The Entire Pizza Making Process I use at the Garage

[EthanPizza]

EthanPizza,

You might take a look at this post, at Reply 151 at:

https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=576.msg11774#msg11774

The above post was in 2005 and at a time where I did not know much about preferments, including poolish, but my recollection is that I regularly fed my sourdough starter with equal amounts of flour and water by weight.

Peter

Nicely! Looks like my direct dough with my 1:1:1 flour/water/starter sourdough approach, only NY style instead of Contemporary Neapolitan. That crust air looks amazing on that pie. I generally did around 16% starter when using my Starter. Why I'm in love with the poolish, is it allows me to create a preferment with 8:8:1 flour/water/starter, which seems to allow me to bake in my roccbox in 1 to 2 minutes without the gummy issues I had been struggling with.

[mrabear13]

Hello All

I started up my Ischia Culture about a month ago and have finally made a few batches of pizza with it, following TXCraig's method as closely as I can (thanks Criag!). It seems to be working well and making great pies (my goal is to perfect the classic Neapolitan Style).

My question for those with more experience using Ischia cultures, is about flavor. These pizzas are tasting wonderful when I get a bite with the toppings, but when I eat the crust alone it has a very strong sourdough flavor. I am left with a lingering tangy aftertaste less reminiscent of pizza and more like a slice of strong sourdough bread from a bakery or deli. Is this the flavor you get when you use a sourdough culture? I could understand it might be the whole point, and maybe just not be for me personally. But I also see a lot of posts about how different a mature starter is from a newer one. Does this sour taste diminish as the culture matures?

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts!

[HansB]

Hello All

I started up my Ischia Culture about a month ago and have finally made a few batches of pizza with it, following TXCraig's method as closely as I can (thanks Criag!). It seems to be working well and making great pies (my goal is to perfect the classic Neapolitan Style).

My question for those with more experience using Ischia cultures, is about flavor. These pizzas are tasting wonderful when I get a bite with the toppings, but when I eat the crust alone it has a very strong sourdough flavor. I am left with a lingering tangy aftertaste less reminiscent of pizza and more like a slice of strong sourdough bread from a bakery or deli. Is this the flavor you get when you use a sourdough culture? I could understand it might be the whole point, and maybe just not be for me personally. But I also see a lot of posts about how different a mature starter is from a newer one. Does this sour taste diminish as the culture matures?

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts!

Your feeding regimen and temp determines the flavor of your starter. How often do you feed your starter?

[sk]

Expanding on what HansB said.  The longer the culture rests after feeding, the stronger it becomes.  Once you understand your particular culture's habits, you can make dough just but before or at peak rise of the culture.  At that point, Ischia is very mild.  Warmer temperatures will also result in it reaching peak at a faster rate.

[Brent-r]

Daniel DiMusio has a book "Baking Bread" and in it he has a few pages on how time, temperature and water percentage effect the flavor of a dough.  He explains how yeast and lactobacilus favour one set of conditions, and or the other and can make either more alcohol/CO2 or acetic acid.  I can send you
the details in pdf if you send me a private message with your email.

[EthanPizza]

Hello All

I started up my Ischia Culture about a month ago and have finally made a few batches of pizza with it, following TXCraig's method as closely as I can (thanks Criag!). It seems to be working well and making great pies (my goal is to perfect the classic Neapolitan Style).

My question for those with more experience using Ischia cultures, is about flavor. These pizzas are tasting wonderful when I get a bite with the toppings, but when I eat the crust alone it has a very strong sourdough flavor. I am left with a lingering tangy aftertaste less reminiscent of pizza and more like a slice of strong sourdough bread from a bakery or deli. Is this the flavor you get when you use a sourdough culture? I could understand it might be the whole point, and maybe just not be for me personally. But I also see a lot of posts about how different a mature starter is from a newer one. Does this sour taste diminish as the culture matures?

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughts!

The answer to your dilemma is easy. I create what I call a Sourdough Poolish. It's just a leaven/ starter with way different ratios. Whereas my starter takes 8 hours to peak and is made at a ratio of 1:1:1 flour/water/starter my leaven is 1:1:8 and it takes 20 hours to peak. Using less starter completely eliminates sourness while keeping delicious taste. I can use 20 to 50% leaven this way with amazing results.

[mrabear13]

Thank you for all of your responses! It sounds like I have more control over the flavor than I realized.

