85% Hydration Pizza and Ciabatta

[sacwoodpusher]

I have an ongoing discussion with "Jackie Tran" on the Pizza Making forum.

I was sloppy on the making of an 85% hydration ciabatta, so I remade it, video taped it, and took pictures of the end product.

I made 48 oz. of dough:

100% Flour or 26.6 oz ( Sam's Club Pizza and Bread Flour. 11.4% protein according to ConAgra)
85% Water or 22.6 oz lukewarm (you will see me correct this in the video. with 2 shot glasses of water)
2% Sea Salt 0r .5 oz
1% IDY or .25 oz

Mix dry ingredients, add water all at once, mix for 1 minute with paddle on Kitchen Aid, and walk away for 10 minutes. Beat for 3 minutes with paddle, cover with plastic, and put dough/batter in the fridge overnight.

6 hours before baking, I removed the dough from the fridge and scooped out 11 oz. for a pizza, and left 37 oz for the ciabatta.

3 hours before baking, I poured the ciabbata into a long rising basket and stretched it to fill the basket.

Results below. Stay tuned, I will post the video as soon as the art student daughter wakes up and gives me the camera.....

I am wondering if 100% hydration pizza can be made.....and if so, if someone wants to throw that out as a challenge?

[texassourdough]

Re: 85% Hydration Pizza and Ciabatta

Hi sacwoodp...

I have made 100% hydration focaccia and I was surprised by how much development of the dough I could get. Rather batter-y but I think I could do it. It would take some unconventional techniques and the resulting dough would be awfully fragile during pie forming. An issue would be that unlike focaccia which has an opportunity to proof and recover after you form it, the pizza would not so it might be a bit flat. Texture of a 100% focaccia is more like a pork skin than bread...sort of like fried air. I suspect the pizza dough would be also. I personally prefer 85% focaccia to the 100 - it has better mouthfeel IMO. I only did it once.

I encourage you to fold the ciabatta in the tradional manner for IMO it gives the resulting bread better texture.

Let us know if you try the pizza. It can be done. Based on experience I don't think the results will be worth it except for the satisfaction that you did it.

Good luck!
Jay

[sacwoodpusher]

Re: 85% Hydration Pizza and Ciabatta

OK....Videos of this whole endeavor are available at:

YouTube - 85% Hydration Dough for Pizza and Ciabatta in a Wood Fired Oven Part1 (making the dough)
YouTube - 85% Hydration Dough for Pizza and Ciabatta in a Wood Fired Oven Part2 (making the pizza)
YouTube - 85% Hydration Dough for Pizza and Ciabatta in a Wood Fired Oven Part3 (making the ciabatta)

[shuboyje]

Re: 85% Hydration Pizza and Ciabatta

I've made a lot of pizza dough at 80% hydration and used a double hydration to develope the gluten with what I thought were good results. I'd assume something like that would be needed to have any chance of making a 100% hydration pizza dough. I would make the dough at 60% hydration and then slowly work in the rest of the water. A couple stretch and fold later and a nice coating a flour on the outside of the ball and it was fairly managable.

[Tscarborough]

Re: 85% Hydration Pizza and Ciabatta

My normal dough starts around 82%, and tightens up on the bench flour. I WAG it about 75% going in the oven.