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  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Robs!

    Agreed on the hijack but there is an ongoing logic to this thread so...

    I think it is important to experiment until you find what you want. With only four or five ingredients (flour, yeast, water, salt, and maybe oil) and two key other variables (time and temperature) the "practices" of the maker can have big influence which is why I suggest people change only one item/factor at a time (as best possible). Even things like when and how you add the salt and mix it in has an effect that impacts on both proofing time and resulting texture. (For example, sourdough experience suggests that adding salt AFTER forming the dough encourages uneven hole structure - which I think arises from the difficulty in getting full mixing and the local retardation of the yeast in the saltier areas). (Too little mixing and you can get really uneven texture that is bad - it seems hard to get enough mixing to get uniform texture in my experience).

    It is all a complex dance!

    Be well!
    Jay

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  • robs
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    I was not criticizing your approach
    I didn't take it as criticism. I'm very new to playing around with the dough proportions and probably don't have enough knowledge therefor the question on reducing the bubbles. Didn't realise that salt retards the yeast so will definitely remember that.

    Thanks for the reply. Should of posted somewhere else instead of hijacking this thread on heliman.

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  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Temperature is a big factor. General rule of thumb is that the rate of multiplying for yeast doubles for every 17 degrees in the range of say 40 to 100 F. While that may not sound like much, five degrees increases the rate by about 40 percent so a biga that peaked in ten hours would take about seven to peak...

    (For my sourdoughs I compensate for temperature by reducing my expansions from four times (adding 400 grams to 100) to three times (adding 300 grams to 100). The lower expansion allows the yeast to max out its rate (as it is limited by the amount of food) sooner - well except for the slower rate of multiplication due to colder temps. That way my levain is still peaking the next morning when I get up - instead of over the hill..

    Bake On!
    Jay

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Jay,

    Thanks for your very informative posts on here - I've been learning a lot. One thing I should note about my results is that it's currently winter here and my kitchen is quite cool right now, as was the tap water used to make the biga and final dough. I also have my fridge at 2 degrees C.

    As I understand it, warmer water may well kick off the yeast in the biga quite dramatically?

    Cheers,
    Mick

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  • Mitchamus
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco,
    thanks for documenting another one of your 'experiments' - they're always a great read.

    cheers,
    Mitch.

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  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Robs!

    I was not criticizing your approach - just trying to explain why your dough might be similar to norm.

    When you make a biga you are effectively making bread dough - only in your case without salt. It can have lower than normal yeast because you are going to let the yeast multiply up to some "normal" level and then expand it again - much like a sourdough. The expansion ratios in these stages is critical to how quickly the dough will be ready to bake (or in the case of pizza for shaping for pies).

    As an example, my sourdough starter expanded four times (i.e. add 400 grams to 100 of starter) will just about peak in activity after about 12-13 hours at room temp. If I drop it to expanding two times (200 to 100) my peaking time goes down to six to seven hours. IDY is much faster than wild yeast which is why you want to retard it if you are going to let it go overnight - or you would have to go to really low doses of IDY.

    If you want to reduce your yeast activity in the biga you can easily add some of the salt. Your 1000 grams of flour will want a total of 20 grams of salt. The 400 in the biga would need 8 grams to be at "full" salt. More will drastically slow the yeast and is almost certainly undesirable. However, you could easily add 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 grams of salt to the biga to slow it down some (and reduce the final amount of salt by the same amount).

    There are lots of ways to modify the process.

    Good Luck!
    Jay

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  • robs
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Thanks for the reply will play some more in a few days, reduce the yeast some more, reduce bench time.

    Cheers.

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  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Robs!

    Instant yeast weighs about 3 grams per tsp so you are using about 1.5 grams in 400 of flour or about .4 percent at that stage which is about four times what Rossco indicates he uses and only about half the normal dose - so you aren't all that "short" on yeast.

    Salt is a significant retardant to yeast acivity so not having the salt will allow the yeast to multiply quite rapidly during the biga stage. Among the key variables, Mick is the time on the counter before going into the fridge and the temp of the refrigerator - which as I recall neither Rossco or Robs have specified. When normal rise time for IDY dough is only an hour or so, even ten minutes will have the yeast multiplying aggressively.

    Given a whole day to multiply, the yeast level in Robs dough could easily be high enough to be ready to give a final dough that is very similar to the norm but there are LOTs of variables. It could still technically be somewhat underproofed or pretty dramatically overproofed depending on the details.

    At least, that's my take on it!
    Jay

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  • robs
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    The idy packagin says to use 4 teaspoons per 1000g of flour, i only used 1/2 teaspoon for 1000g of flour. Roughly 400g of flour used used in the bigga, 300g water then in the fridge overnight. Next day mixed in the remaining flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of olive can't remember how much extra water but it was quite wet and back in the fridge overnight again.

