My trip to Naples and back

[Wario]

Very nice, and very consistent! These are all so well done with beautiful cornicione and excellent bottom (ehem).

I love your passion for a good prosciutto.

Thanks Arne, coming from you i consider this a huge compliment! Glad the bottom is approved too, long as i don't put too much ham on it i guess there are worse bottoms!

And yes my passion for prosciutto is hard to miss, perhaps i can inspire you to try it too sometime on your beautiful pizza pies!

[Wario]

Contrary to my earlier bakes, my two most recent pizza's and especially the Margherita from tonight tasted like (excuse my french) %$#. I haven't been this far from Naples in a long time. 

I haven't changed anything since i was quite happy with the results lately, but since this week my dough toughens up after i reball after 36 hours. My handling is as following: i let the dough in bulk rise at RT for 24 hours and then eight hours RT into balls before use. Normally that works fine and reballing the remaining dough the next day is never a problem neither. This time the balls were flat like a tire and even though the pizza's from yesterday were decent, they had holes in the bottom and were oval instead of round. The balls were too flat to use. Then tonight i opened the remaining balls that i reballed this morning eight hours ago. The dough felt tough and it surprised me the bales weren't flat at all. It felt like they had been into balls for only an hour or so. And the pizza tasted so awful that i gave it to my dog.

Could it be because of the heat in my town?

[soler]

What is room temperature and how much yeast do you use? If you use the same recipe and ambient temp is like +10 Celsius that’s a huge difference. You may consider bulk fermenting in a cooler or directly in the refrigerator if that’s more easy .

[Heikjo]

Temperature is indeed the first suspect.

[Wario]

What is room temperature and how much yeast do you use? If you use the same recipe and ambient temp is like +10 Celsius that’s a huge difference. You may consider bulk fermenting in a cooler or directly in the refrigerator if that’s more easy .

I use the same amount of yeast like before. There was probably at least 10 + Celsius difference so that must be the problem.

Temperature is indeed the first suspect.

Will try the basement or the refrigerator next time!

Thanks guys!

[Heikjo]

Yeah, with 12-36 hours in RT, ten extra degrees will absolutely not work. In the higher temperature ranges, only a small difference in temperature can make a huge difference in fermentation. My bread doughs can easily move twice as fast when it changes from 22C to 27C.

[Wario]

Tried a cold fermentation but the dough wasn't as airy and light like i like it.

Then i let it rise some more over night at RT and it was decent. Now tonight i'll try the remnant and it felt good this morning. So, fingers crossed!

[Wario]

Howdy guys and gal (ain't that many female pizza bakers out there!) i am back!

After experimenting some more, it turned out that the dry yeast i used was dead. Now i tried fresh yeast and the crust is much puffier then it ever was with idy! I have become a fan of fresh yeast!