I keep my starter in the fridge, and pull it out to make dough each week or two. I feed it 1:1:1 right out of the fridge, and in about 4-6 hours it has tripled in volume, which I thought was the best time to use it. So that is the point where I take a bit for my pizza dough, 1.5-2.0% (its so sticky, I am never sure the exact grams that make it into the bowl). I put the rest of the starter, presumably still near its peak, right back in the fridge. So the starter is only out of the fridge for about 6 hours a week.

Does my process raise any flavor flags to you all? I am also feeding my starter with white AP flour, but making pizza dough with 00 flour. Is that your common practice?

I will respond to some of you directly for the advice you offered. Thanks again!

[02ebz06]

its so sticky, I am never sure the exact grams that make it into the bowl)

Before you take some out to use, weigh the container with the starter.
Weigh it again after you take some out.
Subtract 2nd reading from 1st, and you know how much you took out.
Easy to add or take away from there to get the amount you want.

Weighing the empty container and writing the amount on it is always handy.

[EthanPizza]

Thank you for all of your responses! It sounds like I have more control over the flavor than I realized.

I keep my starter in the fridge, and pull it out to make dough each week or two. I feed it 1:1:1 right out of the fridge, and in about 4-6 hours it has tripled in volume, which I thought was the best time to use it.

try feeding a piece of it 1:1:8 (and the normal starter 1:1:1 and put that one back in the fridge.) the rise time will be much longer but I think it will fix all of your issues.

[sk]

Thank you for all of your responses! It sounds like I have more control over the flavor than I realized.

I keep my starter in the fridge, and pull it out to make dough each week or two. I feed it 1:1:1 right out of the fridge, and in about 4-6 hours it has tripled in volume, which I thought was the best time to use it. So that is the point where I take a bit for my pizza dough, 1.5-2.0% (its so sticky, I am never sure the exact grams that make it into the bowl). I put the rest of the starter, presumably still near its peak, right back in the fridge. So the starter is only out of the fridge for about 6 hours a week.

Does my process raise any flavor flags to you all? I am also feeding my starter with white AP flour, but making pizza dough with 00 flour. Is that your common practice?

I will respond to some of you directly for the advice you offered. Thanks again!

I do almost the same with my Ischia starter.  Out of fridge Thursday morning.  Feed Thursday night and again Friday morning.  Make pizza dough Friday night.  Leave starter out overnight.  Feed Saturday morning and put back in fridge.  Make pizza Saturday night after 24 hour proof. 

My flavor profile is not sour at all.  It is very mild in fact. 

[Dobbs]

Hi Craig

Looking at following your recipe but would like to do 70 % hydration. Would you knead it for longer in the mixer
and do more slap and folds maybe even add in an autolyse

 I follow your recipe
Where I bulk for 24 hrs - ball and ferment for 18-24 hrs - all at room temp

Not sure if the wetter dough requires more working?

 Many Thanks

Dan

[TXCraig1]

I will likely need a different workflow. When I go that high, I let the water hydrate the flour for 30 min before mixing then do sets of S&F until a get enough strength. This workflow changes the fermentation schedule because it takes a long time at a temp warmer than I normally ferment at.

[scifly]

Hi Craig! Thanks for all the info.
I’ve read maybe the first 15 pages of this thread so forgive me if my questions are answered already.

I’ve tried your method with some tweaks. After my bulk ferment my dough has risen quite a bit (it ended up a couple degrees C warmer than I thought and I left it longer than I should have).

When I’m balling I find the dough quite sticky and the underside has a lot of “spiderwebbing” it still balled up fine.

As I’m tweaking do you have any recommendations for this aside from getting the temp more under control and not leaving it for as long. Maybe less yeast?

Using 5 stagioni flour (attached as I understand there are several versions).

Thanks again Craig!

[scifly]

Underside of dough after bulk ferment. Stickier than my usual process but I do tend to overwork the dough so following your process was very different and a welcome change.

https://imgur.com/a/i1jYYnw

Had to link as file is over 3mb.

[TXCraig1]

Just looks a bit overfermented. I agree that temperature control is likely the issue. I'd try the whole process again and see if you get the same or different results before making any changes.

[Travinos_Pizza]

Jamaican Jerk BBQ Chicken. Whole milk low moisture mozz, roasted chicken, onions, and a bit of cilantro.

Small differences between Craig’s recipe:

IDY instead of starter
2.5% salt
Pizza steel in conventional oven instead of WFO