Interesting Dough Experiment

[heliman]

Last night we went to a well known (and one of the best) pizzeria. After the meal I got chatting to the owner and casually asked if they would be prepared to sell me some of their pizza dough. No problem they said - so I grabbed 3 doughs and too them back to my "lab" at home AKA the kitchen.

I thought that I would provide some observations in the hope that the experts here can shed some more light on the likely composition of the dough.

First up, (no more floggings please), the dough had a strong olive oil smell so I am sure that it contained a small amount of it. It was pretty dry so I don't thing it was sprayed or coated with olive oil.

The dough was very "heavy" feeling as opposed to the rather "light and fluffy" ones that I make. Could this be to do with the yeast? Is it possible that only a "starter dough" is used by the pizza place and no instant yeast?

I left the dough to ferment overnight in the fridge and I noticed that it had not grown in size much at all. Mine usually start trying to climb out of the container. Even after the dough was left out about 6 hrs there was still not much change in the size.

I intend keeping the dough for use as a "starter" and will freeze it until I am ready to use it. Will it make a suitable starter? If yes, what percentage will I need to mix with a fresh batch of dough (I have 500 grams of old dough) to get it working. Is any additional instant dry yeast needed?

Comments welcomed.

PS. Looks like I will have to add some olive oil (as per Reinhart's suggestion) to future pizza dough... eeeek did I just say that????

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Unless it's a sourdough, keeping it to use as a starter doesn't really serve any purpose. Commercial yeast leavened doughs do not self-sustain like a sourdough does, so at best, the benefit would be that you've got a bit of fermented dough with some added flavor but that's about it. Sure, you can use it as a "starter" but it will never function as a starter in the true sourdough sense of things.
OTOH, if it IS a naturally leavened dough and you add commercial yeast, that will take over as the dominant strain of bacteria in short order and basically kill off any sourdough beasties as well as most/all sourdough flavor.

If it is a yeast-leavened dough, I would have expected 6 hours at room temp to yield you some sort of increase in volume. OTOH, six hours wouldn't be that unusual for a sluggish sourdough.
I would take off about a 25 or 50g. blob and add 100g each of flour and water (by weight). Mix and see what it does. A nice healthy sourdough with act perky and double in volume in 6 or 8 hours. If it shows signs of life but takes longer than that, discard or separate all but a 50g. blob and do the additions again. It should grow and double faster than the first time.
OTOH, if you get nothing from this but a bunch of goo, it wasn't sourdough.

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Thanks for the info splat...

Is it possible that the dough has been made using a miniscule amount of Will yeast to give it "heavy" feeling?

Will have a go with 50g of the old dough tonight but will it not be adversely affected by the addition of the olive oil??

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

I'm not sure why it would be "heavy" other than not being risen at all and/or it being a function of the gluten development.
You could try baking off a pies' worth and see how what you get compares to what you ate there. That might give you an idea of what state of development it is in with regard to rise/proofing. OTOH, if your goal is to be able to replicate this dough, the feel, smell and texture of the raw dough would be more informative, IMO. Ultimately, it might not matter since the bake has as much to do with the finished product as the dough...is it used in a WFO pizzeria?

I'm definitely not the sourdough expert here by any means (hello Jay?) but I don't think olive oil would interfere with anything. It would be VERY a small amount by the time you've done the additions anyway.

If you want to get on the sourdough bus, I highly recommend the fresh loaf website along with any/all of the other books discussed there and here. Prior to the completion of my WFO, I had never worked with sourdough and I managed to start and grow my own culture from scratch and become a fairly capable sourdough baker just with what I learned on the net and a couple of books.

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Yes, replication is what I am after!!

My dough almost feels like marshmallow, whereas this one is very compact with little air and bubbles in it. My dough sometimes has quite a bit of air in it which makes it difficult to stretch as the bubbles create a weak point causing tearing. The bought one felt like window putty and you could "mould" it into shape, whereas my usual dough has a bit of spring back etc. BTW the owner of the pizza place told me that the dough was made that morning - not sure if this has any influence on the end product.

I baked one last night - bare, save for olive oil, rocksalt and a tiny bit of Rosemary. Almost exactly the same as the one I ate in the shop. Will do the other 2 this evening and see how they turn out. I may also try Reinhart's neo-nap dough which could produce a similar product.

PS: I had originally thought of using the old dough as biga, hence my initial post proposing it as a starter (semantics, or poor choice of words?).

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Update on this one...

I took the remaining 2 doughs out of the fridge and and in getting them ready to rest I had a good sniff on each. They smelled distinctly like "sourdough". Maybe my imagination, but perhaps this is the process that they are using. There were a few large air pockets in the dough but there was only a very slight size increase since yesterday.

Have hacked of a 25 grams to see if I can get it started as per the splat method. Hopefully I can arouse the beast in it.

