Basic Caputo 00 Same-Day Dough Recipe Using Commercial Yeast

[Pete-zza]

I frequently get offline requests from members, and especially new members, to recommend a Caputo 00 dough recipe that they might use to try out their newly acquired Caputo 00 pizzeria flour. I usually respond by asking them what kind of oven they have, whether they have or plan to use a preferment of any sort, whether they want a room-temperature fermented dough (as is typically done in Naples), or a cold fermented dough (in the refrigerator). Usually I am able to steer them to one or more recipes posted at threads at the forum. But, for the most part, the demand seems to be for a room-temperature, same-day dough using commercial yeast and baked in a standard home oven.

With this in mind, I recently I made a couple of Caputo 00 doughs that were subjected to only room-temperature fermentation. My first choice would have been to use fresh yeast, as is done in Naples, but I was unable to locate any in the local supermarkets in my area (I know that is hard to believe but many supermarkets are no longer offering compressed fresh yeast). So, I used instant dry yeast (IDY) instead.

The two doughs I made were quite similar, except that I used dried dairy whey in one of them to enhance the browning of the crust. To enhance crust browning in the second dough, I simply brushed olive oil on the rim of the pizza just before dressing it and I put it under the broiler for a minute or so at the end of the bake. Both approaches worked and I got good crust browning. I will discuss the baking techniques I used below.

Here are the two formulations I used, including baker’s percents and gram conversions.

100%, Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 5.77 oz. (163.33 g.), (1 1/4 c. + 1 T. + 1 t.)
57.3%, Water (room temp.), 3.30 oz. (93.53 g.), (3/8 c.)
2.4%, Salt, 0.14 oz. (3.92 g.), (a bit less than 3/4 t.)
1.79%, Olive oil, 0.10 oz. (2.92 g.), (5/8 t.)
0.09%, IDY, 0.01 oz. (0.15 g.), (about 2/3 of a 1/8-t. measuring spoon)
2%, Dried dairy whey, 0.12 oz. (3.27 g.), (a bit over 1 t.)
Total dough weight = 9.45 oz.
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.071
Pizza size = 13 inches

100%, Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 5.84 oz. (165.39 g.), (1 1/4 c. + 1 T. + 1 t.)
57.3%, Water (room temp.), 3.34 oz. (94.77 g.), (3/8 c.)
2.4%, Salt, 0.14 oz. (3.92 g.), (a bit less than 3/4 t.)
1.79%, Olive oil, 0.10 oz. (2.96 g.), (5/8 t.)
0.05%, IDY (0.08 g.), (about 1/2 of a 1/8-t. measuring spoon)
Total dough weight = 9.42 oz.
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.071
Pizza size = 13 inches

What is particularly noteworthy in the above formulations is the small amounts of yeast used. In fact, it is so small that it is almost impossible to measure it out. It is only a fraction of a 1/8-inch teaspoon measuring spoon. Yet, it is enough to allow the dough to ferment/ripen for over 15 hours at room temperature--a good part of which time was spent on my kitchen counter overnight. I first let the dough rise for 12 hours and then reshaped it and let it rise for an additional 3 hours before using. Even after 15 hours, the dough was still quite elastic. I am certain that the dough could have lasted for about another 4 or 5 hours. Next time I will do just that and I may not reshape the dough at all. It is also possible to use more yeast to shorten the total rise time, but the flavors in the crust will be less pronounced. The fermentation time will also be shortened if the room temperature is above 65 degrees F. This is an area where one has to rely on experience to know how to get the dough to the desired condition on a consistent basis.

I used only hand kneading to make the two doughs because of their small quantities. In each case I dissolved the salt in the room-temperature water and then stirred in the IDY, which I felt would do a better job of dispersing the IDY throughout the dough than trying to stir it in with the flour. I then added about 3/4 of the flour (the flour and dried dairy whey in the first recipe) and stirred the flour into the water mixture with a wooden spoon. I next gradually scattered the rest of the flour mixture into the bowl and worked it into the dough ball. The oil was then added and kneaded in, followed by about 6-7 minutes of additional hand kneading outside of the bowl (on a floured work surface). The dough at that point was soft and smooth. The finished dough was lightly coated with oil and placed in a container, covered, and put on my kitchen counter to rise over a 15-hour period as mentioned above.

