Yeast culture for Pizza Dough help!

I have been recently working on a good sauce and dough recipe for pizza. I live at higher altitude (7000 feet). So working with dough is tough. Recently i came across this site about New York style pizza.
Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe

He talks alot about how the yeast for the dough is very important and that it should be done with a starter of sourdough yeast. So i am thinking about using some ale yeast to see what type of flavor I can get.

Can someone help me make a starter for pizza. I make starters for my beer. I have standard equipment. [Stirplate, Flasks, burner, etc.] I am just unsure of how the process may be different for pizza. Things I should consider. Thanks.

Boudin Bakery sourdough starter. You could add some ale yeast to the mix, but flour normally has both wild yeast and bacteria in it. You can even buy the culture they've been using since 1849. One of the best sourdoughs on the planet.

Brewmoor said:

I have been recently working on a good sauce and dough recipe for pizza. I live at higher altitude (7000 feet). So working with dough is tough. Recently i came across this site about New York style pizza.
Jeff Varasano's Famous New York Pizza Recipe

He talks alot about how the yeast for the dough is very important and that it should be done with a starter of sourdough yeast. So i am thinking about using some ale yeast to see what type of flavor I can get.

Can someone help me make a starter for pizza. I make starters for my beer. I have standard equipment. [Stirplate, Flasks, burner, etc.] I am just unsure of how the process may be different for pizza. Things I should consider. Thanks.

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It's been a while since I've read his stuff (and it's a doozy due to the terrible, ramble-on single-page approach on the web site), but somewhere in there he mentions that "sourdough" is actually a misnomer; what "sourdough" means is a naturally-occurring yeast poolish. You likely don't want a "real" sourdough. He does have a link on his site to a place where you can find pizza dough starters.

As an aside, I don't understand the SF Bay area's fixation on sourdough. It's OK once in a while, but try as I might, it's difficult to escape. It really perplexes me that I have to watch when buying a baguette at the store for the fear that I'll accidentally grab a sourdough baguette by mistake. BAGUETTE SHOULD NOT BE SOURDOUGH!!!! ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

I finally found a reference to homebrew and pizza cultures, after searching through tons of stuff. It looks like people are just using the leftover yeast from a bottle of beer. adding that to the water that is used to make the culture.

So here is what I did.

3 tablespoons of flour
3/4 cup of water/the bottom of a bottle of ESB

stir twice a day for 48 hours. Add more flour and water/bottom of beer after 48

Repeat after another 48 with less water. Repeat again after 24 with even less water.

Then after another 24 make a starter with fermented dough that is remaining.

I can't wait to see how this tastes. My philosophy on this is that I do not want to buy a straight up culture that is made from some bread yeast. I want dough that has used beer yeast to go with my theme of pizza and homebrew. This is something I am developing for a business plan I am working on. My girlfriend and I want to open a wood fired pizza brewpub. A friend of mine is a baker and builds wood ovens for baking. The are amazing. He is going to build us a modified one for cooking pizzas.

The goal is a showcase oven where everyone in the restuarant can watch their pizza's being made. Also while they wait they can sip on beer, made on site. Anyway this is our goal and we are slowly getting things put together.

keep in mind the pizza that Jeff V. is making is one type of pizza cooked at extremely high temps. Not all pizza is the same...

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php
kinda like HBT, but for pizza.

I've use the yeast from the bottom of my primary fermentor bucket to make pizza dough with. You might give that a try as well..

Thanks for the Pizza Forum Link. Now I can get addicted to another forum

No really thanks for all the help.

Cross-industry terminology can be a pain.

Lots of luck on the plan. It's tough to do a brewery and a restaurant at the same time. The Tornado in SF has the solution: a great pub in between a pizzeria and a sausage grill.

jpc - I love sourdough, but not in a baguette. Sourdough bread shouldn't be crunchy.

I'd be interested in your results. I'm ever screwing with pizza crust recipes, but I just use the store bought dry yeast as I've been able to find very little information on baking yeast. The experimentation I've been doing is with different beers in the crust. Bocks seem to give it this delicious kick

I just listened to a Basic Brewing Radio podcast about sourdough bread, and the guest provided some excellent information about how to generate your own "sourdough starter" from scratch that sounds like it may be exactly what you're talking about - but IIRC it didn't require any yeast, it just used bacteria that was naturally on the flour.

You might find the podcast interesting - it's the January 10, 2008 episode, down near the very bottom of this page:

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=basic-brewing-radio-2008

david_42 said:

Cross-industry terminology can be a pain.

