Caputo 00 Pizza with Caputo 00 Biga

[pftaylor]

I'm really confused on the topic of starters in general. Here's why:
pizzanapoletana advocates 1 - 5%
bakerboy            advocates 25%
varazano            advocates 40%

Talk about extreme divergent opinions as too what's appropriate.

[Pete-zza]

pft,

Pizza Napoletana (Marco) recommends use of a liquid natural starter at 1-5% of the weight of water, not flour. And the flour he is talking about is 00 flour (Caputo), and the fermentation is at room temperature, which tolerates using small amounts of yeast.

Bakerboy (Barry) has used "old dough" at 20% of the total weight of flour (5 lbs. of old dough for 25 lbs. of flour). I don't know or recall what kind of flour he used or whether the fermentation was at room temperature or in a cooler.

Jeff uses a liquid (battery) starter at about 40% of the weight of flour, not water. I believe also that the flour he is talking about is bread flour or A-P flour and the dough is subjected to refrigeration/retardation.

I calculated my old dough to be around 18% of the weight of flour. It was purely a guess but it looks like I got close to Barry's number.

One would have to do a lot of mathematical analysis to sort things out, and you would need to know the recipes and all the ingredients (and possibly the baker's percents) to do so. It may be easier to have the respective parties explain the differences in their approaches.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Tonight I made a Neapolitan style pizza using a dough that incorporated a piece of old dough from a Caputo 00 pizza dough I started about four days ago. When I made the last pizza, I took a piece of the dough just as I was about to make the pizza and buried it in some flour to preserve it for test purposes. Yesterday I started the dough for tonight's pizza and used that small piece of dough, or chef. It weighed about 0.65 oz. at the time I retrieved it from the flour container--which was less than the weight at the time I buried it (around 1 oz.). Before using the chef, I examined it carefully and noted that it was dry on the outside and a bit moist on the inside. I had no idea of whether it was usable but I proceeded nonetheless.

I made the new dough in the same manner as previously described except this time I crumbled up the chef as finely as I could and mixed it in with the flour before adding the water and the rest of the dough ingredients. I also used an autolyse of about 15 minutes before adding the olive oil and salt. As in my last several pizzas under this thread, I did not use any commercial yeast.

The dough for tonight's pizza went through a total fermentation/ripening period of around 30 hours, with the fermentation period being 24 hours and the ripening period being about 6 hours, all at room temperature. It has been quite warm here in Texas recently and I was concerned that the dough would overferment and go south on me, especially if I were to wait until tomorrow to made the pizza. My concern was partly justified. The dough after around 30 hours was very soft and on the wet side (it had a high hydration to begin with and the autolyse may have had an effect) and difficult to shape and stretch. With great care, I managed to shape and stretch out the dough into a skin and dress and bake it (in the same manner as previously described). If I had thought of it, for experimental purposes I might have tried the "stretch and fold" technique recently recommended by fellow member jimd. I simply forgot.

Before making tonight's pizza, I cut off a piece of the dough (chef), weighing about 1.20 oz., and buried it in a sack of dough. This time, I plan to leave the chef buried for about a week, and then try another pizza to see if the chef is still viable at that time.

Despite the condition of tonight's dough, the pizza turned out well. It was a bit more crackery in the middle than my last old dough pizza, but it was still chewy for the most part, especially at the rim, and tasty nonetheless. And the crust had the nice flavors of fermentation. The photo is shown below.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

In the immediately preceding post I indicated that I was going to try to use a several-day old chef (old dough) to make another pizza from it. When I initially buried the piece of old dough in a sack of flour, it weighed about 1.20 oz. About 6 days later, when I removed it from the sack, it weighed around 1 oz. It was lightweight but hard as a rock. When I couldn't crush it by hand or by using a mortar and pestle, I put it into my food processor to reduce it to small pieces. I then put the ground-up chef into a bit of warm water to soften it in preparation for combining it with the rest of the dough ingredients. What I noticed immediately after the chef had been reduced to smaller pieces was that it had a distinct sourdough smell. It really jumped out at me. I wasn't sure what to expect of the chef at this point, but I proceeded nonetheless to make a dough using it. The recipe and dough processing were the same as previously reported.

