Author: C. Keith Gierman

Smoked Gouda and Jalapeño Country Loaf

Now that the weather has finally warmed up, I am amazed at how differently my starter and doughs are behaving. The starter is rising and falling more quickly and bulk fermentation of the dough is taking a couple of hours less time. As of yesterday, the kitchen temperature was 74 F as opposed to the 67 F it was all winter.

I planned on making my grapevine smoked cheddar and jalapeño loaf this week only to discover we had eaten all the grapevine smoked cheddar. Debbie suggested that we use smoked Gouda (store bought) and I thought why not.

I did something a little different with the leaven this time. I didn’t want to mix the dough until mid-afternoon the next day. Instead of using 100 grams each flour and water, I used 50 grams each along with only 4 grams of starter. Then next morning, after 12 hours, I added another 50 grams each. I was trying to make a milder loaf of bread. I then mixed the dough 4 hours after after the second addition to the leaven.

I am going to cut this post short here. I made a poor assumption and bad decision when baking this bread. I am very frustrated with myself. My poor assumption was that the dutch oven was seasoned enough so that even though I was using it cold and going into a cold oven, the bread wouldn’t stick. The bad decision was to not use parchment paper anyway. The end result was the bread stuck severely and I crushed the crust trying to get it loose and I couldn’t get it off the bottom of the pot. When Debbie got home from church she worked on it. She did finally get it off the bottom of pot but some of the bottom crust stayed there. What’s left tastes fine and the loaf looked great in the pot when it came out of the oven. I’m still frustrated with myself a day later. Lesson learned!

I will document this loaf the next time I make it.

Pain Au Levain

This is a bread I have wanted to try since I started my sourdough journey. It is based on the pain au levain in the book Bread Alone by Dan Leader and Judith Blahnik. I should also mention that I have had this bread from the Bread Alone Bakery in Boiceville, NY and it was delicious. It was being baked in a wood-fired oven when I was there.

I used to make this starting with a pinch of yeast (< 1/16 teaspoon) like the book calls for but now I wanted to start with sourdough starter. If we accept that 1 teaspoon of yeast and 70 grams of 100% hydration sourdough starter can be used interchangeably, then 4 grams of starter should replace the pinch of yeast. The other issue with this bread is that the original recipe calls for a bread flour with 20% of the bran remaining. Until recently I had not been able to find anything even close. Then I discovered what is called bolted flour at Breadtopia (no affiliation with them). Bolted flour means a percentage of the bran is sieved out with a fine mesh sieve. It is also called high extraction flour. Everything else is left in so in theory, there should be more flavor and nutrition. So I contacted Breadtopia, told them what I was looking for and received a positive response. They don’t actually measure the bran left but their estimate was that it in the vicinity of what I was looking for. Based on that I ordered a bag of their Select Bread Flour. This flour is certified organic, unbleached, unbromated, non GMO, stone ground and bolted. This flour has a strong 14% protein level. The other big advantage to flour from Breadtopia is freshness. The bag I received was milled on the same day I placed the order and that it was shipped.

This recipe is the definition of slow bread. It starts with building a chef over 3 days, converting the chef to a levain on the fourth day and then mixing the dough, bulk fermenting, dividing, shaping, proofing and baking on the fifth day. The reason so much can be accomplished on the fifth day is the levain is a high percentage of the final dough. Bulk fermentation and proofing each only take about 2 hours. I actually had to set up a timetable for the various phases of the process. The most critical was that from the mixing of the levain to mixing the final dough needed to be at least 8 hours but not more than 10 hours. So I mixed the levain at 10:00 pm and the dough at 6:30 am the following morning. Luckily the timing on everything before the levain was flexible and not time consuming. The dough dictated the timing after it was mixed. My bulk fermentation time was two hours and fifteen minutes. Proofing only took one hour and forty five minutes.

The original recipe gives and unusually wide range of 142 grams for how much flour to use. All flour absorbs different amounts of water and I will admit I should have added more flour. I used the midpoint of the range but in hindsight, I should have been at or near the top of the range. When you’ve never used a flour before you just don’t know how it will behave. All you can do is to make notes for the next time. The result was the dough spread out way too much yielding flat loaves. I used 750 grams of flour but would use 780 to 800 grams the next time.

This was a very wet sticky dough that was difficult to work with throughout the process. I had to use a lot of extra flour in forming and shaping the loaves to prevent the the dough from sticking to everything.

