Bread Head STW’ers

Bought one of those Ooni Pizza ovens the other year and have been getting better results every time, hand made dough and pizza sauce etc, started experimenting with different hydration levels, flour, proofing times etc and have been quite satisfied until a new stonebaked pizza place opened up in the village which blows mine out the water, the owner used to own a bike shop in a market town a few miles away before he sold it to Specialized, had quite a few problems with a bike I purchased new from there so was in and out quite a lot back then getting things addressed, I certainly recognised him and not sure if him I, but I struck up a conversation and quizzed him about the dough and found out it was a 48hr cold proof sourdough base, so off I left with a new challenge lol.

Anyway a little artisan cafe in the village that’s a door or two over from said pizza place has been around for a while and everything sold there except the coffee I believe is locally sourced ingredients and what can be made on site is made on site, including sourdough bread. Was passing the other week and thought I’d ask him if I could buy some of his sourdough starter as mine had failed miserably and just never started to rise no matter what I did. Much to my surprise he gave me a cup full for free so the Mrs ensured we stayed for breakfast, coffee and took some cakes home to boot.

The Pizzas went well, but still not as good the pizza places so I’m going for a 48hr cold proof sourdough base for pizza night this week, however I’ve also found myself hyperfixating on the world of sourdough bread now that I’ve got this starter, went to bake a loaf on Saturday when I had a few hours free but wasn’t aware you had to get the starter out the fridge, feed it, wait for it to rise, then slap it in with your flour and water etc (or at least that’s what I’ve managed to find from the Mariana trench worth of google results full of conflicting info) so went for a no knead recipe. It turned out okay, more than edible but nothing to write home about however now it feels like it’s become a challenge to bake a banging loaf and I’m being sucked into a whole word of sourdough recipes.

Somehow I’ve now ended up with a delivery of proofing baskets and a stand mixer today with a bread hook and I feel like it’s NBD but for bread… Not sure how to feel about all of this other than I feel like a Wish version of Paul Hollywood much to the amusement of Mrs Pizza.

Anyone else?

Obviously not what you are wanting to read as the first response!

2 easier options – open fridge and remove pre-bought pizza and bung in oven – end of the day it’ll be cooked food and that is just there to give you energy to do better things. OR pick up phone and order from local pizza place and save all that faff time to do far better things…

Aware this appeals to many people but I just don’t understand the complete faff and what appears to be complete waste of time.

Making your own pizza is generally really easy as it doesn’t need proving, you just mix it, wait a bit, roll out, top and whack in oven. It really is dead easy – takes longer but not really more complex than cheese on toast.  The results are better than bought and a lot less greasy than even good takeaway pizza, and it’s clearly a lot cheaper too.

However I wouldn’t go that far into it ^^. You just need to understand that all this stuff on the internet is written by people (usually men) who have obsessive minds.  You are being lured like a moth to a flame, trapped in orbit around the fiery mystery ever closer until it consumes you.

I don’t think sourdough is worth it tbh for bread or pizza base.

I’m too lazy to do sourdough. What I do for my ooni is roughly this recipe:

https://prohomecooks.com/blogs/recipes/a-master-class-in-neapolitan-pizza-making-full-breakdown

(video version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjsCEJ8CWlg

The overnight poolish doesn’t take up much space in the fridge (getting a full batch of dough in there is a challenge) and I just bung it all in the stand mixer rather than hand knead. Pizzas come out lovely.

OP…how’s the view from the rabbit hole?

Molgrips…a lot of sense there…

Simon…I do this, but I like to knead the dough, so I do!

Pizza is great but the base is a ‘plate’ for the topping…discuss?

I don’t think sourdough is worth it tbh for bread or pizza base.

sourdough is defo worth it for bread as it tastes awesome, but only the proper stuff that actually tastes sour, not like the majority of the crap these days which is marketed as “sourdough” or “slow proven” or whatever but tastes no different. Not sure about pizza yet 🤔

2 easier options – open fridge and remove pre-bought pizza and bung in oven – end of the day it’ll be cooked food and that is just there to give you energy to do better things. OR pick up phone and order from local pizza place and save all that faff time to do far better things…

what I don’t get is why you would bother to post this on a thread that’s obviously aimed at foodies… what happen to all these “far better things” you have to do with your time 😂 🤷‍♂️

exactly the recipe and video that i use ^^^

some come out better than others, but always better than shop bought.

i too went into all the sourdough bread recipes/websites, bought the baskets etc, before i realised that we were always chucking half loaves out as they start to go hard after a day (no preservatives), plus eating so much bread just didnt appeal to us.  i had mixed results with bread, had a few lovely loaves but once youve had a couple of slices each, they were going untouched for 24 hours and hence starting to go a little stale.

but yes, pizzas are far easier to get right than bread, so have a bash at that recipe that me and simon use ^^^.

things that make it easier for us…. wooden peel for launching, metal for removing.  use a little semolina or rice flour on your wooden peel to prevent the dough sticking, and have the toppings all ready to go once you put the dough on the peel so theres less chance of sticking.

good luck and enjoy.