After the dough was stretched, shaped and formed into a skin in each case, to a diameter of 13 inches, I dressed it simply (in a Margherita style) and baked it on a pizza stone (on the lowest oven rack position) that had been preheated for an hour at 500-550 degrees F. The bake time was about 5-6 minutes. In the case of the dough without the dairy whey, I moved the pizza from the stone to the top oven rack position and finished the baking for about a minute or so under the broiler to improve the top browning of the crust. The broiler was turned on about 4 minutes into the bake cycle, while the pizza was still on the stone. As will be noted in the photos below, the broiler, along with the olive oil I had brushed on the rim of the unbaked skin, did a good job of increasing the top crust browning.

I would say that both pizzas were quite similar. And they were both tasty, although the crusts weren’t as flavorful as those I have made using a natural preferment. It’s difficult to get that level of flavor in a same-day room-temperature dough based on using commercial yeast. Using a considerably longer room temperature fermentation, or cold fermentation over a period of a few days, as was described at the A16 thread, for example, is more likely to improve the flavor profile of the finished crusts.

Yet, as time permits, I plan to continue to experiment with same-day, room temperature fermented Caputo doughs to see if I can come up with something that I think is especially worthy of making.

The first set of photos is for the pizza with the dough using the dried dairy whey (and no broiler browning). The second is for the pizza where I brushed the rim of the skin with olive oil and also used the broiler.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

The pizza with the olive oil on the rim and put under the broiler.

[Pete-zza]

As a follow-up to my last Caputo 00 doughs (reported above), I decided to try another Caputo 00 dough recipe. This time it was the recipe I found in the new book Pizza, by Diane Morgan and Tony Gemignani. The recipe itself is attributable to Roberto Caporuscio, a well-known Neapolitan pizzaiolo in the Pittsburgh area. The recipe calls for use of commercial yeast (fresh yeast) and a fairly long room-temperature fermentation. Unlike other Caputo 00 recipes discussed on this forum, no olive oil is used in the formulation.

As is my practice when trying out a new recipe, I did my best to convert the recipe from volume measurements to weights in order to calculate the baker’s percents for the recipe. I did this primarily to scale the recipe down to a single-pizza size, but also to be better able to analyze the recipe to see what it is all about. After doing this, two things struck me. One was that the baker’s percent for the water (i.e., the hydration) was around 50 percent. I tried different ways to calculate the hydration and each time came up with around the 50 percent mark, give or take a few percent. This value is far lower than what I am accustomed to using for a Neapolitan style pizza.

The second thing that struck me was that the amount of dough for a single-size pizza, about 9.5 oz., is intended to make a 9-inch pizza. This is smaller than I normally use for a Neapolitan pizza for that amount of dough. In fact, I calculated a thickness factor for the dough of 0.149. This is a figure that is greater than what is usually considered “thick” (anything above about 0.13). By contrast, the last two Neapolitan-style pizzas I made and reported on above in this thread had thickness factors of 0.071. I concluded from my initial analysis that the finished pizza would most likely have a quite thick crust and that the crumb was likely to be dense and possibly tough.

Out of respect for author’s rights, especially for a new cookbook, I will not reveal the formulation I used at this point, but I will say that I tried to be true to the recipe, including using fresh cake yeast, which I was able to finally locate. I kneaded the dough by hand, which tended to substantiate my suspicions because it was fairly hard to knead, even though it was only about 9.5 ounces. Yet, it occurred to me that possibly the thick dough and low hydration were intended to produce a good finished product in a standard home oven as opposed to using a classical Neapolitan high-temperature wood-fired oven where a more hydrated dough and thinner crust would work especially well.

The photos below show the finished product. As I suspected, the finished crust was thick and chewy and the rim was large and had few large irregularly-shaped holes or other signs of lightness or airiness. I believe the second photo below shows this lack of airiness. I used very good ingredients, so the taste was satisfactory but not enough to overcome what I saw as shortcomings in the finished pizza. That said, I believe the recipe I used can be improved. I would increase the amount of water used by several percent and I would use a bit of olive oil in the dough. I would also shape and stretch the dough out to around 12 to13 inches.

Peter

[marceld]

(M) Wow! You certainly do a lot of research and careful preparation and measurement. For a Newbie like me, your considerable contributions comprise a pretty steep learning curve but that is not a criticism. I think you should consider collecting all of your posts here and elsewhere? and compiling them into a readable book; one that doesn't promote any one chef's recipe(s) but objectively analyzes the effects of time, temperature and ingredients just as reproduced on this thread. I am mightily impressed. Thank you, Pete.