Lots of luck on the plan. It's tough to do a brewery and a restaurant at the same time. The Tornado in SF has the solution: a great pub in between a pizzeria and a sausage grill.

jpc - I love sourdough, but not in a baguette. Sourdough bread shouldn't be crunchy.

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It sure is a process to figure out. The reason I am going with pizza is that I hate just about every brewpub I have been to. The beer is usually good but almost every one has ****ty food. I have a plan for a simple menu. Two pages. very basic. Pizza and Beer. Still hard work but I think it will take off.

My biggest problem in all this, is getting the dough right. Baking anything at high altitude is pain. I am originally from back east. I love new york pizza and I have yet to find anything close here in colorado. It is possible to make good pizza up here just not great pizza.

Quite a contrast to the Portland metroburb, just about all of the brewpubs have good food. Partially because of the weird alcohol laws we have and partially because great beer is expected, so it takes good food to stand out. The brewpubs that have failed in the time I've been here tended to have good food and so-so beer.

It seems like the pubs I have been to around here buy all their food from the sysco truck and dunk it in the fryer. At least the beer is good.

I'm a new homebrewer. I just used my first ale yeast cake to make pizza.
It was amazing. I'm from Italy (I relocated to the US less than 2 years ago) and the dough tasted like the one we use there. In fact the yeast we use for making pizza is called "lievito di birra" (beer yeast). It smelled a little bit too much of alchool before to bake, but at the end it was good

smashbeat-

how much of the yeast cake did you use?

I used about 180 ml of it, 1/2 lb of flour, some sugar, salt, table spoon of extra virgin olive oil and water as needed. I didn't have lot of time, so I let it sit for 1,5 hrs, then backed slowly (175f) for 30 mins, so part of the raise was made by the heat.
I will try with a little bit less of yeast next time: it was tasting a little bitter

I made a pizza last week using beer yeast. I ended up washing the yeast from my last batch of Beer. When I was finished putting what I wanted in jars I siphoned out about a cup uf slurry into some flour.

I let it sit out for about a week. Each day adding a bit more flour and water and let it ferment. Mixing it real well twice a day. Basically a sour dough starter.

Then I took half of the starter and put it in a bowl and added flour, water, salt and a bit of oil. then I added a 1/2 cup of flour and some water back into the starter. Mixed it up real well and put it back in the fridge for next time.

The dough came out great. The taste was amazing.

Brewmoor said:

I made a pizza last week using beer yeast. I ended up washing the yeast from my last batch of Beer. When I was finished putting what I wanted in jars I siphoned out about a cup uf slurry into some flour.

I let it sit out for about a week. Each day adding a bit more flour and water and let it ferment. Mixing it real well twice a day. Basically a sour dough starter.

Then I took half of the starter and put it in a bowl and added flour, water, salt and a bit of oil. then I added a 1/2 cup of flour and some water back into the starter. Mixed it up real well and put it back in the fridge for next time.

The dough came out great. The taste was amazing.

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Congratz on some good tasting dough.

How was your rise/crumb? Did it come close to what you were looking for at 7,000ft? What temps/type of oven set up are you cooking at/in? Any pictures?

I've been trying to improve my pizza recently and have been debating about making a sourdough starter very much along the lines you have already taken. I am though still debating about trying to harvest wild yeast from just crushed grains or just use yeast from the primary fermenter like you did. Very interested to learn more about your results. If you also started a post over at pizzamaking.com please link it here too for cross reference.

Cheers!

I want to make pizza for your recipe. I think it will be interesting and tasty. But I do not know if I can succeed !? Will see...

By the way I wanted to ask - I was looking for a knife for pizza and I found this http://amzn.to/2yv9cSZ. What say?

Brewmoor said:

It sure is a process to figure out. The reason I am going with pizza is that I hate just about every brewpub I have been to. The beer is usually good but almost every one has ****ty food. I have a plan for a simple menu. Two pages. very basic. Pizza and Beer. Still hard work but I think it will take off.

My biggest problem in all this, is getting the dough right. Baking anything at high altitude is pain. I am originally from back east. I love new york pizza and I have yet to find anything close here in colorado. It is possible to make good pizza up here just not great pizza.

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This may be OT but have you heard of Colorado Boy Brewing Company? He has a Brewery and Pizza joint in Ridgway and Montrose. He offers aspiring brewery owners on the job training, to include the pizza aspect of the operation. Might be worth a trip to the area to get an idea of what is involved.