Pompeii started in San Jose

[SteveB48]

We have Pizza! I think we made every mistake ever listed on the forum (plus my wife dropping a dough ball on the patio) but each pizza was better then the one before. Much to learn.

I made a batch of dough Friday night and another on Saturday morning. The Friday batch sat in the refrigerator until around noon on Saturday. Neither batch seemed to double in size during the 90 min proof although it did rise. The dough balls rose not vertically and all ran together which created a sticky mess. The recipe was from the FB eBook and everything was measured by weight. Any thoughts I what I did wrong?

[Larry P]

Congrats on your first pizza, welcome to a lifetime of heartache and frustration! No kidding. Just four %$@#* ingredients, what could go wrong?

I'm not sure where to find that recipe, but from other posts from James, I'd guess it's 65% hydration recipe with Caputo "00"? That takes some talent and experience to handle well. Possibly "running together/sticky mess" says insufficient gluten development. Also, I think it's not enough time to rise. It's difficult for me to say because I've been doing sourdough with 48-hour room temp rise for years, but when I was using ADY it was usually something like 3-4 days in the fridge.

I'd suggest you start with TXCraig's detailed thread here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/ind...2047#msg202047 ...and read the whole thing. His technique becomes modified slightly since that first post, and he also adjusts for ADY/IDY users somewhere later in that thread. Personally, I use higher hydration and more yeast than he does, but it's a great starting point.

[deejayoh]

We have Pizza! I think we made every mistake ever listed on the forum (plus my wife dropping a dough ball on the patio) but each pizza was better then the one before. Much to learn.

I made a batch of dough Friday night and another on Saturday morning. The Friday batch sat in the refrigerator until around noon on Saturday. Neither batch seemed to double in size during the 90 min proof although it did rise. The dough balls rose not vertically and all ran together which created a sticky mess. The recipe was from the FB eBook and everything was measured by weight. Any thoughts I what I did wrong?

We had a similar thing happen to us last night. Confusing because our dough efforts had been going pretty well (mostly using bread flour). Last night we tried a "00" flour from the local gourmet grocery. Learning: the "00" designation only tells you about the fineness of the milling. You also need to look at protein content - which is what gives you the gluten development you need for structure in the dough. The flour we bought was marketed as a pizza flour - but it was "tenero" or soft wheat, which is low protein. For pizza you want "duro" or hard wheat which is high protein. The soft, finely milled flour we used was basically cake flour. Rose like crazy, didn't develop any gluten, and had no structure. Tears like crazy. Bad idea.

In diagnosing our issue - this article was really helpful: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archive...and-dough.html