Marcel

[briterian]

Hi Pete,
Can you explain what you mean by "the crusts weren't as flavorful as those I have made using a natural preferment?"  Can you provide more details about how to create a preferment?  I've used your recipe for the 2 day ferment and the results have been very encouraging but the overall crust could use a bit more 'flava.'

[Wazza McG]

I frequently get offline requests from members, and especially new members, to recommend a Caputo 00 dough recipe that they might use to try out their newly acquired Caputo 00 pizzeria flour. I usually respond by asking them what kind of oven they have, whether they have or plan to use a preferment of any sort, whether they want a room-temperature fermented dough (as is typically done in Naples), or a cold fermented dough (in the refrigerator). Usually I am able to steer them to one or more recipes posted at threads at the forum. But, for the most part, the demand seems to be for a room-temperature, same-day dough using commercial yeast and baked in a standard home oven.

Hi Peter,

Great post and pictures.

I have a question regarding, making pizzas and the standard home oven - like the one I have.  Should the dough be on the wetter side when using a standard oven?  I ask this for two reasons

1.  I can never get the amount of aeration in the pizza base that your pictures show - in general, your pizza bases look moist in the middle compared to mine too .  I do not use a rolling pin and try to form the pizza from the centre outwards like people at this forum have suggested.

2. The pizza is in the oven twice as long as a wood furnace oven.  Admittedly it is not as hot.  Does the base dry out too much because I do not start with enough water?  I am trying to minimise a brick like crunch to the crust.  My pizzas are improving each time - so I am heading in the right direction .

I have my pizzas in the oven for 8 minutes at 250 Degrees Celsius to get the crust  brownish.  I turn it a quarter of a turn every 2 minutes to even out the browning.   I am going to try putting some EVOO on the rim tonight as you suggest to see if that helps and cook it slightly less.  I use, 00 Flour, SAF IDY, seasalt and the basic recipe is similar to what pieguy mentioned in the SF A16 thread.  I hand knead all my dough.

Also, I never get my dough looking like the dough in the film footage at this site.  I have learned so much from watching this.

http://www.pizza.it/lnk_english_faq_ingredients.asp

Go to this link! "Production of Pizza Margherita WMV"

I downloaded it by right clicking and doing a "Save As".  I must of watched it about 20 times so far - and counting.  It's incredible footage!
See how the dough is very aerated as he works the dough - you can actually see air bubbles ripple across the face of the dough base!!

Here is another handy site, in which, you can download footage.

http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/cvt033.asp


I am trying something different tonight by using a poolish to start with that has sat in the fridge overnight - looking forward to a pleasing result.

Great looking pizza briterian!

Regards,

Wazza McG

[scott r]

What a great link, thank you.

I have a question about something on pizzait.  The first one makes total sense, and the order is one that I have heard about and tried before.  The second and third question/answer have me puzzled.  Is "growing time" fermentation time?  Is "low flour" a weak, or low gluten flour?  Are they saying to try saving some water to add at the end of the mix if you are going for a long fermentation?  If so, I wonder why.  If anyone has any insight here it would be appreciated.

Question:   How is he exact sequence of the ingredients for the pizza dough?
Answer:   Water, yeast, flour till you get a compact mass, then salt and just before the end olive oil.

Question:   How is he sequence for long growing time (low flour)?
Answer:   Water (90% of the recipe), then yeast and oil, after the mixing immediately salt and the remaining 10% of the water.

Question:   How is he sequence when for short growing time (normal and low flour)?
Answer:   The sequence is the same as you follow using strong flours, just that using low flour you ad the salt at the beginning, using normal flour you ad the salt in the middle.

[Pete-zza]

Marcel,

Thank you for the thoughtful remarks.

My approach to pizza making is technical in nature and one that I am personally comfortable with. However, it is not necessary to comprehend the technical aspects of pizza making to make a good pizza. My observation is that while there are individuals who want to master pizza making and all its many nuances, most are perfectly satisfied with a good recipe and good instructions. That is the reason why when I experiment with recipes and post my results, such as I did in earlier posts in this thread, I try as best as possible to include volume measurements and detailed instructions to guide the user. For those who have good digital scales and can weigh and measure out things accurately, I provide the precise weight measurements for their benefit.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

briterian,

I assume from your photos that your pizza was based on a dough with a two-day cold fermentation. If so, you will get better crust flavor than if you used a shorter fermentation time, but it won't be so dramatic as to knock your socks off. Going to three or more days will give you even more flavor, but you then run the risk of the dough overfermenting and performing less well in the final bake. When a natural preferment is used, there are many complicated interactions that take place in the dough that yield byproducts that contribute nicely to flavor, color and odor, more so than if commercial yeast is used (even in conjunction with a natural preferment). Many of these factors can be controlled to produce as intense or mild a flavor profile as you may want. Not all natural preferments behave the same, so you will have to find the one that pleases you most.