The dough was put into a storage bag and left on my kitchen counter top at room temperature for an intial 24 hours. During that time, the dough behaved as previous doughs using the natural Caputo 00 chef except that this time the dough didn't slump into a pancake-like disk as much as the previous ones and it was considerably drier. It also had a pronounced sourdough smell, which suggested that the dough was alive and working. Because of a competing commitment, I couldn't let the dough rise for another 12 hours or so before shaping, so the ripening period was cut short to 3 hours. After the 3 hours, the dough was still dry and was very easy to handle and shape and stretch into a skin, both using my knuckles and working with it on a work surface. In that regard, it was the most manageable of the doughs I have made and reported on in this thread. I stretched the dough out to around 12 inches, but I am sure I could have stretched it out even further had I wanted. The skin was dressed and baked in basically the same manner as previously described.

The photo of the finished product is shown below. The pizza tasted fine but it was thinner and more crackery than I expected it to be. The crust in the center was soft and chewy and, at the rim, it was crunchy and a bit cracker like. The crust did not have an open and airy character as had the previous crusts using a "younger" chef, but it did have a pleasant sourdough flavor. That flavor was not as intense, however, as the crusts that had been made before using the younger chefs. Whether the finished product would have been better had I used a longer ripening period is hard to say, but I suspect that the fresher the chef is, the better it is likely to perform.

As between using a chef and a more liquid natural starter, such as those using the Caputo 00 flour as previously described, I would say at this point that the more liquid natural starters, if properly maintained, are perhaps a more reliable way of achieving a more flavorful crust on a consistent basis than using a chef with an apparently limited "shelf life".  And the flavors that come from using a more liquid starter will be more pronounced than when a chef is used. All that said, I still think it was a very interesting and informative exercise to try to make a pizza dough using the chef in much the same manner as Anthony Mangieri at Una Pizza Napoletana. I would say that the pizzas I made using the natural liquid starter and chefs were among the tastiest and most flavorful of any I have ever made.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

In a previous post on this thread, at Reply #23, I discussed the results of using a very small amount of the Caputo 00 natural starter to make a pizza. Today, I repeated the experiment but varied it by including an autolyse period, and I also baked it on a single pizza stone rather than using two stones as in the previous experiment.

The recipe was exactly the same as recited at Reply #23, and the processing was as previously described. However, this time, I incorporated an autolyse period into the dough processing. I used the classical autolyse of just flour and water. Specifically, I thoroughly mixed together one-half of the flour and the water and let the combination sit for about 30 minutes. I then added the rest of the flour and the Caputo 00 natural starter, followed by the olive oil and, finally, the salt. Because of the small amount of dough involved (a bit over 9 oz.), all of the kneading was done entirely by hand.

The finished dough was allowed to ferment overnight at room temperature for about 12 hours. The dough behaved exactly as before, with the dough spreading somewhat but with no noticeable rising. I reballed the dough and let it sit for another 7 hours at room temperature before using. At the end of that additional 7-hour ripening period, the dough still showed no noticeable rising. This is as I recollect pizzanapoletan indicated the dough would behave under normal circumstances. I shaped the dough without any difficulty into a 12-inch skin. I am certain I could have stretched it even further if I wanted to, since the dough seemed to be able to handle it without difficulty. There were a few more bubbles than before, but not a big departure.

Once the pizza was dressed, it was baked on a pizza stone that had been preheated for about an hour at around 500-550 degrees F. The pizza was baked on the stone for about 6 minutes, whereupon the pizza was moved to the upper oven rack position and baked for about another minute or so under the broiler, which had been turned on about 5 minutes into the baking process.

The photos below show the finished product. The crust and its characteristics were as previously described at Reply #23. As in the previous experiment, the crust had a lot of fermentation flavors and made for an enjoyable pizza eating experience. The biggest difference I noticed from the prior experiment was that the dough was quite a bit drier than the previous dough, even though the hydration percent was around 64%, and it was very easy to handle, without requiring much bench flour or running the risk of overstretching or forming weak or thin spots. It was very extensible. It's quite possible that the improved dough performance was attributable to the autolyse, much as pftaylor has given substantial credit to autolyse for the great success of his Raquel doughs. Consequently, I plan to devote more experimentation in the future to determine the true value of autolyse in a Caputo 00 dough. But autolyse or not, one of the things that keeps coming to the forefront with the doughs/crusts based on the use of natural starters is the intensity of fermentation flavors.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
Excellent looking pizza and most interesting comments on the value of autolyse. I tried Varasano's start and stop autolyse technique and it didn't work well for me. I surmised it may be the difference between our mixers. Surely it couldn't be my fault right? Plus I wasn't sure there was a value to autolyse because, among other things, you had remarked more than once, that it had no effect on your pizzas. So I felt comfortable that autolyse wasn't for me. I now realize it was my lack of understanding as to why it didn't work for me.

