My trip to Naples and back

[Wario]

Nespresso? No, prosciutto, what else?

[Wario]

Was looking at some photo's from a few months ago i have forgotten to post. 

[Wario]

And this was an amazing pie i made last summer...

According to Benthe! 

[Wario]

Hello, i am back to direct dough and i like it!

[Wario]

The first pizza was good, but a little dry in retrospect and the second one was a failure. Also i found the lower hydro created less oven spring than preferable so today i am making a quick direct dough with 72% water. Quick as in mixing it up as we speak in the kitchen aid and hoping to bake me a pizza tonight.

Naturally i used more yeast than i would have if i made the dough yesterday. But i didn't because i did not feel like pizza. Things change!

[Wario]

The higher hydrated direct dough gave exactly the end result i was looking for. A pizza with lots of air.

Since this dough is a hassle to handle i ball it up no longer than an hour prior to baking..

[Wario]

More direct dough, 65% hydro and 3% salt. Baked at 509 Celsius in 90 seconds.

[Wario]

Prosciutto again. I could not resist.

It was a direct dough with 70% water. I miscalculated the amount of salt and added a lickle too much. I know pizzeria's where they would add even more. 

[TXCraig1]

That pizza is just begging to be eaten portafoglio (wallet) style.

[Wario]

Went with a little less water (62%) because i kept burning the bottoms with 70% but there was little to no rise in the dough and almost zero oven spring. The pizza was disgusting.

I guess i'll have to find a way to not burn the bottoms while using a wetter dough because this sucks.

No picture, it looked like the one i posted earlier with no rise also.

[Yuvalvv]

If the dough had almost zero oven spring, hydration isn't the culprit - at high baking temperatures, and with a properly fermented dough, even 55% hydration can produce a properly risen, fluffy dough (though not with the volume and open crumb structure of a higher hydration dough).

In fact, most pizzerias in Naples that make classic Neapolitan (not modern Neapolitan) use hydration in the 57–61% range, which is considered standard. I doubt anyone visiting these pizzerias would call their pizzas bad The issue was likely something else, possibly under-fermentation—but without a picture, it's impossible to tell.

[Heikjo]

Little rise and no oven spring sounds like a yeast/fermentation or temperature issue. Less water will have a small effect on fermentation, but not so much that it would drastically change the rate of fermentation.

No changes to the yeast level are needed when adjusting the dough absorption up or down within reason. Even though the total dough weight will change, the amount of water present, or the change in water content will have minimal impact upon the yeast fermentation properties. This does not mean that you will not see a difference between doughs with differing absorption, it just means that the difference you see will be the result of a softer, more hydrated dough, which will probably expand more easily, or exhibit more/different flow than a lower absorption dough, rather than the effects of fermentation. Keeping this in mind, when we make a very soft dough with a high absorption, it is common to reduce the yeast level to some extent, not because of the difference in fermentation rate, but because the softer dough ball as well as shaped dough may exhibit excessive flow properties and flatten out too much with a higher yeast level.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?msg=216695

[Wario]

If the dough had almost zero oven spring, hydration isn't the culprit - at high baking temperatures, and with a properly fermented dough, even 55% hydration can produce a properly risen, fluffy dough (though not with the volume and open crumb structure of a higher hydration dough).

In fact, most pizzerias in Naples that make classic Neapolitan (not modern Neapolitan) use hydration in the 57–61% range, which is considered standard. I doubt anyone visiting these pizzerias would call their pizzas bad The issue was likely something else, possibly under-fermentation—but without a picture, it's impossible to tell.

Sure i know, but when risen correctly i have no reason to call my pizza's bad neither even though i am not Neapolitan.

But it is true that it's not the lack of water to blame for the lack of rise - nor the boogie - but using less water and the same amount of yeast did slow the rising process down a lot, causing the dough not to be fully risen when i was ready to eat. So the thing to blame here was a lack of time and not the water.

[Wario]

Little rise and no oven spring sounds like a yeast/fermentation or temperature issue. Less water will have a small effect on fermentation, but not so much that it would drastically change the rate of fermentation.
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?msg=216695

More water does speed up the rising process i have noticed, which can have a huge impact.

Ow @Yuvalvv no photo, i ate the disgusting pie before i could take one. It was the only thing for dinner unfortunately. But it resembled the one i posted earlier that also had no rise.

[TXCraig1]

More water does speed up the rising process i have noticed, which can have a huge impact.

I agree it can. How much depends on how big of a change in hydration and where you are in the hydration spectrum - going from dryer to wetter will have a bigger effect than wetter to very wet.

For example (typical NP-ish dough), going from 60% to 62% probably doesn't have a meaningful effect on fermentation speed.

Increasing hydration by 10 points from 58% to 68% may require 25% less IDY.

However a 10 point increase from 65% to 75% may only need a 9% reduction in IDY.

[Yuvalvv]

I regularly make doughs with varying hydration levels, ranging from 55% to over 80%, and have never noticed a significant difference in fermentation rate within this range. I also never needed to adjust yeast quantities based on hydration, as this range provides sufficient biologically available water for yeast metabolism.

That said, when hydration drops below 50-55%, yeast activity does noticeably decrease due to limited water availability restricting metabolism.

[TXCraig1]

I regularly make doughs with varying hydration levels, ranging from 55% to over 80%, 

All other things, including workflow, being equal?

[Yuvalvv]

All other things, including workflow, being equal?

Oh yes, I'm very meticulous about it The workflow is mostly the same. Often, I make different doughs for various purposes side by side (separate containers for each dough), all baked roughly at the same time, fermented for the same duration, and with the same yeast %. The only real variable is dough weight, which does vary, though it's usually less than 1kg, so that shouldn't have a significant impact. FDT and temperatures are consistent, with all doughs fermenting side by side at RT. The formulas don't differ drastically either, no sugar or other fermentation 'accelerators' or 'inhibitors', and the same amounts of DMP if it's used.

I personally never gave much thought to adjusting yeast amounts based on hydration. If it does make a difference, it's negligible. Tom's comment quoted above pretty much confirms this.

[Wario]

Tonight i made a pie from the same batch.  It had risen now and tasted okay. But dough with more water has my preferente ATM.

[Wario]

I regularly make doughs with varying hydration levels, ranging from 55% to over 80%, and have never noticed a significant difference in fermentation rate within this range. I also never needed to adjust yeast quantities based on hydration, as this range provides sufficient biologically available water for yeast metabolism.

That said, when hydration drops below 50-55%, yeast activity does noticeably decrease due to limited water availability restricting metabolism.

Me too and recently i have made almost exclusively dough containing 70% hydro so when i lowered only the water of my recipe and the rise took so much longer, i blamed the water. But, temperatures vary often in the Frozenlands, so perhaps a colder night was the cause for the lack of rise coincidental just at the same time when i changed my recipe.