That pizza looks delicious! That crust looks fantastic! 70% hydration? That's much wetter than I've done. The highest I've gone is 65%. Can you give more details on your recipe and process?
Thanks!
Thanks! I was pretty happy with it.
My recipe was for 4 240g dough balls:
555g Caputo pizzeria
388g water
17g salt
3.5g instant dry yeast
My process was as follows:
Evening before bake:
pour all the water and yeast into the bowl of the stand mixer, start it on low and start adding the flour. once about 70 percent of the flour was mixed in i stopped and rested for a couple of minutes then turned it on and let it mix to get some gluten development started while the dough was still a loose batter. I added the rest of the flour in slowly and let it combine. Then I incorporated the salt and increased the speed. Whenever it looked like ti was tightening up too much I'd stop the mixer for a couple of minutes then start it again. All in all it took maybe 10-15 minutes. I took the dough out and placed it in a large plastic bowl to proof for 2 hours covered with cling wrap. Room temp was around 21C. Every 30-40 mins I'd wet my hands with water and do a coil fold. Coil folding is something sourdough bread bakers do during bulk ferment to aid gluten development and it really helps make loose high-hydration doughs more manageable (you can see a quick vid below). After the two hours were up I balled up the dough, placed the balls in a flat plastic container and put it in the fridge with the lid on. The balls grew to fill the container but you could see the "seams" where they joined each other.
On bake night, 2 hours before baking I sprinkled some flour on the seams and used a dough scraper to cut out each ball and transfer to the bench. I used a scraper and moistened hands to tighten up the ball, and transfer to a lightly floured section of the bench. once all four balls were shaped i covered them with some upturned containers. It's important to ensure your dough balls are covered otherwise a dry skin will form. for baking i set up a stretching area with a lightly floured section of bench with my ingredients around it and enough space for me to rest the peel. I also filled a small mixing bowl half way with flour. for each doughball i'd pick sprinkle a little flour on top, it up with the scraper (resting my hand on the floured top of the ball) and dump it top side down in the bowl of flour, working quickly is key to prevent the dough sticking to the scraper or your hand. flip the ball in the flour so it gets coated then pick it up and dust it off between your nads so there's only a thin veil of flour covering the ball. It'll now be a thick patty rather than a ball. The dough should be very soft, pliable, and airy as its a wet,well fermented dough, but the gluten development and the veil of flour over ti should make it easy to handle without sticking. I transferred the ball to the floured section and stretch as normal.. I start working with the flat pads of the fingers - defining the coniccione and pushing the bubbles out from the centre towards all sides of the corniccione. Then carefully stretch using the backs of my hands and gravity to stretch it out, carefully preserving the corniccione. Once its stretched, i flick any large thin bubbles to pop them and start topping the pie as per normal (I should add I also sprinkled some finely grated pecorino on the sauce which I forgot to mention in my previous post). I also sprinkle flour all over the peel then hold it over the sink and bump the back of it hard a few times, which gets rid of most of the flour but leaves enough to allow me to launch the pizza. I give the peel one sharp push which usually is enough to get it at leas under half the pizza, then I quickly pull the edge to get the rest of the pie onto the peel.
I think that about covers my process.. I'm yet to figure out my process for hte next bake with biga.. but I'll have to see if the results are even woorth the write-up!