Then I read a post by bakerboy over at eGullet where he used a rest period (upfront) at his artisan pizza shop with a preferment. My blood started pumping again about autolyse and I began experimenting to try and gain some traction. So I decided to combine all the stops and start periods into one big one upfront. It evolved to a 20 minute autolyse with all the water and half the flour. Why that ratio? I don't know other than it sounded like a reasonable starting point. It also allowed me to maintain the intent of Varasano's process which I determined to be slowly adding the flour to allow sufficient time for the gluten network to develop.

It still didn't work great for me. After a few restless nights of pondering, I read an unrelated comment by pizzanapoletana regarding hydration and the different absorption rates of flour. A light went off in my head and I ended up with the process I now recommend which includes a second autolyse of 15 minutes before kneading and forming the ball for cold or counter storage. I believe the second autolyse in combination with the first put the dough into a robust range of performance.

Lots of zigs and lots of zags but it now works for me.

[Pete-zza]

pft,

I have mixed feelings about the use of autolyse. For the Lehmann NY style dough, I tend not to use autolyse because it appears to result in a soft, lighter crumb, which is not a characteristic I prefer in a NY style crust. In fact, I discussed my experiences in that regard at Reply #43 (and in subsequent posts) at the Lehmann thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.40.html.

But I have used autolyse successfully, and like it, with Neapolitan style doughs using 00 flour, where I prefer a soft and light crust as opposed to a leathery one. I will have to do some more experimentation, but it is also possible that the DiFara dough clones, which also use 00 flour, may also benefit from autolyse, but fellow member Friz's experiments to date with using autolyse for the DiFara dough clones have cast some doubt on the utility of autolyse for those clones. However, Dinks has offered up some good thoughts on this that might lead to some meaningful application of autolyse to those doughs.

When I do use autolyse, I tend to use the classical autolyse, which entails combining just flour and water (and sometimes the yeast) and letting the mixture rest, before moving on to adding the oil and salt. That's an approach you might want to try sometime, just to see if it offers any improvement to your already high quality Raquel dough.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
Now that dinks has weighed in on the topic of autolyse, could you post what you feel would be a suitable overview for a dough mixing process incorporating autolyse?

I currently add the water, salt, 1/2 the flour, commercial yeast, and preferment then mix for 1 minute then rest for 20. After mixing for another 10 minutes, I introduce another rest period of 15 minutes. Any thoughts?

[Pete-zza]

pft,

I would prefer to defer to my good fried DINKS on the topic of autolyse, since he is clearly an expert on the subject. My experience, and I suspect DINKS' experience as well, comes from the bread side of dough making. There, the classical autolyse entails combining and kneading together the flour, water and preferment, followed by an autolyse of say, 20 minutes, and then adding the salt, followed by the first fermentation. I used a variation of that process when I made the latest Capoto 00 dough using the Caputo 00 preferment.

DINKS elaborated on autolyse in the context of using a preferment (a real poolish or levain) at Reply #107 at the Patsy's reengineering thread (see also my response at Reply #107, which I assume DINKS did not see). As I understand the process that DINKS recommends at Reply #107 mentioned above, the sequence you would use with your preferment and commercial yeast (IDY) would be as follows: 1) Take 1/3 of the flour and 1/3 of the water called for in your Raquel recipe, add the commercial yeast (IDY), mix to a paste, and combine thoroughly; 2) Add the preferment and the rest of the flour and water, combine well, and let rest (autolyse) for 20-60 minutes; 3) Mix in the remaining ingredients (e.g. oil and salt), and knead for 8 minutes (as opposed to 10 minutes for the usual situation).

