Ishcia Dough Disaster

[parallei]

So…the second try with the starter didn't go so well.  I tried an extended, room temperature dough with the Ishcia and it was a disaster.  When I tried to stretch the skins, the dough just ripped apart.  Imagine a poorly knitted, loose piece of lace with large holes!  I ended up making a small loaf baked at 750 deg for a few minutes and one very odd shaped, patched up pie.  On the plus side, the dough tasted great.  Here’s the deal…..

Flour: 100% Caputo
Hydration: 58%
Starter: 5% of total dough weight
Salt: 2.5%.

•   Mix, rest about 10 min.
•   Knead with dough hook (Cuisinart) 8 min.
•   Bulk rise 70 – 72 deg. 20 hrs.
•   Ball. Then 72 deg 3 hours.

There are a couple of things to note.  The Caputo (which isn’t that old) had dry clumps in it.  I broke them up while sifting and weighing.  The flour worked fine last week.  The starter certainly seems active.  I took it out of the fridge, feed it, and in 1 1/2 hours it had risen about 4 inches.  After 20 hours, the dough had easily quadrupled in size.  The photo below started as 540 grams.  After balling, the dough went wild again.  The photo below shows the balls after 2 hours.

Any thoughts on why the dough just ripped up while stretching?  Is it just blown out from to active/long a fermentation? 

[widespreadpizza]

parelli,  it is totally blown.  I do not know why,  but I have to use less starter than some other people here.  Just last night,  I used 3.5 percent aiming for about 20 hours at 68.  had to stall it in the fridge.    I really may go down in the 1-2 percent range.  Any time a 00 based dough more than doubles,  its all down hill from there and the dough will be extremely weak.  I have been trying to underferment doughs lately,  because my doughs are just too ripe sometimes.  you zan still have great results with a dough that still has a little life left in it. I would recommend trying less and less starter,  till you get to a point where it could have used a little more time. -marc

[parallei]

Thanks for the response Marc.  At least now I've leaned how a blown out dough looks and acts!

Paul 

[Jackie Tran]

I had the same impression when I first read the post.  I'm starting to read more and more reports of blown doughs with a 3% starter at 20+ hours of room temp fermentation.

Member Ponzu posted about his Austrian Starter here.  Read reply #22 and BSO's experience in reply #44
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12010.20.html
Member Stray Bullet had a good bake with 5% wild yeast starter and a 14-15hour ferment at 70f. Reply #62
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12025.0.html

I agree Marc experimentation, experimentation, experimentation.

[Essen1]

Paul,

I had the exact same problem today with a dough, albeit for bread, using Pillsbury AP flour. I don't know how old the damn flour was but the absorption rate was extremely poor and it showed, after fermentation, the same characteristics than yours in the pic.

But Marc might be right in regards to the amount of starter.

Maybe an overnight cold rise may work better, then balling it and doing a room temp rise.

[parallei]

Mike - I did the cold rise last week and everything was fine. Can't leave good enough alone (as you're well aware).....This dough did TASTE a lot better than the cold rise.

JT - Thanks for the links.  I'm going to try again dropping the % starter.

Paul

[ponzu]

I agree with the above analysis.  The fact that it rose so much and the weakness of the final dough certainly go along with overfermentation in my recent experience.  I guess the one suprise is that the dough tasted good.  It wasn't overly sour?  An over fermented ischia should have a very assertive flavor.

The other possibility is a contaminated starter.  You might try a wash with a portion of it and try again.  Alternatively you could feed a little bit of starter with a lot of flour and water a la Tartine Bread's instructions for an overly fermented levain.  (I read this today at Powells books in Portland.  What an exciting approach to baking!)

[parallei]

Ponzu - Yes, it tasted good.  A bit assertive, maybe, but not too sour.  But then I like strong flavors.  You've given me something to think about.  I'll keep messing around with it.   I made sourdough pancakes with it Friday night; they were great!