Peter,
I took a quick glance at the two links. To be honest I get a little confused on semantics sometimes. Is the starter that I created with around 1 cup of KASL, equal grams of water, & 1 gram of beer yeast a poolish or a sourdough. Technically it is commercial yeast but I assume it starts out as a poolish and will develop into a sour dough as it increases in bacteria growth. I started this concoction based on things that Marco has written. I may have misunderstood what he wrote, but it seems that what I have, is more of the old mother dough method that the old country used to use. I thought it would be good because at room temp it makes calculating finished dough temp easy. I based my first three dough balls on 8% of the flour weight. According to Marco I should have used 5% of the water weight which would have lowered the criscito to about half. On another day I then did as he mentioned by adding much more crisito to the bread batch, as Italian bread bakers do. I used my second dough ball today from the first batch of three using 8% flour weight and it made a nice tomato pie. I will attach pics and the formula tomorrow. The dough raised much better on the second pie.
I will insert Marco's post below this one. After rereading Marco's post and considering the small amount of criscito I may not add any additional yeast and use a warm ferment instead of a cold one. Peter, please let me know if I am interpreting Marco correctly.
Hi Pftyalor
Yes I am the same pizza from egullet ;-), well spotted!
Anyway, I 'll try to explain again as I did yesterday, and hope that this time the post doesn't get lost...
First of all some terminology, which will help understand each other:
In Naples when we speak about dough, we relate all the ingredient against the water, as it is the first ingredient that goes into the mixer or the the mixing bowl.
Secondly, we need to distinguish between the mixing method (direct vs indirect) and levening agents (Commercial yeast vs Natural yeast or "CRISCETO" as it is known in Naples).
Poolish, Biga, Pan at l'ancienne, etc, are all indirect mixing method. They consist of premixing a large quantity of flour, water and fermenting agent, which will the be part of the final dough. This preferment, it is responsible of much of the flavour of the final dough, but also, because of some reaction, of a certain crispiness in the final baked product. Under this aspect we should look at the action of enzymes not only for the resulting flavour (as it is only mention in american baking bibliography), but also at the resulting weakening of the gluten and improve digestibility.
When we talk about Starter, natural leaven, wild yeast, we are talking about a microflora of wild yeast and bacteria which strive in a mix of flour and water. A piece of this mix, can be used only as starter for the next dough when added in minimum ammount or as a preferment, adding also the test of the acidified mix, when added in large ammount.
The old dough method, is a way of using a piece of acidified dough from the previous batch (thus including salt and usually made with a natural wild yeast starter otherwise doesn't have leavening power). When using a culture strter from another regions, like the Italians one, I strongly reccomend not to use the old dough method, but instead the Mother dough method.
In the mother dough method, a piece of dough made with only water and flour plus the culture starter, is refreshed with a 50% addittin of water and flour, and after is left to ferment for a minimum time of 3-6 hours, a piece is cut off (the dauther) and used as fermenting agent or in large quantity as preferment. This way, thanks to the strong innoculating of the original mother dough into the refreshment, there is a better chance to avoid contaminations.
Having clarified the above, I can now tell you that the main difference in Naples between Pizza dough and Bread dough made both with CRISCETO (WILD YEAST STARTER) is in the ammount of CRISCITO used.
In the pizza dough it has to be minimum, in percentage that vary from 1 to 5% of the water's weight, and it is only needed as fermenting agent, assuring a slow and appropriate fermentation.
When in the previous post, I was talking about the wrong recipe in the booklet, it was because it was developed following the "disciplinare" guideline adapting it from the recipe using commercial yeast. The recipe calls therefore for a large ammount of starter to assure an 8 hrs rise. That is wrong for what I said above and in the previous post.
Now, talking about Una Pizza, I would like to start saying that I admire Mr Mangieri for the passion and effort he is putting in his project. However I have to say that he is a bit still away from the right ancient method of making a neapolitan dough with a natural leavening.
Whilst he is using indeed a starter for his dough, and this is indeed an ancient method, the process he is using is not right, as it follow some breads technique. I don't like to disclose his methos, as he was kind enough to show it and explain it to me, and on the other hand I also made an effort to explain where it was wrong. It could also be that since my visit in November he has taken my suggestion on board, and have change something in better. However there was a reason for my comment on eGullet.
Pasing on the Caputo flour, I need to know which one are you using. There are several Blue bags made by Caputo, of which one has a pizza picture on it and the label states: "PIZZERIA". Is it this one that you are talking about?
Let me know, and if anybody has any further questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Ciao
