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**dmun** · 08-29-2007, 05:53 AM

Re: One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

Luis,

What flour are you using?

Could you give some details of the pre-ferment feeding amounts and procedure?

Thanks

**arevalo53anos** · 08-29-2007, 10:49 AM

Re: One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

Dmun:

The flour that I am using is wheat flour with W=260, I suppose that is in between the Caputo and the KA flours. Low gluten.

I have three pre-ferments, the Camaldoli, the Ischia an a combination of this two ones and aged Carl´s.
All of three are more than 3 years older.
They are stronger and alive when at ambient temperature.

The highly alive preferment is maintained in dormant state at 2-4°C.
Normally, three hours at ambient temperature are sufficient to let it hungry <g>
I feed it with equal quantities of flour and water (by weight) each time. Actually, I do that by thumb, since I have the experience to do so. However, when I am at work, the feedings are done by my family, strictly by weight.
The preferment is like a pancake batter. Better to maintain the acidity of the sourdough.
I do not discard any of it. Each feeding, the half of the preferment is reserved in another container. After 3 days, with a little more flour, milk, salt and honey, a great bread born.
24 hours of feeding (4 feedings normally) are ok to have the preferment totally alive and ready to pizza or fermented dough.
More feedings, less time between feedings, better and stronger the preferment (and less sour it will be).

I hope this help you.

Luis

**arevalo53anos** · 10-11-2007, 11:34 AM

Re: One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

Continuing with the test series of different ferment kinds and quantities, I fed my wood oven with diverse dough combinations along the past months.
As indicated in the last post, the best pizza texture and overall taste results were obtained when using the 24 hour ambient temperature dough with pre-ferment.

The last Saturday, we had another pizza party with 32 invitees sharing and taste lot of pizzas.

There were two dough types, just to continuing with the dough comparison: the already mentioned 24 hour pre-fermented dough and the12 hours (same day) dough with fresh ferment (packed), both of dough rising at ambient temperature.

The process of making the dough was similar in both of cases:
To the pre-fermented one, all the water in the Kenwood mixer, then the pre-ferment dissolved in it, the half of the sifted flour showered in, premixed using the dough hook, a 15-20 minutes autolyse, followed by the salt, mixed and ended with the addition of the rest of the flour in showered little steps during mixing, until the desired consistence was reached.
The entire process took a couple of minutes of mixing at first speed.
Since I do not have a spiral hook, the C hook needs to be helped with the use of a silicone spatula repeatedly pressing from up to down from the gear to the lower of the C. This movement let the dough free from the hook, giving some air and better consistency to the final dough.
After that, the dough was retired from the mixer and worked by hand on a lightly floured counter by approximately five minutes.
The dough was covered with a delicate quantity of sunflower oil, and let to rest in a closed container at ambient temperature by 14/15 hours (the temperature goes from 20 to 24/25?C)

To the dough using fresh ferment, a cup of the water was warmed and the fresh ferment dissolved in it.
In the mean time the remainder water was mixed with a half of the showered flour and rest for 10 minutes, then the cup of water with the diluted ferment was mixed in and a ? of the flour was showered in the mixture by little steps during mixing, followed by the salt and the remainder ? of flour.
The entire process took a couple of minutes of mixing at first speed.
Since I do not have a spiral hook, the C hook needs to be helped with the use of a silicone spatula repeatedly pressing from up to down from the gear to the lower of the C. This movement let the dough free from the hook, giving some air and better consistency to the final dough.
After that, the dough was retired from the mixer and worked by hand on a lightly floured counter by approximately five minutes.
The dough was covered with a delicate quantity of sunflower oil, and let to rest in a closed container at ambient temperature by 3:30hs hours.

After the rest, the both dough type were divided in individual dough giving to each ball the necessary tension in the structure by taking the dough and round it from out to in.
The 24 hours pre-fermented individual dough were arranged on a lightly floured table and all were covered with a wet cloth to a second and final rest until the moment of shaping, topping and baking.

The 12 hour fresh fermented dough were delicately cover with EVOO and closed in individual containers to a second and final rest until the moment of shaping, topping and baking.

Shaping, topping and baking as usual. Without touching the edges, rounding to the desired pizza size and using a fine layer of EVOO directly over the disk before the sauce, topped as liked and baked over +400?C hearth with live flame in the oven.

Recipe for the 20-24 hours pre-fermented dough rise
Considering ambient temperatures between the 20?C at night and 24-26?C during the day

Flour 100% (W=260)
Water 63%
Salt 3%
Pre-ferment 3%
The pre-ferment was an aged Camaldoli (or Ischia)

Recipe for the 12 hours fresh-fermented dough rise
Considering ambient temperatures between the 20?C at night and 24-26?C during the day

Flour 100% (W=260)
Water 63%
Salt 3%
Fresh ferment 5 grams

Conclusions:

The pre-fermented dough doubles the size during the first rest and again after the division in individual balls until shaping.
In the next time, with the same or higher ambient temperatures, I will change the pre-ferment quantities to 2 or may be 1.5% of the flour.
Despite doubling in size the dough was not over-fermented easy to shape and showed an edge/cornicione that grows up as a volcano, with big holes and great crust characteristics. Baked in less than one minute the pizzas resulting filled with black points, tender and lights to digest.

The fresh fermented dough grows too much (little more than double) during the first 3:30 hours rest. Was divided and the individual dough were placed to rest in the refrigerator for 6 hours (not planned, just to slow down the process) and final rest of two hours at ambient temperature (27 ?C at 8 PM) were the dough doubles in size again.
I was afraid with the use of the quantities of fresh ferment recommended, due to the quality of the products that I have here. Fault of mine. Next time I will use 1 to 2 grams of fresh ferment to 12 hours dough rise.
The dough was no so easy to work as the precedent one, showing a little stiffness and some elasticity.
However, as a secondary benefit, I showed my great aptitude to throw up the pizza disks and cover myself with floating flour. One of the hits of the night <g>
In the oven it develops well, great cornicione with big holes. Good color.
The taste was good, even so, more to bread than to pizza. Not bad at all, the invitees love the taste.
There was a formerly pizzeria owner between the invitees and he give me the best of their comments (of course, after lot of beers. May I consider this commentary as legal? <g>)

In my opinion, the 24 hours pre-fermented ambient temperature dough is still the better dough.

Luis

**arevalo53anos** · 11-01-2007, 02:39 AM

Re: One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

Following, some pictures taken from the last party.

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One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

One day ambient temperature prefermented pizza dough

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