To learn more about preferments, whether it is for a Neapolitan style dough or otherwise, you may want to go to this thread and read all the posts, including those embodied in links to other threads at the forum: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2027.0.html. You will note as you read the posts that many of our members have been buying starter materials from sourdo.com. They produce reliable and dependable starters that have been around and used successfully for many years.

Peter

[marceld]

(M) Hi, Peter,

I went to www.sourdo.com and clicked on their Italian sour dough starter. There I read about their offering:

" ........  breads that are flavorful and that can be quite sour."

(M) While I love the texture of a San Francisco "sourdough", and even the slightly sour flavor, I am not drawn to a pizza with sour flavor over tones.

(M) As a Newbie I would like to know if it is possible to get that San Francsco sourdough texture without the sourness in the flavor?

Thanks,

Marcel

[Pete-zza]

Wazza McG,

From my experience, the main factors that appear to govern the amount and quality of voids or holes in the finished crumb are 1) to avoid overkneading the dough, 2) use a high hydration, and 3) to have sufficient yeast in the dough at the time of baking, and a sufficiently high oven temperature, so that there is good oven spring when the dough first hits the hot oven surface, such as a stone or deck.

If you look at how things are done in Naples, one of the first things you will learn is that the doughs will be different from what can ordinarily be make in the U.S., and quite possibly what might be made in Australia where you live.  According to a recent post by Marco (pizzanoletana), the most common form of mixer among those pizzerias in Naples he investigated is the fork mixer, followed by diving arm mixers and spiral mixers. These are significantly different from planetary mixers, which tend to be more common in the U.S. Unless you have exceptional hand kneading skills or you have one of the three types of mixers mentioned above, that may explain why your dough doesn't handle quite as well as what you have seen at the Italian website you referenced. Moreover, if you try to follow the dough making instructions used in Naples, including the mixing methodology and knead times, but with a different type of mixer than mentioned above, or maybe by using hand kneading, you may not achieve the same results. I am aware of only one of our members who uses a fork mixer. Several others have gone to DLX Electrolux mixers to achieve better dough kneading results. Beyond them, most of our members who use machines tend to be using KitchenAid mixers, which are not anywhere comparable to the other types of mixers mentioned.

The second important point is hydration. In Naples, a high hydration percent can be used because the pizzas are in the oven for such a short time, as little as a minute or so. According to Marco, if a high hydration dough is baked in a standard home oven, it is possible that it may turn out cracker like. You may also find that unless you are very experienced in working with wet doughs you may have problems physically handing the dough. So, a lower hydration is generally considered wise for home oven applications, along with adding some oil to the dough to produce a measure of softness in the crumb and keep the crust from drying out. In your case, you may want to experiment with hydration percents in the range of 55-60% and see if that produces satisfactory results. As I discussed in one of my earlier posts, I found that around 50% was too low. Above 60% may be too high for home oven applications.

Your oven temperature of 250 degrees C (482 degrees F) is lower than standard home ovens in the U.S., which usually max out at around 500-550 degrees F, but I believe you should still be able to achieve decent results, although there might be slightly less oven spring. I might point out, however, that if you are turning the pizza several times during the bake you will be losing a lot of oven heat when you open the oven door to rotate the pizzas. It would be better to let the pizza bake without opening the oven door if that is possible to do with your particular oven. If you have a top broiler element, that can also be put to good use to increase top crust browning and even to increase the oven temperature above 250 degrees C.

Peter

[scott r]

Marceld,

I doubt that this is a common occurrence, but my starter that I bought from sourdo.com has mutated to have no perceptable sour flavor at all.   Please realize that I am not complaining, the dough does have a better flavor than I can achieve with commercial yeast, just not a sour flavor.  The texture of my dough with this starter is really amazing.  It seems like I have accidentally achieved exactly what you are looking for.