The amounts in the original recipe were listed in ounce and fluid ounces so I converted everything to grams.

The Ingredients

Ingredients	Amount	Bakers %
The Chef
Day 1
100% Starter	4 g	3.5%
Water	118 g	104%
Select Bread Flour	113 g	100%
Day 2
Water	118 g	104%
Select Bread Flour	113 g	100%
Day 3
Water	118 g	104%
Select Bread Flour	113 g	100%
The Levain
Chef	All
Select Bread Flour	170 g	100%
The Dough
Levain	510 g	68%
Water	532 g	71%
Select Bread Flour	680-822 g	100%
Fine Sea Salt	15 g	2%

Note: Baker % for the dough based on the 750 g flour actually used.

My Process

1. Day 1, start the chef by weighing water in a 2 to 3 quart container. Add starter and flour to container. Mix thoroughly. Cover and leave on counter.
2. Day 2, weigh water and flour in the chef container. Mix thoroughly. Cover and leave on counter.
3. Day 3, weigh water and flour in the chef container. Mix thoroughly. Cover and place container in the fridge for up to 3 days until ready to make the levain.
4. Day 4, remove chef container from fridge about 12 hours before making levain.
5. At least 8 hours but not more than 10 hours before mixing the final dough add the flour to the chef. Mix thoroughly. Cover and leave on counter.
6. Day 5, weigh out the ingredients for the final dough. Not all the levain will be used. I chose to discard the remainder. It could be saved and turned back into a chef and refreshed periodically just like a starter.
7. Add the water and the levain to a mixing bowl. Mix with a dough whisk until the levain is incorporated into the water.
8. Add the flour to the water mixture a couple of handfuls at a time incorporating each addition before making the next addition. Add the salt while the dough is fairly liquid. Continue to add the flour until a firm dough is formed. Transfer to a dough fermentation container.
9. Knead the dough by hand for 15-17 minutes or perform 4-5 stretch and folds on 15 minute intervals covering in between.
10. Bulk ferment until dough is soft and less sticky, about 2 hours.
11. Flour a work surface. Remove the dough from container and knead briefly.
12. Divide dough in to 2 equal pieces.
13. Form each dough piece into a ball. Cover with a damp towel. Let rest on work surface for about 30 minutes.
14. Flour 2 – 14”x6” oblong cloth lined bannetons with a mix of rye and rice flour.
15. Working with one piece of dough at a time, flatten dough ball into an 8” diameter disk.
16. Shape dough into a batard. Roll dough until it matches the length of the banneton. Place dough into banneton and cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap.
17. Repeat for the other dough ball.
18. Let dough proof until a finger impression fills slowly but remains in the dough, about 2 hours.
19. 1 hour into the proofing time place the baking stone on the center rack position of the oven and a sheet pan on the rack below the stone. Preheat the oven to 450 F.
20. Line a cookie sheet with a sheet of parchment to use as a peel.
21. Transfer one loaf from banneton to parchment and slash loaf. Repeat for second loaf placing on the same parchment sheet.
22. Spritz loaves with water and transfer to baking stone in oven. Close oven.
23. As soon as possible open oven and pour 1 cup boiling water on the sheet pan and quickly close the oven door to trap the steam.
24. Bake loaves for 25-30 minutes. After 12 minutes slightly open the oven door to vent any remains steam. If any water remains on the sheet pan, carefully remove it from the oven.
25. Remove loaves from oven when baking is done and place loaves on cooling rack. Don’t slice until cooled, about 2 hours.

These loaves came out of the oven looking like giant ciabatta instead of pain au levain. I discussed the reason above. Luckily appearance has nothing to do with flavor and this bread tastes great. There is no mistaking it for anything but a sourdough, but it is mild and in the background. I was concerned that the long fermentation of the chef/ levain would have an overpowering sourdough flavor but it didn’t. There is a complexity and nuttiness in the flavor that I just haven’t gotten with supermarket bread flour. The crumb is moist but didn’t develop large holes like there wasn’t enough gluten development.

The method described for getting steam into the oven did not work as well as either using a dutch oven or covering the loaf with a roasting pan. Unfortunately, our roasting pan lid is not large enough to cover two loaves so I was stuck using this method. The crust came out soft and not nice and crisp like all my previous sourdough breads have been.

This was my first time baking bread with something other than King Arthur flour and all in all I would say this was a successful experiment. There is still work to do to get the loaf I had hoped for. It wouldn’t surprise me if it takes several more tries to get what I’m looking for. I am also going to expand the usage of different flours from a variety of sources.

