New to the Forum

[kkgator]

I live in Gainesville, FL where making pizza crust can be a challenge depending on the time of year!  I currently have a small 1-2 pizza wood burning oven from a BBQ company.  I am adding this forum to my list of reference sites as I found out about this site from "Pizzaquest".  I currently own a small side business called "Strega Nona's Oven" and have been to 5 events this year.  It is my hope to turn the side job into my full time job.  I am a current GM in a catering business and have 15 years experience in the catering business.  I have been making/testing pizza recipes every week for the past 2 years.  It is my hope to have a larger mobile oven to be able to work more events.  The oven we currently use is 350lbs and is moved by hand.  Our next step is to mount our current oven on a small trailer until we can earn enough capital to move up in size.  I have researched this extensively and IMHO although the mobile ovens from "Fire Within" are nice & I'd like to have one, these oven trailer combos can be produced for half of the cost.  My intention for being here on this forum is knowledge.  Expanding my knowledge & possibly helping someone with the knowledge I currently have as it pertains to catering/restaurants.

I am currently working with Caputo 00 Pizzeria Flour (55lb bags) because in my humid environment I have found that the 00 can handle the extra humidity in Florida.  I have used fresh dough & I have used frozen dough using 00 for the events I have worked.  I typically use an 18-24 hr ferment.

I have just started feeding an Ischia Starter & I hope that it can impart more flavor to my dough.

[jwmadchef]

I have been experimenting with a culture as well along with many different methods.

I am using a 00 flour from Italy that i like better than caputo its called pivetti.

100 flour
64   filtered water
3    kosher salt
.25  IDY
12 percent active starter
I will also add a very small amount of dark rye flour into either my starter or my dough. Also a touch of wheat germ. And have also messed around with a tiny bit of Barley Malt as well instead of sugar.

add water, starter and yeast in mixing bowl (spiral mixer) mix 80 percent flour until hydrated about 5 minutes, let rest for 20 minutes. Wet mix for another 10 to 12 minutes adding in the remaining flour during the final 5 minutes. Add the salt near the end as well.

If it is wintertime about 60 degrees out i will bench rest with my heater at 68 for two hours and then bag the dough and into a 38 degree refrigerator for 24 hours before balling. Once i ball i will once again let cold ferment for another 8 hours. I keep them in "Keep it cool" Bags with ice blankets and temper them to 55 at an event.

good luck. The starter imparts great flavor and dough development. It does not like a cold ferment though. Thats where the IDY comes in. You almost get all the advantages of a 3 day cold ferment dough between 30 or 40 hour window.