How much starter?

[Outatime]

I haven't posted in a while because of some pompous personalities that have nothing better to do than annoy others here. (You know who you are.)

However, I'm hopeful that these idiots will pass me by on this one, and others will profer solid wisdom. 

I'm at the point where I can easily substitute a well-cultured sourdough starter over ADY/IDY in a two-day cold-fermented dough.  The question is, how much starter should I use?  Total dough weight is about 860 grams, cold proofed for 48 hours.

Smart-A comments will be cheerfully ignored.

[widespreadpizza]

OAT,  I would use a lot,  like 20%, but It would be much more productive to do a 24 hour dough with about 5% weight of flour at 65-70 degrees though.  Starter does not work that well in a cold enviornment.  -marc

[Jackie Tran]

OOT are these comments posted in threads you've started or are they via PM?  

Not easy to answer your question as to how much starter to use.  Lots of factors can affect how much you use...

-Water temperature
-how long you plan on having the dough out before you cold ferment.  Your ambient room temp.
-temperature of cold fermentation
-how long you plan on cold fermenting
-how long you plan on taking it out before baking

Easiest way is to just pick a ball park amount and then learn to watch the dough and compare it to your previous commercial yeasted doughs.   The amounts suggested by Marc is a good starting point.

Good luck,
Chau

[pdog]

here is the current dough formula I use with my home pizza's.

Water   564.30   100.00%
Flour     366.80   65.00%
Salt      19.75   3.50%
IDY      1.42     0.25%  (I skip this for long cold ferments - 5-6 days minimum cold ferment)
Oil      5.64     1.00%(I only add this for my kitchen oven temps -550 max. at this temp without the oil its very tough to brown the crust to my likening)

Poolish   50.79   
Water    25.3935 50.00%.
Flour     25.3935 50.00%

      
Final Dough in Grams

flour         538.91
water         341.40
salt          19.75
IDY           1.42
Olive oil   5.64
Poolish      50.79
(starter)

I use cold water to start the dough to keep final dough temp around 72 and ferment in the fridge 4-6 days prior to use.  Make sure your starter is fully activated prior to use.  This will only produce small bubbles on the bottom of the dough after 4 days.  I take the dough out and let it warm 80 minutes prior to stretching.

To be honest though I truly only measure the water and salt accurately.  I have added up to 80 grams of poolish with very little effect except a rise in hydration %.

I have seen one pizza recipe call for as much as 1.5 cups of starter for 7 cups of flour.   

[TXCraig1]

OAT,  I would use a lot,  like 20%, but It would be much more productive to do a 24 hour dough with about 5% weight of flour at 65-70 degrees though.  Starter does not work that well in a cold enviornment.  -marc

I agree with Marc, ~24 hours at RT is the way to go. I've had zero good results with natural cultures and cold fermentation. You'll need to experiment to find the right quantity for your unique situation. The activity level of your culture is also important. Lately, I've been proofing at 77F. With my Ischia culture fully active, I only need 1% max. 0.7% is probably what I should be using, but it's still hard to convince myself to use that small of an amount. On the other hand, if my culture is less than fully active, it might take 2-3x as much.

CL