  Did you think the 2 pies you baked this morning also displayed some signs of overfermentation?

Scott r, I agree with you about a dough not being overfermented when it doubles.  I routinely let my doughs bulk up to slightly beyond double and have never experience overfermentation with doubling.  I think my misinterpretation of Alexi's description of the dough earlier with "doubling" lead me to state I didn't believe it to be overfermented.  But sourness and a weakening gluten structure does.  So we have somethings here that make sense and some that don't.   Alexi, I have read some members letting the dough triple in size without issue.   If I remember correctly, when I used 3% starter and allowed it to double, it seemed to double much sooner than 16 hours, but I'm reminding myself that I live at high altitudes again. 

Scott r, my dough doesn't stop rising when it doubles.  "Double" is rather a subjective term, so I was trying to gauge if Alexi's dough was still rising or not.  The few times I've had overblown doughs, they have stop expanding and are very airy, but usually they were more than doubled in size.  I could be wrong here, but with a small % of yeast, I think you can have a overblown dough that isn't tripled (or more) it's orginal size.   I think guestimating the size/volume of dough can be difficult as well, especially if it's a wet dough (and I know Alexi's isn't), overfermented, and the dough starts to lose structure and flatten out. 

Scott r, thanks for saying my pies look good btw.   I think I know what I'm doing  but I'll have to admit that I don't always do things by the book and make adjustments more by observation.   So my experience with starters could very much have been different from what is commonly seen. 

[scott r]

good, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't experiencing something unusual.    Sounds like we are on the same page.  I think its important we use terms like fully risen rather than just say doubled,as it does cause lots of confusion, especially for the newer pizza makers that congregate here and old farts like myself. 

[Jackie Tran]

Right.  One man's double could be another's triple. 

[ponzu]

Right.  One man's double could be another's triple. 

I would have thought "doubling" was a fairly objective observation.  I mean 1.5 quarts to 3 quarts Iis the only definition of doubling right?

[Jackie Tran]

I would have thought "doubling" was a fairly objective observation.  I mean 1.5 quarts to 3 quarts Iis the only definition of doubling right?

Alexi, I didn't mean it to sound like you weren't being objective, I was just saying that a visual estimation of a dough doubling (which is what I do personally) can be subjective.   If you measured the rise at 3 quarts, then I would definitely say that is an objective doubling of the dough.  Like I said, I do believe your dough to be well/overfermented but at 3% starter, it should have been ok for a total ferment time of 20 hours.  That is not unusual or unheard of.   Also the fact that it was potentially overfermented by the time it had doubled seems a little unusual to me as well.   But there ought to be a reasonable explanation here that we are missing aside from different starters behave differently. 

Alexi, if you are interested in redoing this experiment, I would consider bulk rising for 8 hours.  Divide and ball and allow the balls to double, however long that takes.  If your starter is truely that active, the dough should be ready quite a bit less time than 20 hours. 

Chau

[ponzu]

Alexi, I didn't mean it to sound like you weren't being objective, I was just saying that a visual estimation of a dough doubling (which is what I do personally) can be subjective.   If you measured the rise at 3 quarts, then I would definitely say that is an objective doubling of the dough.  Like I said, I do believe your dough to be well/overfermented but at 3% starter, it should have been ok for a total ferment time of 20 hours.  That is not unusual or unheard of.   Also the fact that it was potentially overfermented by the time it had doubled seems a little unusual to me as well.   But there ought to be a reasonable explanation here that we are missing aside from different starters behave differently. 

Alexi, if you are interested in redoing this experiment, I would consider bulk rising for 8 hours.  Divide and ball and allow the balls to double, however long that takes.  If your starter is truely that active, the dough should be ready quite a bit less time than 20 hours. 

Chau

No worries.  Just needed a clarification.  Not everyone bulk ferments in cambro containers. Got it.

Here are the pictures I mentioned.  Does everyone agree this dough is overfermented in appearance?

[Jackie Tran]

Alexi, in my estimation I would say that particular dough is ready to be used as is.   I can see that another 4 hours could put it over the top.  When I divide and ball after a bulk rise, I usually let the doughballs approximately double or a bit more before baking.  When I turn my doughballs over, I will often look for a dough pattern similar to what is being seen in your dough.  So it is in line with a well fermented dough 4 hours from that pic. 

[ponzu]

Alexi, in my estimation I would say that particular dough is ready to be used as is.   I can see that another 4 hours could put it over the top.  When I divide and ball after a bulk rise, I usually let the doughballs approximately double or a bit more before baking.  When I turn my doughballs over, I will often look for a dough pattern similar to what is being seen in your dough.  So it is in line with a well fermented dough 4 hours from that pic. 

Interesting. 

For the past 4 years I have been exclusively cold fermenting.  In that setting this dough is way over the top blown out.  The big bubbles on top.  the over expansion of the honeycombed co2 bubbles.  in my experience these are all signs of overfermentation in the setting of cold fermentation.

The fact that this dough looks appropriately fermented to you in the setting of a bulk rise implies that Scott is right and my culture is out of whack.  Likely too many lactobacilli for the yeast population judging by the sourness and premature breakdown of gluten???

I will try washing the culture.  (Already begun)

Please keep the comments coming guys.  This is how a mistake becomes an asset.  Your comments are truly appreciated.

Alexi

[scott r]

you can always leave some of it unwashed and compare