Diagnose my SD Pizza Dough, please

[jgonz25]

Hi all,

I am still in the early stages my at-home pizza journey, having been gifted a Gozney Roccbox this past Christmas. Until recently, I stuck to an overnight poolish recipe using ADY (see Vito Iacopelli: ) with good results.

I eventually found my way into sourdough bread baking, got a starter going, and--after a few tries--can say I can produce a pretty respectful loaf with some consistency.

I decided on giving SD pizza a shot, but I've yet to have great results. My cornicione hasn't been nearly as airy as I'd like, and truthfully don't know where I'm going wrong. I do understand SD is far less consistent than yeast based doughs, and often produces a less 'perfect' product,  but I believe I still have a lot of room to improve.

I've been staying quite close to this recipe by @leopardcrust on Instagram: https://leopardcrustpizza.com/sourdough-pizza-dough/. Check her out, she's an incredible artist and produces absolutely beautiful pies.

I doubled her recipe, looking to get 12 dough balls @ 270g each. I opted for 20% inoculation, and reduced the hydration from 70 to 60% because my flours aren't quite as strong as hers (she's using 14.9%!!), and I'm looking for a final product a bit closer to a classic Neopolitan. After accounting for the contents of my levain, my final dough mix had a hydration of ~65%.

My recipe:

Levain

• 50g mature starter
• 125g King Arthur AP flour
• 125g Fereg Dark Rye flour
• 250g water (80°F)

I opted for a 1:5:5 ratio to hopefully reduce the acidity of my starter (not that I had reason to believe it was too acidic... been feeding 1:2:2 2x per day)

Final Dough Mix

• 1008g Bob's Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour (their website claims 12-14% protein) 60% total flour
• 672g King Arthur 00 flour (On Amazon, under 'Customer Question & Answers', manufacturer claims 11.5% protein) 40% total flour
• 1020g water (60%)
• 336 starter (20%)
• 42g salt (2.5%)

Steps:

• 2 hour autolyse
• add starter when past peak/rest 30 min
• add salt, knead/isolate piece into small jar to monitor bulk ferment progress
• I then did 2 stretch and folds with 30 minute intervals. Dough felt quite strong, but still decided to go for one last gentle coil fold
• I let the dough finish bulk fermenting, deciding it was finished when top of dome in test jar reached 100% increase mark (see photo)
• Balled the dough. It felt a bit sticky, but then again I still don't quite know what good dough should feel like
• Threw the dough balls straight into the fridge (Thurs. night). I need them for Saturday afternoon (tomorrow)

My concern is how they're looking now (attached photo), at 17 hours CF. Do they seem too relaxed, and if so, why? This is how my past attempts have looked at this stage, and have all yielded underwhelming results (dense cornicione, lack of rise, very little leopard spotting).

As I was balling, activity was very present in the dough. Although, before I could get them in the fridge, they started relaxing quite a bit, causing me to question their gluten sufficiency.

I'm eager to hear what you guys have to say regarding what may have went wrong (if anything.. maybe this is normal), how I can improve next time, and also what should I do now to salvage them for tomorrow (if salvaging is necessary.. maybe I just bake as planned?)

Does anyone suggest reballing? And if so when? And can I do it when the dough is cold?

Thank you in advance 
[/list]

[amolapizza]

I know next to nothing about this, but as no one else has answered..  I'd hazard a guess that you let the dough ferment too much if it doubled already before forming the balls.  I've also heard that a room temperature fermentation would be better if using SD.  Supposedly you can also use a bit of yeast to help the SD in order to get more oven spring.

We have a saying around here that pizza isn't bread, while your SD approach sounds like you are baking bread.

[jsaras]

You’ll probably get as many techniques as there are people when it comes to sourdough.  Personally, I would never use a refrigerator (refrigerators kill) and I’ve never used more than 4% starter.  I mix it with the formula salt into the water and stir it to break it up as much as possible.  Then I add the flour.  I never had a failed fermentation and the texture is fantastic.

[corkd]

If I am going to use the fridge with a naturally leavened dough (whether bread or pizza), i like to have a good RT bulk rise first- time depends on %of starter in the initial mix. For pizza, I can refrigerate the properly fermented bulk for up to a few days,  then ball it either the night before or the next morning, and let the balls proof at RT. This is just what works for me.

[amolapizza]

FWIW, I've killed my SD starter, and never made much pizza with it.  For bread I like RT fermentation, then shaping, then more RT fermentation. Finally possibly a pass in the fridge, not so much to prolong the fermentation but rather because I have the impression that it's much easier to score and gets a better oven spring.