For a while I was thinking that I must not be letting the dough ferment to it's fullest potential, or that I was refreshing with too much flour.  I have done extensive experiments (I make dough almost every day) and have let doughs ferment to the extreme with starter that was refreshed with as little as 10% four and water.  My dough still has no perceptable sour flavor.  At this point I am going to re order a new batch of starters so that I can have a sour flavor if I want it. 

If you are interested in some of my mutated starter I would be willing to mail some to you.  Just give me your address.

[marceld]

(M) Scott wrote, in part:

"If you are interested in some of my mutated starter I would be willing to mail some to you.  Just give me your address."

(M) Thank you very much, Scott. I will definitely take you up on your offer in the spring. I believe Pete made me a similar offer so I can do an A - B "test" 

(M) The reason I'm postponing is that my masonry brick oven is not quite completed and we would like to wait to try "the hot setup" in that wood burning oven. When the time comes (after the rains stop) I will send you and Peter each a small check to cover postal expenses.

Gratefully,

Marcel
marceld@efn.org

[Pete-zza]

Marcel,

What scott r has said is correct. One of the first sourdough pizza crusts I made did not turn out well from a flavor standpoint. It had that vinegary flavor attributable to acetic acid. What you want to favor for a mild but still very flavorful taste is the lactic acid. The preferment scott uses seems to fit that bill.

For purposes of this thread I was not trying to achieve the flavors that come from using natural preferments. What I was hoping to get is a quality Neapolitan-style pizza with decent crust flavor but using commercial yeast in a same-day dough. However, Wazza McG, in an earlier post today, talked about using a poolish. A classic poolish is a preferment made up of equal amounts of flour and water (but not salt) and is left to ferment, usually at room temperature, for several hours. When carbon dioxide bubbles form at the surface and the poolish starts to crest and recede, then it can be added to the rest of the dough ingredients. There's no reason why that approach can't be used with the recipes I have discussed in this thread, but doing so may be difficult to do in one day and will require some modification of the ingredient quantities. The purpose of the poolish is to increase crust flavor and save on total production time.

BTW, you may have confused me with someone else--maybe another Peter?

Peter

[Wazza McG]

The poolish pizza I made last night turned out to be one of my best yet.  So intend to do some further research using one.  Also, I used a pizza stone for the 1st time and that seemed to even out the heat.  Next time, I will not open the oven as much  .

I know I have a long way to go on my hand kneading skills and the use of extra flour when kneading.  The dough was really wet when I added the rest of the ingredients to the poolish - so I kept adding flour until it got some body to it .  I did work off 60% hydration initially, however, I must of blown that figure out when I used the extra flour. The dough was really easy to stretch and quite soft  and seemed to have no strenght to it.  The pizza turned out to be more like a Thin & Crispy than a Neapolitan    Looks like I will just have to keep trying    and document the process a bit more.

Regards,

Wazza  McG

[Pete-zza]

Wazza McG,

If you plan to use a poolish I think you should establish how much poolish to make and adjust the amounts of the rest of the ingredients in the final dough accordingly. Otherwise you may end up with more dough than you originally planned. Not only will you alter the hydration of the formulation but you will also diminish the rest of the ingredients from a baker's percent standpoint.

One way to handle the matter is to first determine how much poolish you want to use. I would start with about 20% of the weight of flour in your starting recipe. Since the poolish is 50% flour and 50% water (to produce a liquidy preferment with 100% hydration), I would then subtract half of the weight of the poolish from the weight of flour and from the weight of water in the starting recipe. That way, the total dough weight will remain about the same when the poolish is ultimately added to the final dough. Also, the final hydration will be the same as you started. If you'd like, you can make more poolish than you will actually use. However, the amount of water and flour for the poolish should be equal, and the amount of yeast (I assume IDY) should be the correct amount for the amount of poolish you actually make. When you are ready to use the poolish, you will weigh out 20% of the weight of flour in the starting recipe. You can discard the rest of the poolish or find another use for it.

Once you determine the amount of poolish you plan to make, then you have to decide how long you want it to ferment. That will tell you how much yeast to use in the poolish. You want to be correct on this as much as possible so that the poolish is in the right condition when time comes to incorporate it with the remaining dough ingredients. For example, if you want to have a 3-hour ferment time for the poolish, you could use IDY (instant dry yeast) at 0.5% of the weight of flour in the poolish; for 7-8 hours, you could use about 0.25%; and for 12-15 hours, you could use 0.04%. These values assume a room temperature of around 80 degrees F (about 27 degrees C) and a poolish water temperature of about 60 degrees F (about 16 degrees C). If your local room temperature is higher or lower than 27 degrees F, you can use less or more, respectively, of the IDY than the amounts recited above.