Well at least you’ve got the right username.

Welcome to the rabbit hole. I’ve been baking sourdough loaves once or twice a week for a few years (there’s some dough fermenting on the worktop behind me now), and pizza at least once a week since I got a Roccbox about a year ago – usually sourdough too, though occasionally yeasted.

There’s so much to cover with baking sourdough bread, and you’ll find loads of stuff on the internet. I started with this, and it’s probably as good a place as any: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/beginners-sourdough-bread/

My best tip would be: read the recipes and the advice, but mainly you’re trying to get a feel for it, because once you’ve got that, it becomes much easier to fit into your life. I measure ingredients accurately, but I vary time and temperature according to my schedule, the weather, space in the fridge, etc. because I know roughly what effect they have – and if you’re happy with a loaf that’s 90% as good as it absolutely could be, it’s not as precise a science as that site would suggest.

Second tip: boules and batards that spring in the oven into shapely loaves with big ears where they’ve been scored look great on Instagram, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using a tin – in fact, I mostly bake tin loaves because they’re much more practical for sandwiches and toast – and it’s a bit more forgiving.

OK, one more: covering your loaf in the oven will make it rise a lot better – the steam is trapped in so the crust doesn’t set so quickly. Lots of internet bread people use cast iron casseroles. I use a 6″ deep aluminium roasting dish, upside down over a baking stone, because I can bake more at once, and do tin loaves as well as free-form.

Pizza. For longer fermentation, you’re going to need some pretty strong (high protein) flour: e.g. Caputo or La Nepoletana. It’s a bit more of a precise science than bread, and commercial yeast is probably a better place to start. Download Pizzapp and buy some drug dealer scales for weighing your yeast. Don’t believe pizza nerds on the internet that tell you the ONLY way to make edible pizza is a 72.5 hour process which combines a poolish AND a biga. Complicated is not necessarily better.

I made some fairly quick (<24h) yeasted pizza the other day, and being used to sourdough pizza, had forgotten how comparatively tasteless it is. Definitely give sourdough pizza a try, but probably get comfortable with sourdough loaves and yeasted pizza first.

Have fun.

I don’t think sourdough is worth it tbh for bread or pizza base.

with my previous post, but stand by what I said. I used to think the opposite, that sourdough is not only not worth it for pizza, but the wrong type of dough, but having made hundreds of pizzas (and hence adjusted them to fit my own taste I guess), I’ve changed my mind.

 roll out

This undermines anything else you have to say on the matter ;-P

You just need to understand that all this stuff on the internet is written by people (usually men) who have obsessive minds

This I agree with though.

I don’t think sourdough is worth it tbh for bread or pizza base.

It most certainly IS worth it for bread. Of course this is a matter of taste.

I always do a poolish and then cold prove overnight or longer. It takes very little time of actual work but you do need to prepare a few days in advance. One bonus is that pizza dough freezes pretty well so I always make double and freeze half the batch for another time.

I have tested the dough made immediately Vs the cold prove and the extra time is definitely worth it IMO.

I’m pretty happy with my pizza process now, if anything as above its more refining the dough to get a tastier, crispier, bubblier and chewier base and crust. I’ve tried all the poolish and neopolitan recipes, spent days on youtube and trying the “10 minutes of hand kneading is a must” approaches, the biggest difference I’ve found between using instant dry yeast and liquid sourdough starter so far is there is definitely a slightly tangier crust but with less leopard print spotting around the edge, presumably as the starter is 100% hydration so need to take that into account, maybe more olive would help in that regard, been using an app called PizzApp which has been great for calculations. I tend to never both with cold proofing though usually just make it all on the day, ball up and let sit in tubs for 4-5hr.

@luckydog the base for a crap pizza is a plate, the base for a good pizza well, if you’d still eat it sans the sauce and toppings you’re onto a winner I guess. But the view from the rabbit hole is bleak, but tasty with a spread of butter.

i too went into all the sourdough bread recipes/websites, bought the baskets etc, before i realised that we were always chucking half loaves out as they start to go hard after a day (no preservatives), plus eating so much bread just didnt appeal to us.  i had mixed results with bread, had a few lovely loaves but once youve had a couple of slices each, they were going untouched for 24 hours and hence starting to go a little stale.

