The Pizza Therapy Forum and Pasta Therapy Forum

[pizza]

Brian asks:

I'm curious about making pizza dough with
sourdough starters. You have any tips or strands that work well?"

My reply:

I am a big fan of sourdough. I have never made it, however.

I've only eaten it.

Does anyone have any tips for Brian about using sourdough?

Any sourdough recipes?

Any experience making sourdough pizza?

I am sure it would be excellent.

Does anyone have an opinion?

thanks in advance
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[sourdough]

Hey, there Brian and pizza!

I have not started any pizza dough applications yet, BUT, I have captured my own wild yeast strain here in the Puget Sound area (I live just about 2 miles from the water) and have made some good bread with it using no commercial yeast. Good rise, good oven spring... nice crisp yet chewy crust and great crumb, mildly sour. I can give all kinds of help with bread applications to get you started in the right direction and will be happy to offer comments when I get started using it for pizza... which will be SOON!

First question... do you have a starter yet? It sounds like you probably do.... so, have you been baking bread with it? Where are you at in this whole process?

~sourdough
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We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience and live without heart;
We may live without friends, we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
~~Owen Meredith

[dfandreatta]

Sourdough involves using a 'starter' - go to http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm for a good tutorial about this kind of dough.
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"Papa Don"
Apollo Beach, Florida

[qiatsu]

In Naples, IT commercial yeast is the preferred yeast however there are quite a few pizziolos that use natural yeast. The crust is must crisper with natural yeasts but you lose a lot of the chewy center. VPN certified pizzerias are allowed to use either natural or commercial. I generally use commercial yeast except during extremely hot weather because I try to not have to retard my dough in refrigeration so the natural yeasts lend themselves better for hot weather due to their slower metabolism. I currently use a wild yeast captured in a small town near Camaldoli in the Naples area. I actually prefer the taste of the commercial yeast dough for pizza better and it is better suited to go with wine than the natural yeast because the commercial yeast produces a less acidic end product. Which ever yeast you decide on it takes a little experimentation to find the combination of yeast and type of flour to produce the end product that pleases you so keep trying because everyday is different!!

[ExplosiveFitness]

Sourdough Is a great way to make pizza. Ive done it in both london and italy.
It can be a pain to stretch the dough out sometimes. You certainly wont be flipping it around etc ..but the flavour, texture/crumb is awesome.
I will have a dig around in my notebooks for some of the recipes