As previously indicated, you will know when the poolish is ready to use when the surface is bubbly and has domed and started to recede. This doesn't have to be exact, but if the poolish is underfermented (immature) or overfermented (overmature) when you want to use it, it can alter the dough and its finished characteristics. Using the above time periods should keep you pretty close to the mark.

Ultimately, through experimentation, you will find what works the best for your particular recipe, especially the amount of poolish to use and its fermentation time. You may also have to tweak the rest of the ingredients.

Peter

[Wazza McG]

Peter,

Any chance on a heads up for a recipe using a poolish for 2 @ 13" pizzas Neapolitan Style.  I would have the poolish going overnight and let it come to room temperature before using it (2 hours).  The last time I did that and there was heaps of activity happening (bubbles galore) - hopefully it was all good stuff.

I noticed that you have been converting to metric as well - that helps us Aussies out heaps. Thanks 

Regards,

Wazza McG

[Pete-zza]

Wazza McG,

Whatever Neapolitan-style dough recipe you have should be modifiable to use a poolish. I have read dough recipes at Italian websites that call for what appears to be a sponge, which is similar to a poolish, but from the recipes I have seen the sponges are used after only a short period of time, typically an hour or two at room temperature.

To show you how to work the math, let's take the simple Caputo 00 pizzeria dough recipe I presented in the opening post of this thread:

100%, Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 5.84 oz. (165.39 g.), (1 1/4 c. + 1 T. + 1 t.)
57.3%, Water (room temp.), 3.34 oz. (94.77 g.), (3/8 c.)
2.4%, Salt, 0.14 oz. (3.92 g.), (a bit less than 3/4 t.)
1.79%, Olive oil, 0.10 oz. (2.96 g.), (5/8 t.)
0.05%, IDY (0.08 g.), (about 1/2 of a 1/8-t. measuring spoon)
Total dough weight = 9.42 oz.
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.071
Pizza size = 13 inches

Let's now assume that I want to use a 20% poolish, by weight of flour. That comes to 1.168 oz. (20% of 5.84 oz). Since a poolish by definition has a 100% hydration, 50% of it will be flour and 50% will be water. So, the poolish will look like this:

Poolish:
      Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 0.584 oz. (16.55 g.), (about 2 T.)
      Water, 0.584 oz. (16.55 g.), (about 1 T. + 1/2 t.)
      Total poolish weight: 1.168 oz. (33.11 g.)

Although the poolish ordinarily includes all the yeast, in this case it is so little (0.08 g.) that I have omitted it in the poolish calculations just to keep the math simple. If it turns out that you feel that your poolish is weak and overmature, you should be able to add a small amount of IDY to the formulation. In either event, you will want to watch the time of fermentation of the final dough so that it doesn't overferment.

To adjust the basic recipe to reflect the flour and water used in the poolish, I subtract the weight of flour and the weight of water used in the poolish (0.584 ounces each) from the amounts originally specified in the basic recipe. All the baker's percents for the remaining ingredients, namely, the salt and olive oil, remain the same and apply to the original amount of flour, not the debited one. Doing this, if my math and conversions are correct we end up with the following adjusted formulation (I have carried out many of the numbers to three decimal places in case you want to track the math using your own calculator):

100%, Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 5.256 oz. (149.01 g.), (1 1/4 c. + 1/2 t.)
57.3%, Water (room temp.), 2.756 oz. (78.13 g.), (between 1/4 and 3/8 c.) (Note: the 57.3% hydration is with respect to the original amount of flour, not the debited amount)
20%, Poolish, 1.168 oz. (33.11 oz.)
2.4%, Salt, 0.14 oz. (3.92 g.), (a bit less than 3/4 t.)
1.79%, Olive oil, 0.10 oz. (2.96 g.), (5/8 t.)
Total dough weight = 9.42 oz.
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.071
Pizza size = 13 inches

To get the quantities for two pizzas, as you requested, you just double the above quantities of ingredients.