This week we are making sourdough pita breads. I enjoy pita bread as as change of pace from regular bread. I particularly enjoy them with some falafels and tahini sauce or with Schwarma. I used a 60/40 mix of my usual organic bread flour and white whole wheat flours.

I based these on a recipe from Breadtopia (no affiliation) with a video. I followed the recipe as written which was supposed to yield a fairly stiff dough. I was not using the same flour and did not get a stiff dough. In hindsight, I should have held back 20 grams or so of the water. I ended up adding a heaping soup spoon of whole wheat flour to stiffen up the dough but still didn’t get it as stiff as the video.

I have not made pitas before and there was a learning curve when it came rolling out the dough to 8” rounds. This is a sticky, springy dough. Lots of flour is needed everywhere when rolling these out: board, dough and rolling pin. I used an 1/8” gauged rolling pin to get a uniform thickness when rolling these out. One of the keys to this to let the dough rest longer once it is divided into equal pieces and rolled into balls, at least 20 minutes. This recipe makes eight 8” pitas.

The Formula

Ingredient	Amount	Bakers %
Starter	70 g	14%
Tot Flour	500 g	100%
Bread Flour	300 g	60%
White Whole Wheat Flour	200 g	40%
Water	360 g	72%
Olive Oil	12 g	2.4%
Salt	10 g	2%

Note: Just figured out my dough issue. I misread the recipe and read 360 g of water as 380 g. Oops! The above formula has been corrected to the proper amount of water that should have been used, not what I actually used. I guess my assessment above that I should have withheld 20 grams of water was correct, since I used 20 grams too much.

My Process

1. Weigh out all ingredients mid-afternoon.
2. Mix flours and salt together.
3. Mix water, olive oil and starter together.
4. Slowly add flour mix to water mix. Incorporate each addition before adding the next.
5. When all flour is added let dough rest 15-20 minutes to let flour absorb the water and hydrate.
6. Briefly knead dough. Move to covered container for bulk fermentation.
7. Stretch and fold dough 3-4 times at 15 minute intervals.
8. Place covered container in fridge until just before bed time.
9. Remove container from the fridge, stretch and fold dough and cover container. Let dough bulk ferment at room temperature for a total of 10-14 hours.
10. The next morning place baking stone on rack in the next to the top rack position. Preheat the oven at its highest temperature for 60 minutes. In our case that was 525 F.
11. Divide dough into 8 equal weight pieces.
12. Form each dough piece into a ball. Cover with a damp linen towel and let rest 20 minutes.
13. Flour work surface generously. Flour rolling pin. Roll each dough piece into 8” round between 1/8” and 1/4” thick.
14. Place rolled dough on floured cookie sheet or peel. We could only fit 3 rounds on cookie sheet and on stone. In the end we did 2 at a time on cookie sheet and baking.
15. Cover dough rounds with a damp linen towel and let rest 15-20 minutes.
16. Before baking shake cookie sheet to make sure the dough is free to move. If not, loosen and more flour if necessary.
17. Slide rounds onto baking stone and bake 6 minutes. At about 2 minute they will begin to puff up.
18. Remove pitas from oven to a cooling rack. Stack baked pitas to help them deflate. Cover with a damp linen towel to prevent drying out.
19. After about 20 minutes cooling place in a zip lock bag for storage.

These are tasty pitas, they puffed nicely and are hollow inside for stuffing. I had one lunch each half stuffed with a half of a Italian sausage patty, onions, peppers and tomatoes. Yummy!

Other than using the correct amount of water the next time I am also going to reduce the amount of salt. I dawned on me that 10 grams of salt in 8 pitas amount to 1250 mg salt per pita, way more than someone on a reduced sodium diet should have. I will probably cut the total to 5 grams the next time and see how they taste.

This week is something totally different for me. It isn’t sourdough and most wouldn’t consider it bread. But it is the 5th of May or Cinco de Mayo, so what better way to celebrate than with homemade corn tortillas.

I have been thinking about this for a while as the last few packages from the supermarket have been bland and somewhat tasteless to me. Then, just as May approached, I learned that Wegmans sells Maseca brand masa harina. And tortillas are similar to sourdough in that they are both made from three ingredients water, salt and flour which in the case of tortillas is masa harina instead of wheat flour.

