this last crust was tough and too regular (with some introductory material mixed in for the benefit of anyone who’s terribly curious what I’m up to here) - Lemmy.world
My regular routine lately has been sourdough starter about 50g water 50g flour…
with total water 165g, total flour 250g, 1 tsp salt or nearly so, 16g oil.
Balling up the dough once or twice, a few days in the refrigerator, two hours or
so warming before putting the pizza together. When I was starting out, I was
influenced by certain books and websites having religion on “high hydration”. I
followed that, and I accepted it as an interesting challenge to work with
wettish dough. I’d keep the dough in an oiled bag, and then bake on a screen. At
present I keep it in a bowl and then bake the pizza on a stone. I’m not saying
66% hydration* is high, but still something of a vestige of those days. High
gluten was also religion back in those days, and the more recent conventional
religion is bringing down the gluten percentage in pizza below what you would
for like serious breads. But I stick with higher gluten because I seem to enjoy
the flavor better, and the dough feels nice, and if I try to make a pizza using,
say, all-purpose flour, it can be okay but really too soft for my preference. I
don’t want it to be like consuming American sandwich bread. Specifially, today
the talk is if you have an ordinary oven that won’t reach high temperatures,
standard is down at like 60% hydration and oil is down at like 2–3%. All right,
let’s try the new conventions and see what we think. I’m not in love with dough
trying to stick to the peel, and currently what I have for shaping on is some
wheat flour, and that sticks to the dough and wheat flour doesn’t taste good on
the crust of the baked pizza. I did one at 160g water, 12g oil, and it was all
right. Easier to work. Next one: 155g water, 8g oil. Oh, easy to work, but the
crust was tougher than I would prefer and the (sorry) cornicione* was too
regular and bready. Not many nice bubbles at all. I am using fairly high gluten
flour right now. But I’m sure those people are as well. Although maybe the 00*
trend is larger than I think. And it all depends on what you want and what
you’re doing to do, etc. A rougher industrial environment may require higher
gluten. Or a novice would need it until they develop the knack. If I have too
much structure, this would allow me to let it hang out in the refrigerator for
more days for more flavor to develop (dough will loosen over time), but I’m
already using sourdough, so no point, really. I could let it hang out for a long
time before shaping/assembling. Maybe try it once at some point, see whether it
gets interestingly bubbly or anything. I always have been fond of overrisen
dough. But I’m in no hurry. I think my first step should be to back up and try
the 160g 12g over again, paying closer attention to what I think right there.
Now that I know there’s a wall nearby, at least under my current set of
conditions. I make somewhat small pizzas because how much pizza can a person
eat. And I don’t make thin crust, so I keep the sauce and cheese modest so it
doesn’t leak off from a not-so-large pizza. So I’d been generally doing 90g
cheese and 3.5 spoonfuls of my sauce. But I have lots of what I need for sauce
and not much cheese right now, so I’m experimenting a little with more sauce and
less cheese. 75g and 5 spoonfuls on that last one. With so much structure, it
was easy to shape it to hold that. It could have easily held more sauce without
leaking. It may be that part of my not-liking was that I had a little more
surface area for a little less cheese, and with more surface area got more baked
in the same amount of time. So too toasty and not enough flavor. But still, the
texture, definitely breadier than normal. * hydration: Omnipresent jargon. All
they mean here is water ÷ flour. Everything relative to the amount of flour is
“baker’s percentages”, and they talk about it as if it were intellectually
impressive. I’ve also seen a mention of high oil percentage being something you
can think of as increasing hydration in some ways. Naturally enough. *
cornicione: This bit of unnecessary jargon has only become common recently, but
you might as well know it. I don’t remember what it means in Italian. People
love jargon because they are insecure and need to show off. So. The cornicione
is like the nature/structure of the crust. Take a slice, photograph the cut
side, and there’s your cornicione. * 00: At least in the US, when we think about
flour, our most basic classification is based on gluten percentage, which
affects how tightly it holds together. Somehow, in places like Italy, they seem
to work purely by how finely the flour is ground instead. And 00 is some
particular fineness. It’s becoming possible to buy 00 flour in the US, but it’s
expensive at this point because it’s trendy and niche, so I have no experience
with it.