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Update 2...

The starter has been going for about 5 hours and I saw a couple of bubbles in the mix. Gave it another stir and will leave it over night and divide it up and add more flour and water in the morning. Not really sure what I am looking for but I am hoping all will be revealed shortly...

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Tasting the raw dough might give you an idea of whether it's sourdough, too. My guess is that it's not.

for reference, here's what my starter (100% hydration) looks like a few hours after feeding:

full of tiny bubbles and about 50% more volume than immediately after feeding. If I haven't fed it for a couple of weeks, it would take about twice as long or more to reach this state. By tomorrow, what started out as about an inch of goo in the jar will be like this:


So what is it that you found so attractive about this dough? Are you looking to zero in on a recipe that has better flavor than what you've made in the past or do you want something that handles differently? The issue of "big holes that tear" is a working/shaping problem, not a dough recipe problem, IMO. Not that a different dough recipe won't help you...

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Here are two pics taken this morning. Bearing in mind that I only used 25 grams of the old dough and 100 each water flour maybe the reaction is a bit tamer than yours.

I will keep 50 grams and add more flour and water and see what it looks like when I get home.

The dough was very tasty, worked really well in the electric oven and also handled very well. Yes, I would be keen to duplicate it if possible.

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

I think that shows promise. If it peters out in a couple of days I would assume it was a conventional yeast dough, otherwise, with repeat feedings, you should see continued/increased activity.
When I feed my starter, I dump out or use everything so all that's left for the next feeding is what sticks to the sides of the jar. The pictures are based on that teeny bit plus a 150g. water/flour feeding.

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Sounds good thanks for the commentary.

I topped it up on my way out of the door this morning so hopefully it will be looking very happy when I get home. I did not detect any noticeable sourdough smell but the gluten development was incredible.

More later...

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Well, 11 hours later it looks like the dough has more than doubled in size. Definitely something going on here.

Should I dump and top up with more flour now or wait till tomorrow morning i.e 24 hrs later??

BTW - is there any chance that this thing will be usable by the weekend??

[heliman]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Ok after a few more hours - this thing is still bubbling along.

Some questions:

How will this starter differ from a starter I make using pineapple juice, rye flour etc?

Is there any value in using the existing sourdough over starting a new one?

Can I use it this weekend? If so, how do I go about working it into a pizza dough? Is there a good preparation method and recipe for this??

Thanks for the input on this one...

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

Does it taste sour?

I am led to believe based on what I've just read that even commercial yeast starters may continue on indefinitely with feedings, the difference being that it will lack sour flavor because it's not lactobacillus. But, I also know that any culture will naturally colonize and be taken over with whatever is local to you, so I guess I don't really know what will happen going forward with this one.

I would definitely use it and continue to feed it, esp. if it tastes sour.

The value of a mature culture over a young one is that the organisms have had a chance to naturally select so that the strongest, most vigorous strain is what continues to grow, whereas presumably there is still a bit of natural selection going on in a young culture. If this logic is applied to the above statements, it seems like one could expect even a commercial yeast "starter" to eventually be taken over by sourdough beasties....?
FW that's worth, I started using my grown-from-scratch culture as soon as it appeared to be growing and lively and I don't see much if any difference in it now vs. then.

So if this is in fact a sourdough, I would imagine it has been in use for a while and is fairly old. HOWEVER, moving it so far from it's original circumstances means all bets are off...like I said before, it will become whatever it wants to be in your location. From what I understand, this would be true of relocating ANY sourdough culture.

I certainly isn't difficult to start another of your own. I plunked a raisin in flour/water slurry to get mine going and it worked beautifully.

As far as using it, I just substitute a blob of starter for some of the flour and water the recipe calls for and proceed. So if I use 100g. of starter, I subtract 50g. each of flour and water from what the recipe says, and omit the yeast, of course. Expect your proof times to be different, however... this is the learning curve.

Reinhardt's sourdough pizza dough recipe calls for 8oz. of starter to 32oz. of flour but IIRC his starter formula is more of a stiff dough type...easy enough to convert or sub, however.

[splatgirl]

Re: Interesting Dough Experiment

excerpted from the website listed below, I think this is a fairly good explanation of things:

The natural yeasts in a sourdough starter are strains of a yeast family whose scientific name is Sacchraromyces exiges. They are of the same family of yeast as commercial bakers' yeast, whose scientific name is Saccharomyces cerrivasae. The two have what might be called a distant family relationship but differ in one important way. Commercial bakers yeast cannot survive in a very acidic environment whereas natural yeast is very happy to live in such an environment. This is important because the lactobacilli in a sourdough culture produce a lot of lactic and acetic acids (which are what gives sourdough bread its flavor). The acids create an environment too acidic for commercial bakers' yeast, so only natural yeast can live with them.

What is Sourdough?