Masa harina is different than grits or polenta in that the corn has been dried, then cooked in an alkaline solution and the skin removed, then rinsed and dried again before grinding into flour.

Once I knew that Wegmans had Maseca, I ordered a tortilla press online. I chose a cast iron one made in Columbia branded Victoria.

The recipe on the Maseca bag calls for 2 cups of Maseca to 1-1/2 cups of water. Online recipes I found called for using warm water and adding a pinch of salt and I did both. After mixing the dough I thought it was pretty dry and I ended up adding 3 tablespoons of additional water, 1 at a time, until I had a nice dough that didn’t crumble. The recipe on the bag called for forming 1 ounce balls of dough to make 5” tortillas but I wanted them larger. I used 30 grams of dough and made 5-1/2 to 6” tortillas.

To press the dough balls into tortillas I took a gallon sized zip lock bag, cut off the zip lock and cut the bag down to fit the tortilla press.

Debbie and I worked together to make the tortillas. We had a 10” cast iron griddle preheated on the stove. I was pressing and Debbie was cooking them. The first few were rough until we figured out what we were doing. After the first couple I ended up adding a few drops of canola oil to the dough and working it in. I read about doing that to help the dough release from the plastic. It seemed to do the trick. Once we got our rhythm down and got the heat high enough on the griddle things went smoothly.

I have to admit I am surprised at how good these actually came out. We made both nachos and tacos and the tortillas worked well for both dishes. The corn flavor in the tortillas came through in both as well. The tortillas did not sog out from the meat filling in the tacos and they held up well first bite to last. Better outcome than I could have hoped for.

This week I am again trying a recipe that I have converted from yeasted to sourdough. It is based on King Arthur’s Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Honey Bread (I have no affiliation with them). I am using 70 grams of 100% hydration starter to replace 1 teaspoon of instant yeast. I decided to use the starter just before it was refreshed for the day. This has always been a favorite sandwich and toasting bread of ours but it’s a long time since I’ve made it.

I’ve mixed the dough and it came out way stiffer than it should have. Soft dough = soft bread. I added an extra 20 grams of water and kneaded it in and now the dough feels much better. Still a little stiffer than I would like, but I don’t want to go too far. For flour I am using King Arthur Organic All Purpose and King Arthur White Whole Wheat. Since I made the switch to the organic all purpose flour earlier this week for my starter I noticed the starter was a little stiffer. I am guessing that the organic is absorbing more water than the regular all purpose. Also, the rolled oats could absorb a different amount of water from batch to batch.

The Formula

Ingredient	Amount	Bakers %
Boiling Water *	454 g	70%
Rolled Oats	99 g	15%
Brown Sugar	106 g	16%
Honey	21 g	3.2%
Butter	57 g	8.7%
Cinnamon	6.8 g	1%
Salt	13 g	2%
White Whole Wheat Flour	170 g	26%
All Purpose Flour	482 g	74%
Total Flour	652 g	100%
Starter	70 g	11%

“*” Added additional 20 grams room temp water after mixing

My Process

1. Weigh out ingredients.
2. Bring water to boil.
3. In a large bowl add rolled oats, brown sugar, butter, and honey. Pour over boiling water and stir.
4. Let cool 30 minutes.
5. Mix together the flours, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.
6. Slowly add and mix flour mixture into cooled water mixture.
7. Knead into smooth satiny dough.
8. Transfer dough to a greased, covered container.
9. Bulk ferment dough 10 to 12 hours or until dough has become puffy and less sticky to the touch.
10. Remove dough from container and divide into two equal pieces.
11. Pre-shape dough and let rest on surface for 20 to 30 minutes.
12. Final shape dough and place in greased 4-1/4 X 8-1/2 bread pans.
13. Cover dough loosely with greased plastic wrap.
14. Place covered bread pans in refrigerator to proof overnight.
15. The next morning remove from the fridge and let sit on the counter until dough is domed 1” above the top of the pan. (Took 7 hours, only got to top of pan. Dough was still cold to touch even after spending 3 hours in proofer at 75 F.)
16. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
17. Put both loaves in oven. Bake 25 minutes, cover with aluminum foil to prevent over browning.
18. Bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes.
19. Remove from oven and let cool on a rack before slicing.

Loaves ended up with good oven spring. Height of loaves was good but I need to improve on making uniform loaves when forming and putting in the pans.

The flavor is great just like I remembered, though a bit sweeter than I remembered. Texture and crumb are also very nice.