Sorry to hear that sadexpunk – I remember seeing your efforts on another bread thread on here a while ago and they looked great. How are you storing them? I’ve come to the conclusion that storing them in plastic, after they’ve totally cooled, is best. I’ll use it for sandwiches for 2 or 3 days, and then it’s still good for toast, though when it’s warm like this, it tends to get a bit of surface mould after 5 or 6 days.

Might be worth trying tin loaves? They’re a bit more useful, so might be wasted less. I bake two at time in these tins: https://www.rackmaster.co.uk/product/bread-tins-x2/ 3lb of dough in each. One gets given away or sliced up and put in the freezer for toast, or defrosted overnight for sandwiches.

Re. eating more bread: we’ve been told that eating lots of bread is bad for us because most bread is highly processed with lots of preservatives. But if you’re eating homemade long-fermented sourdough, ideally made with at least some wholemeal flour, it’s a much better carb option than, say, a bowl of white pasta or rice.

I can’t argue that pizza is a health food though :-/

Sorry, I kinda forgot about the first paragraph of your OP. Sounds like you’ve got a good idea of what works for pizza, so I would say just experiment with the sourdough, taking the starter hydration into account. 100% hydration starter makes the maths easy. FWIW, I use 20% starter (i.e. for 1kg of total flour, I use 200g of starter, so I add 900g of flour to the recipe because there’s 100g in the starter) but this seems to vary. Hydration will obviously depend on your flour. I’m using Shipton Mill 00, but I can’t really recommend it because it used to be great but the last sack I bought has been poor.

2 days before Pizza day, open fridge remove starter and feed, leave in warm area/room. 3 hours later return and mix ingredients, then knead or stand mix, literally doesn’t matter. 3-4 hour proove, divide and shape, chuck in fridge for 2 days. Remove from fridge 3 hours before baking.

Sourdough loaves, as someone above says, find a recipe and practice till you know what your dough should feel like, add as little extra flour as possible when shaping and kneading.  20 mins in a casserole lid on, 20 mins lid off, 20 mins still in the oven but turned off.

As for sourdough not really making a difference, there is a world of difference between good bread and supermarket sourdough and between well made bases and thrown together ones.

But life is full of choices and we all make our own, I made pizzas at a friends house at the weekend with canned yeast and a gluten free pre-mix, it made pretty weird flat pizzas, but they were edible, inspite of her need to add way too much cheese to each one!

As for molgrips comment;

You just need to understand that all this stuff on the internet is written by people (usually men) who have obsessive minds

this was said with tongue firmly in cheek right?

How are you storing them? I’ve come to the conclusion that storing them in plastic, after they’ve totally cooled, is best. I’ll use it for sandwiches for 2 or 3 days, and then it’s still good for toast, though when it’s warm like this, it tends to get a bit of surface mould after 5 or 6 days.

i was using a cloth bread bag.  interesting that you found plastic to be better, altho that does make sense when you think about it.

yes, i enjoyed learning and making them, but at the moment we’re trying not to each much bread at all, so the effort isnt worth the time spent.   i was also a bit crap at looking after the starter, always forgetting to feed it, take it out the fridge at the right time etc…..

but pizzas?  nomnom.  same thing with the starter tho, not worth keeping one going for sourdough pizzas as we maybe only have them once a month, maybe less.  my mate did say my sourdough pizza is still the best he’s ever had, but its just not worth constantly looking after the starter for us.

It’s a balance between keeping it moist enough not to dry out and be inedibly hard, and dry enough not to go mouldy quickly, I guess.

I get what you’re saying. Because I’m using it regularly, I don’t really have to maintain my starter as such: feeding it to use it keeps it going. I’ll feed it once a week on the rare occasion I’m not baking though. But my starter maintenance has become optimised along with the rest of the process over time… I very rarely discard any now, just keep a small amount, 50g or so, in a pot in the fridge. It gets 50g flour + 50g water, and then I take 100g for a levain and put it back in the fridge. So doing that once a week is a matter of minutes. But appreciate if it’s not in your routine, you forget about it, then it takes more time, etc.

lets hope he doesn’t start with coffee with variables such as: beans/roast/grind/how much they are tamped/pressure/water temp/water softness!!