Whether using the above sequence will improve the results of your Raquel recipe is an open question--one that can only be answered by trying out the sequence in an actual experiment. It's not entirely clear to me from DINKS' instructions what amount of commercial yeast should be used. If it is 0.5%, by weight of flour, then that would come to around 3/4 t. IDY in your recipe (with 16 oz. flour), which is far more than you are now using.

Peter

[dinks]

PETER & PFTAYLOR:
  Good Morning to the both of you. Thank-you Peter for the Expert label you pinned on me for the autolyse technique. I am not that knowledgeable on that subject. I just know what you both are aware of on this subject. Yes, Peter, I learned to use this technique from bread baking. I bake yeasted lean bread 3 week-ends of 4. I am a volunteer at a boys home & I buy the provisions & I cook & bake for them  for dinner every monday. I contribute the provisions this to my community. I just finished making 6  pizza balls yesterday. I did a autolyse for 1 hour. My dough looked very very good. Hoewver, I did not like the results as much as I generly do. I am always alterating my recipes. Whether an autolyse helps a thin-crust pizza???. I do not know...I cannot tell. I will try it one more time next month with the use of adding a altus brat which I froze it is 4 3/8 oz). It will be approx 18/20% of the total concoction. As far as the amount of instant yeast to employ ....According to it's pioneer prof. Calvel, he specifys a minimum amount in the TRUE POOLISH.. My interpretation then is the following. "How much TIME do you have???" If you have a overnite time frame then use approx 3/8% max. of the flour in the poolish. If not use a tiny amount more & get done sooner. Minimum time would be 4 hours.  My sole purpose in posting the Poolish & autolyse thread was only to be helpful to our forum members & not to suggest that it be followed. I felt perhaps that the members were not aware  of it's accepted use. Of course members should  do whatever formula they wish to use & that is their affair, not mine.I think it is my duty to help if I can help If people reject, that is their prerogitive. Good Luck to you both of you my learned friends. PT, Enjoy your international trip & hurry back to us soon if not sooner.
   ~DINKS.  (AKA,~CASS.)
 

[Pete-zza]

DINKS,

Thank you for clarifying matters, especially the amount of IDY to use. I now understand the 0.5% of yeast (or the 0.375% figure recited in your post today) to apply to the weight of flour in the preferment, not the weight of flour in the recipe. So, for example, if pftaylor uses 1.3 oz. (2 T.) of preferment, as he has indicated in his Raquel recipe, and the preferment is 50% flour and 50% water by weight, as pftaylor has also indicated, then 0.5% of 0.65 oz. (1.30/2) comes to 0.00325 oz., or about 3/100 of a teaspoon of IDY. That's a very small pinch. Using the 0.375% figure, the IDY would come to about 2/100 of a teaspoon. Those may sound like impossibly small amounts of yeast to use, but I have used such minuscule amounts before and was surprised to find that it works.

Peter

[dinks]

PETER:
 Hello again. I do remember that you mentioned that about the power of a small amount of yeast recently.  My point is this, In a TRUE AUTOLYSE  Prof .CALVEL says not to use yeast.  There is a exception to the rule & that is it's okay to employ a  TRUE POOLISH & A Sour dough type of preferment. Hence, why I emphized a minimum amount of yeast. as to be in accordance with the good professor. As you are expericenced enough to know by now that recipes and techniques are not written in stone. after a while you begin noticing things. Then we begin altering our methods & ingredients. I am certain there are many world class bakers who do their own thing as their experience has taught them simply because that is what works for them. One case in point, MZ. Rose Levy B.....  my opinion the authority on cakes & the like. She wrote a book on BREADS recently. My very strong opinion is that maybe she should have struck to cakes. I simply disagree with her recipes because she uses an excessive amount of salt, like Mr, Lehman  does in his pizza dough recipes. Different strokes for different folks.
  Again Peter, I enjoyed being with you this fine day.
   ~DINKS.

[pftaylor]

Well, I decided to take the Caputo challenge today. I felt I might understand enough about the interaction of ingredients to give the elusive Caputo Pizzeria blue label flour a winning shot. Mind you I have been humiliated by this difficult-flour-to-work-with in the past. I had fumbled with the Caputo for about 3 months. So much so I nearly destoyed my supply out of total frustration. Good thing I didn't. The worm turned.

