pizzas from homemade starter -- 9/28

[Howard]

Made some pizzas last Saturday (9/28). Ingredients list;

383g KAAP flour
243g water
34g homemade starter
8g olive oil
5g salt
4g sugar

Used the preferment calculator on this site to arrive at the above proportions. Two day room temperature ferment (day two split into two dough balls for final rise). Baked on a pizza stone in conventional oven for 7 1/2 minutes at 550F (second rack from top). Whole Foods dry aged mozzarella cheese, canned San Marzano cherry tomatoes for sauce (my wife's tweak, wt?) with fresh chopped garlic, slice tomatoes and dried basil. The attached photos are a bit weird color wise due to daylight/tungsten combination in spite of white balance adjustment. I should have used a flash.

This pie could have gone another 30 seconds to a minute longer in the oven. Still quite good. The dough ingredient amounts are where I like them. That doesn't mean future tweaks are out of question. The sauce made from cherry tomatoes was a bit watery, but the flavor was good. I should have strained them a bit though.

[Howard]

A couple more photos. The under carriage char not quite there (again, a little more time in the oven would have helped). And a picture of the tomato can for reference.

[PuRowdy]

Looks pretty good, I never had much luck with my yeast starters.  Glad to see you are. 

Did you buy your starter or catch it wild?

[dvto2]

I did a couple of pizza's using my wild starter tonight.  I have a standard bread recipe that I used for the pizza dough which I adapted from SourDom's Pane Francese recipe over on the sourdough forum. 

The dough goes like this. 

I keep 80 grams of starter going all the time, sometimes stored in the fridge.  Lately it's  been 25% rye, 75% whole wheat at 100% hydration (i.e. 40 grams flour and 40 grams water).  To start a dough I dump 80% of the starter and add 10 grams rye, 80 grams wheat, and 90 grams water and let ferment for 8 to 12 hours.  For today's recipe, I added the rest of the ingredients for about a 75% hydration:

1) 25 grams rye 
2) 475 grams bread flour
3) 2 tsp kosher salt
4) 350 grams water

The proofing goes like this:

1) mix into a ragged mess and leave ten minutes
2) knead for 10 seconds and leave 10 minutes
3) knead for ten seconds and leave for 10 minutes
4) knead for 10 seconds and leave for 30 minutes
5) fold the dough and leave for an hour.  Folding the dough involves stretching it into a long band, maybe 6 times it's width, and folding into thirds on itself.  Then repeating this across the width of what you just folded. 
6) fold the dough and leave for one hour
7) fold the dough and leave for one hour

At this point you can shape the dough into a loaf and place it into a baton, and let proof for 6 to 8 hours, or overnight in the fridge.  For the pizza, I divided the dough after the third fold and just let it proof in a couple of bowls all day.

I am still working on the stretching and baking part.  I found out I could crank my oven up to 550, which I did for about an hour.  I found some quarry tiles I've been using lately.  Tonight I stretched the dough onto a rectangular baking sheet for a prebake before putting toppings on it.  the best thing about homemade pizza in my house is everyone gets to make their own pie.  I used homemade sauce from the garden with sauteed red onions and garlic, mozzarella, prosciutto, and a little parmigiana on my pizza.  My dough stretch was a little uneven and and so was the bake on the two pizzas I did, but it was my best pizza yet.  My dough on the second pizza was the better of the two, as I prebaked on the baking sheet for three minutes, flipped it over and topped it, and then directly on the tiles for another 8 minutes or so.  The thinner crust came close to my hometown favorite which is kind of crispy.  Mine was light and crispy at the same time.  I'll try to post some pictures when I get a little more consistent with the bake.