So, what will I change when I make this again? First and foremost the process. I took forever, seemingly, for the dough to warm up after taking it out of the fridge. If I make the dough early in the day like I did this time then I will retard the dough in the fridge during bulk fermentation. The dough will come out of the fridge before bed to finish bulk fermentation on the counter overnight. The morning it will be divided, shaped and proofed, all at room temperature.

Second, I am going to scale up the recipe in hopes of filling the bread pans out better. I will also increase the water slightly more than this time possibly an additional 10 to 15 grams or a total of 35 grams more than the recipe calls for.

This is a good whole wheat bread for sandwiches, paninis and toasting. It will be in my regular bread making rotation.

This post will be different in that I am covering two weeks worth of bread for a variety of reasons. Primary because I have covered both before and there were only subtle changes in each. I also have not felt that great and not been up to posting.

For our first weeks bread I am again making rye bread from the same recipe as before with a couple of changes. First I have doubled the recipe to make two loaves. Next I made a rye starter (converted from my normal starter) and used that to make an overnight rye leaven. Finally, I didn’t have any oranges to zest so I used Meyer lemons.

This I documented the rye starter in a post earlier this week so I won’t cover that again. I did decide not to keep the rye starter going. I did not find any improvement in flavor to justify using a separate rye starter. I also will make sure to have oranges on hand the next I make this bread as their absence was noticeable.

The leaven was made by measuring out 10 grams of the rye starter into 70 grams of water and mixing it in thoroughly. Then 35 grams each of AP and whole rye flour were added to the water and mixed in. The leaven then sat on the counter for 12 hours before being mixed into the dough.

The Formula

Ingredient	Amount	Bakers %
The Leaven
Rye Starter	10 g	14%
Water	70 g	100%
AP Flour	35 g	50%
Whole Rye Flour	35 g	50%
The Dough
Leaven	140 g	14%
Water	800 g	83%
Bread Flour	490 g	50%
Whole Rye Flour	490 g	50%
Tot Flour	980 g	100%
Molasses	88 g	9%
Fennel Seed	16 g	1.6%
Anise Seed	4 g	0.4%
Caraway Seed	6 g	0.6%
Salt	20 g	2%
Zest of Meyer Lemon	2

The process was the same as before so I won’t bore you with that again. The results were great and again we enjoyed some Rueben sandwiches. For the corned beef this time I cooked it in our sous vide and it turned out delicious. We soaked it for a couple of hours to get out some of the salt. Then it was dried off and seasoned with a couple or tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper and vacuum sealed and refrigerated overnight. The next morning the sous vide was preheated to 180 F. Once it was up to temperature the corned beef went in for 10 hours. When the 10 hours were up the sealed bag with the corned beef went into an ice bath to stop the cooking. Then into the fridge until we were ready to slice for sandwiches. We were able to slice this nice and thin and it was one of the most tender corned beefs we have made.

The next weeks bread was again the Tartine Country Sourdough Loaf. This was two loaves of the original formula with one minor change. I have always thought it made no sense to make the leaven twice the size as going to be used in the bread. So this time I used 11 grams of starter, 100 grams of water and 100 grams or my AP and white whole wheat flour mix and used the whole leaven in the dough. Sharp observers might note the the formula only calls for 200 grams of starter and I made 211 grams. I have discovered that between what is lost as CO2 as the starter ferments overnight and what sticks in the bowl I lose about 10 grams of starter.

My results were different to prior results with this recipe. The bread had much more of a sour flavor. I was surprised to say the least as this has been so consistent in the past. I don’t know if it was the change to the leaven or the fact that the kitchen was a little warmer now that the weather has finally changed and there was more activity during bulk fermentation. The structure and rise in the oven were both very good so I am thinking it was the change to the leaven.

The next time I make this recipe I will go back to the original leaven formula, check the results, and report in that post.

This bread was by no means bad and in fact had more flavor. It’s just that we prefer a milder loaf.

I just realized I never posted the original formula and process. I will post the formula and my process the next time I make this bread. In the meantime, it is available online from many sources, just Google “Tartine Bread” and you’ll find lots of links.

Now that I am feeling better I hope I can get back on track for future posts.

We will be doing something a little different this week, sourdough crust pizza. I’ve never done this before so it could be interesting. I had too many doctor appointments this week to make bread so I thought this could be a quicker alternative.