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    robs,

    I don't really get how you would have bubbly dough if you followed Rossco's method on here? Can you confirm that the only yeast used was the small amount in the biga? And that the biga underwent a retarded fermentation in the fridge? If so, really confused why you got bubbles.

    Cheers,
    Mick

    Leave a comment:


  • robs
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    After reading this thread i madde a biga with the smaller amount of idy dough tastes good but even after using a rolling pin there is still lots of bubbles. The dough is formed and put in the fridge overnight and only sits on the bench long enough to become workable. How can you further reduce the size and number of bubbles?

    Leave a comment:


  • texassourdough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco!

    Your comments on IDY leave me with a question. Unless I am mistaken you are using IDY - just in very low concentrations in forming your biga. If so, that would tend to place blame not on the IDY but on the concentration - but since the higher concentration works for many of us without causing undue textural problems, I don't think it is that simple either. The only real reconciliation of your experience with high IDY and texture issues is that something about your process was giving you badly overproofed dough. (And given your earlier descriptions even that doesn't totally make sense!)

    Preparing bread and pizza dough involves many interrelated factors with the judgment criteria being highly personal. Time, temperature, flour, hydration, salt (both amount and time of addition), yeast (both type and amount), mixing practices, forming practices, and oven management all have unique, but interdependent relationships to the, contributions to the ultimate result.

    Higher yeast demands either shorter time (which is not a Reinhart mantra) or retardation (which is part of Peter's standard repertoire). While the use of bigas is certainly not original to Peter, he has gone to using bigas and soakers extensively in his most recent books in order to get more flavor into bread. When I referred to your method as a variation of Reinhart I did not mean to attribute your using this method to influence from him, I was rather using his endorsement of bigas for flavor as both validation of the biga method and (due to familiarity with his books) as a reference other bakers might find useful.

    I think it will be interesting to see how your biga approach evolves.

    Hang in there!
    Jay

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  • BackyardPermaculture
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Hi Rossco,

    It should be noted that the smaller amount of yeast in the biga can be increased slightly to create more bubbles. This assertion is in contrast to the suggested that this "method" (as distinct from recipe) is unable to achieve that outcome.
    Good point, well made

    The new biga-based methodology addresses the IDY yeast volatility issue and allows more natural yeast activity to occur which also adds more flavour to the process.
    Indeed - I was amazed at how consistent it was even after going in the freezer for a week - really couldn't tell the difference.

    Cheers,
    Mick
    Last edited by BackyardPermaculture; 07-04-2010, 03:26 AM.

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  • Tscarborough
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    Wow, I just mix up some flour, sugar, yeast and a pinch of salt, then eat pizza.

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  • heliman
    replied
    Re: Personal Best Pizza

    This methodology, including recipe is an assemblage of a number of sources, plus a bit of personal experience and input from others. The biga came from Dimuzio's: Bread Baking, An Artisan's Perspective, The main recipe got some cursory thoughts from Rinehart's writings, but no specific recipe as such was used as a source. Some key elements of the preparation method were obtained from a TV documentary that was aired recently. With that as the starting point, I set about modifying the components and noted their impact on the finished result, leading to the selection of a set of preferred practices that resulted in, what I believe, was my "personal best". Most of these are well documented in this and other postings I have made.

    Of course the process will continue to evolved and I will make changes to the process, but what I wanted to achieve was a consistently good pizza dough which had taste, was extensible, didn't have any thin spots and had a reasonable amount of spring in it. I believe I have reached that point now, so have shifted the focus to the sauce now as this was an area I neglected in the past as the dough took priority for obvious reasons.

    It is important to note that the methodology I am using differs from other "quick" pizza preparation methods in that it requires 2 days before its ready to use. Other approaches (Forno Bravo, Rhinehart etc) seem to favour a method that is both quick and produces a reasonable end product. I am happy to allow for a bit of additional time if the results are how I like them, and that is what I have done with this methodology.

    It should be noted that the smaller amount of yeast in the biga can be increased slightly to create more bubbles. This assertion is in contrast to the suggested that this "method" (as distinct from recipe) is unable to achieve that outcome.

    In summary, the set of steps in this methodology should guide one through the preparation of dough that will give good results "out of the box". There are no fancy tricks or anything else that could affect the outcome if done incorrectly. I have tested it in a number of temperature conditions and the results (due to the fridge proofing component), have produced uniform results. Of course this recipe can and should be tweaked and adapted to meet personal tastes and to accommodate different flours and other variables.

    The main element that I believe caused the problems with the FB and Reinhart method was the IDY. It seems to be a volatile and unpredictable substance which reacted differently under different conditions, often resulting in poor dough structure and thin spots. The new biga-based methodology addresses the IDY yeast volatility issue and allows more natural yeast activity to occur which also adds more flavour to the process.

    So, it's on with the show. I have a batch of 3 pizzas which I will be doing in the electric oven this evening. Will post some shots of the preparation and finished products along the way. The learning and research continues...
    Last edited by heliman; 07-03-2010, 08:04 PM.

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