I'm just starting to try the 00 style and first trys not to impressed. I'm guessing without the high heat of the wfo i will not see success. so you use 65% hydration and u used 3g of yeast for all 6 combined? If you would share you making process it would be appreciated. Nice pies. I begin my wfo build this summer.
To be frank, I never even entertained the idea of using Caputo 00 until well after I had finished building my WFO, so I guess I couldn't say how it might come out in a 500f bake. Maybe someone else can chime in and give their opinion. However, My impressions are below, with the exact procedures I used for my dough...
Impressions:1. The flour absorbs water well, and seems like I could go a bit higher in hydration than 65%, but I did not.
2. After the dough sat for about 6 or 7 minutes to autolyse for the first time, working it was easy and I did not have to add ANY bench flour.
3. Silky-smooth and not an ounce of pasty residue on my hands after kneading
4. Using no oil at all in my bulk container, the dough came out of the container on its own fairly easily. I just placed the container upside-down and let gravity pull it out. The dough seemed really insistent on sticking to itself.
5. After baking, it was incredibly light, chewiness was about half that of my crusts made with regular high gluten flour and had a beautiful tenderness that made me count down the bites til I got to the edges.
In summary, I liken the Caputo to a well aged, tender
Wagyu filet, whereas my best efforts before were akin to an excellent Angus Sirloin, while certainly nothing to complain about, it just does not compare to Wagyu.
Procedures I used:1. Doing the math backward, I wanted to end up with 260 gram dough balls, so I needed 155.22g Caputo 00 flour per pie, along with 100.9g of water per pie. This is 65% hydration, with the other couple of grams or so being salt and yeast.
2. I measured out exactly 931g of flour and set it aside, measured out exactly 405g of cold water and 200g warm water(all bottled/purified)
3. I dissolved 3 grams of dry yeast in the warm water, then added the cold water and most of the flour(approximately 80%), just to get it all pretty wet. (I know 3 grams of yeast seems like too little, but it really isn't, especially if you let the dough ferment slowly over a few days in a colder environment.)
4. I used a plastic cake spatula to cut in the flour and get the mixture working a little.
5. I covered the bowl and let it sit for about 5 minutes
6. I then used the remaining 20% of the flour to clean off the spatula and proceeded to work in the rest of the flour by hand, occasionally rubbing my hands to remove anything that was sticking at that point, as well as cleaning the inside of the bowl to be certain that 100%(or close) of the flour would find it's way into the dough.
7. After about 5 minutes of working the dough, I again covered it and let it rest about 10 minutes.
8. I sprinkled in 22 grams of Mediteranian sea salt(Costco Japan) and began giving the dough an extensive kneading of about 8 to 10 minutes. By this time, the bowl was completely clean and I was working on a stainless steel countertop with absolutely no bench flour...and without any sticking issues at all.
9. I let the dough rest for another 5 minutes, gave it a final 3 or 4 minute kneading and placed it in an appropriate sized Rubbermaid container.
10. I set the container into my refrigerator, which is currently set to 3 degrees C (37.4 F), for 3 full days.
11. On the morning of my pizza party, I pulled the dough out of the fridge and let it rest for about an hour and a half at 17 C (62.6 F). This is just what my house is like in Winter. I do not try to do any temp control just for pizza.
12. I weighed and balled into six 260 gram doughballs and placed in my plastic dough trays which I lightly floured the bottoms of. They were balled at 1:30pm and baked over the course of the evening from 6:00pm to 8:30pm.
Hope that helps! It may not be the perfect procedure, but it worked for me! I wish you the best with your WFO this summer!! My advice to you is once you start, rest not until it is done!!