My go to pizza dough is the 100% biga, always get consistent results.

https://www.gozney.com/blogs/recipes/100-biga-pizza-dough-recipe

@FB-ATB Been there done that start of lockdown after having withdrawals from the bean to cup machine at the office, ended up with a sage barista express 😂 just got into making iced aerocanos with it which I can’t get enough of

Update-

Used some flexitime between meetings today to get a Levain going, mixed up some ingredients for a loaf using 150g Levain, 250g warm water, 20g olive oil, 500g bread flour and 10g salt, mixed in the stand mixer so hopefully no need for stretch and folds I’ve heard, it’s just finished a 2hr bulk rise so now gonna attempt to shape it and stick it in a floured baton for another few hours and bake it this evening, will give it a few scores and try to get all fancy with it. Will post pics later.

Once finished with the first stage of the loafy boy set about making some pizza dough, 3 for 48hr cold proof to use Thursday night and another 3 for the freezer.
Aimed for 250g balls with 811g flour, 488g water for 63% Hydration, 17g salt, 14g olive oil and 123g levain.

For the toppings we’ve got a selection of harrogate blue cheese, buffalo mozarella, basil, parmesan cheese, mushroom, serrano ham, german peppered salami, red onion, confit garlic oil and chilli flakes so thinking a salami, mushroom and chilli flakes one, blue cheese, serrano ham and red onion one with garlic oil and then a combination of everything we’ve got left.

once youve had a couple of slices each, they were going untouched for 24 hours and hence starting to go a little stale.

Old bakers trick is to dunk the slightly stale loaf in water and back into a hot oven to make it edible again. Timings and temperature are down to ‘feel’. Good luck!

I’ve got to say, I bought a stand mixer and dough hook and I’ve found it nowhere near as good as a hand-knead. The dough always seems a little tough, and 6-10 mins of squishing is pretty therapeutic.

not like the majority of the crap these days which is marketed as “sourdough” or “slow proven” or

Most of what supermarkets sell as sourdough is not proper sourdough. It has added fast yeast. There is a no movement to get the term sourdough protected so that this is no longer allowed.

We don’t find stand mixers work for small batches of sourdough. Hand kneeding just works better. The industrial size mixers seem to manage it ok though (for our local outstanding bakery).

Use a Dutch oven for baking, a le crueset or other round lidded cast iron oven dish works well. Preheat in the oven on max for 30mins then tip dough into hot dish. Slash, replace lid and back in the oven for 40mins on 240c, lid off for 10mins more.

We bake every two/three days. What isn’t eaten by day two is sliced and frozen as it toasts nicely from frozen (good for days you haven’t had a chance to make fresh).

Sourdough pizza is definitely worth it, as is pizza flour (shapes more easily).

OP – Whilst the rabbit hole of dough recipes is all well and good, i suspect that part of the problem is that you local pizza place is using a proper pizza oven rather than an ooni.  Oonis are great, i have one, but not as good as the real deal oven.

your village sounds like a great place to live.

bread and yeast and pizza are amazing things.  making the perfect loaf or the perfect base is a great thing to aim for. when we got our pizza oven my wife went on a quest for the perfect base. this pleased me greatly.

OP – Whilst the rabbit hole of dough recipes is all well and good, i suspect that part of the problem is that you local pizza place is using a proper pizza oven rather than an ooni.  Oonis are great, i have one, but not as good as the real deal oven.

I would politely beg to differ. Plenty of commercial mobile outfits making great pizzas in Oonis/Roccboxs. They have their limitations in terms of the number of pizzas you can get through them in a given time because of the lower heat retention compared to a bigger oven, which is why most pizza places go down that route, particularly in fixed premises, but that’s less of an issue at home, particularly if you’re working on your own.

Well I didn’t post a photo eventually of the last one I baked as it was an embarrassment, ended up more like a foccacia with the texture of a betty crocker cake.

Had another crack at it this weekend, as some have said using a bread tin is cheating but if it works it works.

Hmmm, do you also prove in the bread tin?

This is a cracking book with a slightly different take on sourdough breads.
I’ve tried around half of the recipes and they’ve all worked nicely. The semitas de yema are a particular favourite in our house. New world sourdough – Bryan Ford.
Edit: link wouldn’t take

I’ve personally found that if you’re making things like bread then you need to use reasonable quantities of ingredients and use a proper mixer – like a kilo of flour at the very least and more like a kilo and a half at a time, and use a mixer with a hook. Anything other than that you’re mostly wasting your time. Obviously if you’ve got a smaller bread maker they can be a bit more economical, but then you can end up with v stodgy loafs

Anything other than that you’re mostly wasting your time

Why?