There are a couple of points to consider. Even when you double the amount of poolish to make two pizzas, we are only talking about 2.34 oz. (66.22 g.). Normally, you will make more than that and measure out what you will need (the rest can be discarded or used for some other recipe). The second point is that you can simplify your life somewhat by just using the original recipe (doubled) and add the requisite amount of poolish. That will have the effect of increasing the weight for a single dough ball from 9.42 oz. to 10.59 oz. (300.16 g.). If you wanted to retain the same dough thickness (0.071 thickness factor) of the original recipe, you could simply shape and stretch the dough to about 13 3/4 inches (5.43 cm.) instead of 13 inches (5.12 cm.). I could have suggested this possibility earlier but I wanted you to see how the process works.

I hope you will let us know how everything works out.

Peter

[Wazza McG]

Peter,

Oh, the poolish recipe I was trying to follow used 100% of the water, with the necessary flour and the yeast. The remaining ingredients were to be added later, however, I lost the plot somewhere in the math last time I think.

I still want to go in that direction - using 100% of the water in the poolish.  So, If I had done the math correctly - I should of done something like this?  Please correct me if I am wrong.  I have used the measurements you supplied  .

Poolish - in order of entry.

      Water (room temp.), 3.34 oz. (94.77 g.), (3/8 c.)
                   IDY (0.08 g.), (about 1/2 of a 1/8-t. measuring spoon)  - the amount is dependant on time frame of the preparation and other issues.
                            00 flour, 3.34 oz. (94.77 g.), (? c.)  <<

The remaining ingredients that need to be added to the Poolish to complete the dough - in order of entry.

                           00 flour, 2.49 oz. (70.62 g.), (? c.) <<  Hopefully, I will be able to start hand kneading.

                                 Salt, 0.14 oz. (3.92 g.), (a bit less than 3/4 t.) - near the end of kneading.
                          Olive oil, 0.10 oz. (2.96 g.), (5/8 t.) - right at the end of kneading.

Total dough weight = 9.42 oz.
Thickness factor (TF) = 0.071
Pizza size = 13 inches

Although the poolish ordinarily includes all the yeast, in this case it is so little (0.08 g.) that I have omitted it in the poolish calculations just to keep the math simple. If it turns out that you feel that your poolish is weak and overmature, you should be able to add a small amount of IDY to the formulation. In either event, you will want to watch the time of fermentation of the final dough so that it doesn't overferment.

I agree, it seems that the amount of yeast used is reflective to the time you want it to ferment - apparently, longer fermentation = better flavour, therefore, use less yeast.  Shorter fermentation = less flavour (unknown to me), more yeast is used.   I imagine experience will determine the amount of yeast to be used due to these factors:

1. Your yeast source.
2. The weather climate.
3. How long you want to prepare for.

Can you taste a pizza that has used too much yeast? I can't, so I wonder whether it is a real issue.  I would be more worried about over/under fermentation of the dough.

Thanks for your patients Peter, your feedback is always incisive,  thorough and a pleasure to read - good onya mate.

Regards,

Wazza McG

[Pete-zza]

Wazza McG,

I'd be curious to know what poolish recipe you are using. I raise this point because most poolish recipes I see, even those that are not truly poolish recipes in the classical sense, are intended for bread dough. In the bread world, the amount of poolish can run from 20-80% of the water and around 40-50% of the weight of flour. Using the original recipe I posted, you would exceed those percentages by a considerable margin. 

One of the main purposes of using a poolish is to introduce higher levels of acid to the dough. However, if too much is used, the acids can strengthen the gluten in the dough and reduce its extensibility. I don't know if this will happen in your case because there will be so little flour (2.49 ounces, or 70.59 g.) left to add to the poolish, and also the protease enzymes will be attacking and softening the gluten at the same time, especially in the absense of salt during the pre-ferment period. As an additional concern, if too much poolish is used, the available fermentiscible sugars will be reduced in the final dough because most of those sugars were in the poolish as opposed to the rest of the flour in the final dough and may largely have been consumed by the yeast in the poolish. The Italian 00 flours are already low in enzyme activity compared with most other flours (they have a high falling number and are unmalted), so unless you add a diastatic malt in the hopes of increasing the residual sugar in the final dough at the time of baking, you could end up with a crust that is very light in color.

All that aside, your math is correct. The 3.34 ounces of Caputo 00 flour is about 3/4 c. plus 1 t., and the 2.49 ounces of the Caputo 00 flour is about 1/2 c. plus 1 t. plus 1 t. (all level measures).

I have no idea what your final dough and crust will be like since I have never used bread dough levels of poolish in a pizza dough. So, I anxiously await the results of your experiment.

Peter