*URGENT* How much ADY for 18-hour fermentation?

[fabio]

Hi all,

I need to know this ASAP. I have to make dough for 30 pizze for tomorrow night and I found that my Camaldoli starter is not rising properly, so I need to use ADY. What (bakers) percentage of ADY should I use? Thanks very much.

[pcampbell]

I can't help too much and this may be too late anyway. 

It seems for cold, multiple days rise I have been using 0.25% IDY.  For 1 day I might use a touch more, like .30 or .35%.

I know for a 2 hour warm rise I've read about .67% IDY.

I lokoed at the Lehman calculator and the range for IDY is .17 to .5  whereas ADY is .25 to .75%, which is about 1.47 to 1.50x more than IDY... so maybe that will help. I hope someone will chime in who has more knowledge on the subject... but we may be too late! 

[Pete-zza]

fabio,

The amount of yeast (ADY) you will need will depend on your dough formulation, the desired duration of fermentation (I assume room-temperature in your case), and the temperature of your room where the fermentation is to take place.

You might want to take a look at this thread, http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2088.0.html, where I discussed room temperature fermentations using Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. As you will see, it does not take a lot of yeast if your duration of fermentation is long and the fermentation temperature is at the correct value. If you want to try to calculate the amount of yeast (ADY) to use in your case, you might take a look at Reply 27 in the same thread, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2088.msg24035.html#msg24035. The mathematical expression there is not exact from what I have been told, but I think it should be close enough for your purposes.

If you conclude that you won’t have 18 hours fermentation time available to you after all, you can shorten the fermentation time and use more yeast. Some while back, I used a Caputo/high-gluten flour blend (but mostly Caputo) for an 8-hour room temperature fermentation and used o.25% IDY. See Reply 130 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,504.msg28423.html#msg28423, with particular reference to Pizza 4 (also shown in Reply 135). I used IDY but you can increase the baker’s percent to convert to ADY. If you will be using a fermentation time between 8 hours and 18 hours, you would reduce the amount of yeast you would use for 8 hours.

Peter

[fabio]

Thanks for the replies guys; unfortunately they were a little too late. The good news is that after I posted, I kept looking for the answer on this forum and I finally found some clues (other peoples' recipes). I had already scoured this forum to find the answer before posting, but I couldn't find anything. I didn't really expect to get an answer in such short notice, but I figured, "what the hay!"

Pete, you are right (as usual), at a minimum I should have mentioned that I am using Caputo Pizzeria flour and 65% hydration. What I ended up doing is using 2 grams of IDY (because the recipe I found on this site used IDY) for every litre of water; which in my formulation ended up being 0.13% IDY (bakers'). I understand now from reading the links you posted that that would be equivelant to 0.195% ADY (0.13 * 3 / 2 = 0.195). I also understand that it is too much for an 18-hour rise, corroberated by the fact that my dough is growing quite rapidly. I have put it in a cooler place to slow down the process, and I might have to punch it down a couple of times. I will cut-and-shape the dough 2 1/2 to 3 hours before I am going to use it.

The great news is that my Camaldoli starter is not dead! Overnight it finally started bubbling; I will do a few feeding cycles before putting it back in the fridge to make sure it is at full strength.

I will report back here to let you all know how it goes, so that someone with my same problem in the future will hopefully have an easier time at solving it.

[Pete-zza]

I understand now from reading the links you posted that that would be equivelant to 0.195% ADY (0.13 * 3 / 2 = 0.195).

fabio,

If you look at the weight columns of this yeast conversion table, http://www.theartisan.net/convert_yeast_two.htm, I think you will see that the conversion factor is closer to 1.25-1.33 when converting from IDY to ADY. That would make the ADY in your case 0.1625-0.173%. Even that amount for Caputo at 65% will promote a fairly fast rise.

I will be most interested in the flavor profile and the texture of your finished crusts.

Peter

[fabio]

I see. Then either my math is wonky or the conversion from cake yeast to ADY/IDY is not very accurate. The way I got IDY * 3 / 2 = ADY is by combining the fact that you need half the weight of cake yeast in ADY to get the same result, and one-third the weight of cake yeast in IDY. Is this not correct? Thanks for the link.


Edit: From the link, it looks like you need to divide by 2.4 to go from cake yeast to ADY, which would account for the discrepency. With that taken into account, the equivelant amount in ADY of 0.13g IDY would be 0.1625g ADY.