First decision was what to use for flour. I wanted to get a crispy crust as opposed to a New York style crust that folds. In the end I chose to use a mix of Caputo 00 flour and King Arthur All Purpose flour (I have no affiliation with either company). Next decision was to decide on hydration level. From the research I did I learned that 00 flour doesn’t absorb as much water a domestic flours, so 60% hydration would be appropriate. AP flour could go 70% or more. In the end I arbitrarily decided 65% hydration. Next was how much olive oil to add. I wasn’t sure how the addition of a fat would impact sourdough since I hadn’t done it so fat. I decided to keep it low at just under 5%. I also wasn’t sure how it would effect gluten formation and decided to add after most of the flour was incorporated in the water and starter mix.

The next decision was how much starter. I decided to use the equivalent to one teaspoon of instant yeast 70 grams of starter. The salt was 2% just like any dough.

I should add, my original plan was to make the dough the day before and do an overnight cold ferment in the fridge. That didn’t happen because I had an eye doctor appointment and couldn’t read anything afterwards with my pupils dilated. That meant the dough had to be mixed, fermented, formed, proofed and baked in one day. Not what I planned, but I thought it would work with a small sacrifice of flavor.

The other decision was how much dough do I need. I had hoped to make two 14” crusts. I ended up with two 12” crusts. Research indicated that a 14” crust takes 15 ounces of dough or 30 ounces of dough for two. In grams that would be 850. I decided to go slightly higher and my formula ended up at 885 g. That should have been enough but the dough resisted stretching and kept shrinking back even with several rests to allow the dough to relax. After forming the dough balls I probably should have waited more than 15 minutes before forming the crusts.

The Formula

Ingredient	Amount	Bakers %
100% Hyd. Starter	70 g	14.7%
Total flour	475 g	100%
Caputo 00 flour	275 g	58%
All Purpose flour	200 g	42%
Water	310 g	65%
Salt	9 g	2%
Olive Oil	15 g	4.8%

My Process

1. Weigh out all ingredients for the dough.
2. Mix the starter into the water thoroughly.
3. Mix the two flours together until uniform.
4. Add the flours to the water mixture one or two handfuls at at time mixing with a danish dough whisk until about 3/4 of the flours are added and a shaggy wet dough has formed.
5. Add the olive oil to the dough and mix in with dough whisk until thoroughly combined.
6. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix by hand until all flour is incorporated into the dough.
7. Cover mixing bowl and let dough rest 20 – 30 minutes.
8. Add salt to dough and mix by hand until completely incorporated. Salt grains will will still be visible in dough but will disolve and be further mixed into dough with subsequent folds.
9. Tranfer dough to covered container for bulk fermentation. Bulk fermentation takes roughly 7 hours.
10. Stretch and fold dough 4 times on 60 minute intervals, then let rest for the remainder of bulk fermentation.
11. When dough has increased by about 30% in volume and is soft to the touch remove the dough from the container and divide into 2 equal pieces.
12. Form each half of the dough into a tight round ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 15 minutes.
13. Place baking stone in oven and preheat oven to 525F on conventional bake (not convection).
14. Take one dough ball leaving the other covered. Lightly flour a work surface and form into a 12” crust. I used a combination of rolling with a tapered rolling pin and stretching by hand to form and the dough resisted all the way. I let the dough relax several times but still struggled to get to 12”.
15. Let crust rise a few minutes before topping.
16. Top crust with favorite toppings. We used sauce, homemade Italian sausage, red onions, sliced black olives, sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella and parmigiana reggiano cheese.
17. Bake 13 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

This turned out delicious. It may be one of the best crusts I’ve made. This surprises me because most of the pizzas I’ve liked best have had a very yeasty crust which this definitely wasn’t. The crust was crispy and didn’t sag with the weight of all the toppings. I really don’t like floppy or crusts that fold.

There are somethings I will do different the next time. I felt the dough was slightly stiff and fought me when forming the crust. So I will add another 10 grams (to 67%) of water. I will increase the total flour to 500 grams in hopes of getting closer to a 14” pie. I will do the bulk fermentation in the fridge possibly 24 hours but at least overnight.

I will continue to work on this and try to improve it. I will continue to use the Caputo 00 flour as I like it for both pasta and pizza dough. I have some Caputo Semolina on hand so I may try an all Caputo flour crust. Caputo flour comes from Naples Italy so it would be appropriate. Or I may try using the flours used this time in different percentages. Next time however will be the same percentages with the changes documented above.