The pizza which emerged hissing and bubbling from my grill was nearly perfect. It's taste far exceeded the high gluten flour (KASL) based pie also made today. Compartively it was thinner and crunchier as well. While it didn't possess the spring I have come accustomed to, it didn't seem to matter for some reason. Seems we can finally lay to rest who has more bounce - Raquel or Sophia. Browning and char were somewhat lacking, but the taste was deliciously intoxicating. I now know a little bit about what all the fuss is with this Italian 00 flour.

My family could not believe it was based on the same flour which was nearly inedible just a month before. Take a peek at the Italian version of Pizza Raquel which I call Pizza Sophia:

[pftaylor]

Here are a couple of shots which show just how thin the pie turned out. Also, the Pizza Sophia dough was so robust I was able to stretch the skin using the exact same steps as described for Pizza Raquel which uses a much stronger American flour. It was a little softer than the Raquel dough. Especially after about 14" round. The point is that Sophia never gave me even the slightest hint of ripping, tearing, or being overly soft. It was quite pleasant to work with. What is going on? I had always thought the Italian flour was too soft to lift from the bench.

So much for convention. Then again, since when has Sophia ever been considered conventional?

[pftaylor]

Final shot of Pizza Sophia...

[MTPIZZA]

pftaylor, after looking at your pictures, I can't feel but to say that they look a little lifeless... the flavor may have been good, but there is something to say about tooth and mouth feel... They remind me a little bit like DKM's cracker crust type pie where there is some push for leavening but the bite of the crust is lacking life....is this what you were trying for?? This is not your best work...

[pftaylor]

MTPIZZA,
Thanks for the candid feedback.

Judging only from the pictures I can understand your view. I will concede that Pizza Sophia was a little on the thin side due to the ball size being about 13.6oz for a 16" pie. However, it was not a dry pie at all. I would have to arm wrestle you on that one. The crust was rather moist and soft actually. Surprising I know. I would be the first to admit if the Caputo got the best of me again but seriously the pie had the best flavor of any pie I've ever eaten. The contrast between the crispy bottom and the very wet top sealed the deal in my book. The two ends of the spectrum couldn't have been much further apart. That dicotomy of texture is award-winning in my book.

Could it of been a little thicker? Sure. And the next one will. I'm not sure Italian dough is meant to be stretched as thin as what I was able to do today. But remember, I used an American dough recipe. Adjustments can be made. But you can't make the boat load of flavor on demand.

The crust actually stuck to our teeth a little bit - much the same way Patsy's in NY does. Got rather chewy and then melted in our mouths. I would take that tooth and mouth feel everytime.

Now what can be improved? Lots of things; spring, a fluffy middle (which was completely missing), foldability, and thickness to name a few.

But, when you consider it was my first legit effort which produced such a great and unbelievably light crust and you then combine it with stellar taste, well, fa-get-about-it!

[MTPIZZA]

 ...heeeeyy...BADDA BING BADDA BOOM!...a pie is in the mouth of the beholder to be sure....

[Pete-zza]

pft,

I'm away from my home base on vacation and just checked in to see what I have been missing. I'm delighted to see that you have made some inroads on the Caputo 00 flour. I hope you will at some point consider using a version of Pizza Napoletana's Neapolitan pizza dough recipe to make a dough using only the Caputo 00 flour, your Caputo 00 preferment and a long period of room temperature fermentation/ripening. As you know from my posts on this thread, I got powerful flavors out of the crusts based on that combination. With your grill, I would think you would get a very good product. I can't say that it will be as good as your Sophia pizza, but the only way to know is to give the Pizza Napoletana recipe a try.

Peter

[pftaylor]

Pete-zza,
Glad to hear you are taking a well deserved break. I have good and bad news. Want it like a man with the bad news first?

I thought so. I destroyed my beloved Caputo preferment when Varasano sent his Patsy's poolish. Since Steve had already sent Varasano's poolish a few days earlier, that would have been 3 preferments for 2 refrigerators. I could not take a chance on contaimination. Something had to give and I decided to keep Varasano's new preferment and Steve's (potentially cross infected poolish). So I had to discard the Caputo biga which served me well.

The good news is I would be more than willing to incorporate the Varasano preferment into pizzanapoletana's recipe should that serve a meaningful purpose.