[Pete-zza]

fabio,

I often cite the theartisan.net yeast conversion table because it is said to be just about the most accurate yeast conversion table around. If you compare the weight columns as I mentioned in my last post, you will see that the conversion numbers are not fixed, as one might intuitively conclude (but don't ask me why the differences). But the differences don't really matter all that much. For example, as a practical matter, one using standard measuring spoons is not likely to be able to distinguish between 0.1625% ADY and 0.173% IDY. Even using a special digital scale that can weigh small amounts of lightweight ingredients, you might not be able to tell the difference. I have such a scale and if you breathe while using it you can change the readings. Also, the weight of yeast will usually change with time as it takes on moisture, or dries out, etc.

I believe that you are right about the general conversions of cake yeast to IDY and ADY. In fact, some bakers use 40% instead of 50% when converting from cake yeast to ADY. The theartisan.net table is convenient to use because it helps avoid or minimize the types of math errors that one can easily make in converting from one type of yeast to another. Also, the table gives both weight and volume conversions in one convenient place.

Peter

[cd1168]

out of curiosity. why does the amount of yeast matter that much? will it taste  bad  or rise too much? if the latter, isnt it possible to keep an eye on it? just wondering as i do not use idy, only the starter from sourdo. thanks chris

[Pete-zza]

Chris,

Ideally, you want the dough to be just right at the time you want to use it, that is, that the dough not be overfermented or underfermented. If one uses too much yeast, and/or the dough fermentation temperature is too high, the dough can rise too fast and possibly overferment before its desired time of use. Conversely, if the amount of yeast is too low, and/or the dough fermentation temperature is too low, the dough may not rise fast enough to be ready at its desired time of use. It isn't always possible for someone to watch the dough to look for visual clues to take remedial steps if either overfermentation or underfermentation is imminent.

Peter

[scott r]

Also, you may notice that a very slow rise using tiny amounts of yeast provides you with a different look and feel to the final crust.  Obviously flavor is effected as well.  I have noticed that you have mentioned liking difaras (very fast rise, same day) and UPN (very slow 2 day or longer rise at room temp).  Of course one place is using wild yeast, and one is not, but if you do some experimenting you may find that you prefer a very slow rise over a faster one.

[cd1168]

well thanks for that information and it is logical as using a natural starter sometimes if i get impatient and cook in less than 24 hours (cold rise) the dough seems soury. but the longer i leave it is less soury and more tasty.

with repsect chris

[Pete-zza]

Chris,

There are also practical considerations involved. For example, you don't want the dough balls to peak and to be ready to use at 3 AM because you used too much yeast. And you don't want to have to punch the dough balls down one or more times because too much yeast was used, as fabio was contemplating. It might be OK if you are talking about a few dough balls, but if you were a pizza operator and had a couple hundred of them, that would be a great inconvenience and a big distraction. In fabio's case, he was trying to time the preparation of dough balls to be used at a specific time--when his guests would be arriving. So the quantity of yeast to use in relation to the temperature of the room where the dough balls were to be made and held was an important decision for him to make, and he had to make it fairly quickly.

Peter

[fabio]

Update:

My pizza came out fairly well in the end. I did have to punch down the dough a couple of times, during bulk fermentation.

I want to mention a couple of things I noticed that are a little bit off topic, but I think are worth mentioning. I expected the dough to be significantly different from the usual natural starter dough I make, especially in handling. There was virtually no difference as far as I could tell, aside from smell.

And here's a difference in cooking that I wasn't expecting: when I put the pizza in the oven, the center part (everything but the outer "cornicione" or crust) would puff up into a giant bubble. Lifting an edge would let out the trapped air, deflating the bubble, but only momentarily. In order to let it cook properly I had to poke a hole in it, which would then leak some of the ingredients onto the stone, making a mess. I started stretching the dough less, and adding more toppings, which seemed to solve the bubble problem, but obviously steared the pizza away from true neapolitan. I am baffled as to why using IDY over a natural starter would cause that problem. Maybe somebody here can shed some light? One final difference, which I noticed in cooking, which I was expecting, but not to the extent that I noticed: the dough was not nearly as burn resistant as the same formulation with natural starter. In fact, on several occasions, the pizze actually caught fire! And even more often, the bottom of the pizza would burn. To solve that, I had to let the oven temp drop a bit. Which of course veered the pizza away from neapolitan again.

Finally, the finished product: It was obviously not as flavorful, but it was also a little gummy and somehow heavier (digestion-wise).

I'm making it sound like it was horrible, but it was in fact very good pizza, but not nearly as good as my usual dough. I have some relatives here from Italy (about 1 hour away from naples) and they loved it. They told me that even most pizzerie in Naples don't make it that well. That said, they definitely were not my best pizze.

I hope that helps someone, someday.