zaman, thanks for the info, why do I feel like I have never heard of such a thing. Where does marco ever explain letting the dough more than double before division. I am baffled and curious at the same time. -marc
Marc,
I believe you are correct. I don't ever recall Marco advocating that one allow the dough to double or triple. In fact, my recollection is that he said that the dough wouldn't rise much during the bulk fermentation and that the subsequent rise after dividing the bulk dough would not lead to a doubling or anything like that. However, it is important to keep in mind that while Marco acknowledged the use of commercial yeast (e.g., 2.5 grams of fresh yeast for 1650 grams of flour in one of his early posted dough recipes), he personally worked almost exclusively with natural starters (Crisceto). In that context, it would not have been unusual to have a 20+ hour room temperature fermentation. In fact, at Reply 61 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1298.msg12548/topicseen.html#msg12548, he pointed out that that is what Da Michele and Antica Costa, both of whom used Crisceto, did in their pizzerias.
Based on Larry's post saying that Roberto uses 11 grams of fresh yeast for 55 pounds of flour, I calculate the baker's percent for the fresh yeast to be 11/(55 x 16 x 28.35) = 0.04409%. Since I don't use fresh yeast and think in terms of IDY, 0.04409% fresh yeast would convert to about 0.01469% IDY. That is close to what I used in some of the experiments at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7225.0.html (leaving out those doughs that you and I made without any commercial yeast), but I don't know that 0.04409% fresh yeast (or 0.01469% IDY) is enough to cause a dough to double or triple or quadruple after 24 hours at a temperature of 55-60 degrees F. However, it does occur to me that it might be possible to get the dough to "blow" if the dough boxes are downstacked without prior cross-stacking, even at room temperature. This is speculation on my part since I don't work with commercial batches of dough in dough boxes to know whether what I am saying has credence.
One of the observations I came away with when I played around with 20+ hour room temperature fermentations is that the dough should benefit from occasional punchdowns or stretch and folds, even if it means having to let the dough rest for a while to recover. Otherwise, it can be difficult to work with the dough without experiencing excessive extensibility or severely compromised gluten strength (for example, due to the protease enzymes) or tearing. I think that is why Barry Spangler, at least at one point, used a series of three stretch and folds for his 24-hour room temperature fermented dough. Of course, as Barry noted, one can reach the point of no return where no amount of re-kneading or otherwise re-working the dough will help. No doubt, Roberto has found the right combination for his purposes. Yet, it seems to me that something is missing in this story.
Peter