Yeast Cake Size

[Climb]

@ninkwood - I am not intending to derail your thread, but I am curious as to what you have learned on your pizza journey that started making your pizza "just right". What are the main keys that you have learned on your 20 year pie making sojourn?

 

[ninkwood]

@ninkwood - I am not intending to derail your thread, but I am curious as to what you have learned on your pizza journey that started making your pizza "just right". What are the main keys that you have learned on your 20 year pie making sojourn?

Hey there! This is a tough question to answer concisely, but I'd say a tonne of trial and error was the key. When I started, I was only about 14 years old, and it was much more difficult to get access to quality information for stuff like this than it is today.

The biggest thing with pizza is getting oven temp correct for what you're trying to make. The last few years, some innovative products (relatively cheap wood fired ovens such as the oonis and steel pizza stones for indoor ovens) have really made this more accessible.

Next is getting the dough technique down. There's still a ton of bad information out there when it comes to pizza dough, so sorting through the noise is key.

if you have any specific questions or anything I can help with lemme know! I'd be happy to help where I can.

 

[mashdar]

if you have any specific questions or anything I can help with lemme know! I'd be happy to help where I can.

I'll bite! What's your preferred flour, % hydration, and % salt? Any conditioners? (I'm assuming a Neapolitan or NYC-style crust?)

edit: I've been using KA 00 "pizza" flour (mix of hard winter and soft) lately. It's been nice, if a bit chewy.

 

[ninkwood]

I'll bite! What's your preferred flour, % hydration, and % salt? Any conditioners? (I'm assuming a Neapolitan or NYC-style crust?)

Really depends on style - for NY, my preference is 66% hydration, but I make a hybrid sourdough/commercial yeast for my New York style pies, and since some of the flour is fully hydrated in the starter, it feels more like a ~68% hydration dough.

I'm shamelessly using regular all purpose flour - though Canadian wheat is very high protein, so our AP is similar to American bread flour. I find '00' is too delicate for NY style but I do use it in summers for Neapolitan style. I generally find that flour gets too much attention. You can make a good pizza out of any flour if you know how to adjust your dough % and gluten development.

My salt preference is 2-3%, and I do use diastatic malt powder but I don't like using much. I find too much leads to gumminess. 0.5-1% and no more than that is what works for me.

The most helpful thing for me with developing a dough for a particular style or flour is to document everything and make very small changes, one at a time. So lots of trial and error! Which is a great excuse to make more pizza...

I made this one yesterday, along with the first bottle of the first beer I brewed!

 

[McMullan]

Really depends on style - for NY, my preference is 66% hydration, but I make a hybrid sourdough/commercial yeast for my New York style pies, and since some of the flour is fully hydrated in the starter, it feels more like a ~68% hydration dough.

I'm shamelessly using regular all purpose flour - though Canadian wheat is very high protein, so our AP is similar to American bread flour. I find '00' is too delicate for NY style but I do use it in summers for Neapolitan style. I generally find that flour gets too much attention. You can make a good pizza out of any flour if you know how to adjust your dough % and gluten development.

My salt preference is 2-3%, and I do use diastatic malt powder but I don't like using much. I find too much leads to gumminess. 0.5-1% and no more than that is what works for me.

The most helpful thing for me with developing a dough for a particular style or flour is to document everything and make very small changes, one at a time. So lots of trial and error! Which is a great excuse to make more pizza...

I made this one yesterday, along with the first bottle of the first beer I brewed!
View attachment 839149

And a very hot oven?

 

[ninkwood]

And a very hot oven?

For NY I'm running a 5/8" steel pizza "stone" at 525*f for about 40 min until the surface temp of the steel measures about 570*f using a infrared thermometer gun. Right before I shape the pizza (~5 min max) I flip the oven to convection broil. Every oven is different but this works best for mine. I also have the steel on the very bottom rack and a second rack near the top. This allows me to cook the bottom until it's how I like it, then slide it right under the broiler to finish the top. I usually shut the broiler off before doing this as the residual heat is more than enough to finish the top. Hope this helps!

 

[ninkwood]

Update: I ended up with just under 8 litres of beer in bottles, so it's definitely confirmed that the trub was collecting up the sides/not a serious issue for this relatively small batch.

I poured my first glass today, it's far from perfect but a great start and better than I was expecting! Can't wait to take another crack and correct some of my obvious blunders. Thanks again for all the help!