Starters - For Dummies

[Mjs16]

I have been making pizzas for a few years now. I don't have a lot of experience with starters outside of Tony G's recipes in the Pizza Bible. I can obviously follow those recipes but can someone explain to me like I'm an idiot (because I am one) how I can incorporate those into my other doughs? I am having a hard time understanding the hydration when using a starter. Any basic advice would help

[PapaJawnz]

You are wanting to convert non-starter recipes to starter?  I am finding you can get pretty close.  A good approach is to identify the amount of time the commercial yeast will ferment the dough based on room temperature (or fridge) with TXCraig's commercial yeast prediction chart.  Then follow-up with the same time/temperature ferment on his sourdough prediction chart.  You will be able to judge the amount of starter used based on comparing the common denominators between both charts.

When it comes to building the actual dough, I assume your starter is 100% hydration meaning equal parts of flour and water?  If you recipe requires say 20% pre-ferment (starter) for your recipe, and you've calculated that 20% starter based off of your flour at 100%, so if the recipe uses 800g of flour, you will be using 20% of that which is 160g of starter.  Since the starter is 80g flour, and 80g water, you will subtract that amount of flour and water from your original recipe.  This keeps your hydration correct.

I find it's easier to just build the dough in a dough calculator if you have all the bakers percentage, then let it calculate the final dough formula for you 

Commercial yeast fermentation prediction chart -
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,26831.msg349349.html#msg349349

Sourdough fermentation prediction chart -
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=22649.msg229864#msg229864

So far I've been able to convert a number of recipes over to sourdough using this method.  The trick is using your starter at it's right time.