I get my King Arthur flour by mail from an internet discounter. The postage to Switzerland costs as much as the flour does.
The pizza master recipe:
800g water
1080g AP flour
10g yeast
25g salt
So the pizza master is almost 80% hydration, and the bread is around 75% hydration (from what I can find online, anyway). At 80% hydration I would definitely want extra gluten in the pizza dough, just for easier handling/stretching.
How did you arrive at the 80% number? I usually divide water/flour, e.g., 800g/1080g = approx 75%
What am I doing wrong?
For pizza I use 66% hydration. But I make a sourdough pizza, which means that the rising time is longer, and the sourdough tends to dissolve the flour. I use half Caputo blue and half Manitoba, otherwise known as Italian hard wheat flour. If it helps …
It always helps. Sometimes it will make sense months or even years late, but it always helps eventually. Every time I re-read my cookbooks, I’m surprised how the knowledge I learn at sites like HO increase my understanding.
You are doing it right! I misread your 1080 as 1000. Sorry about that!
I use an unbleached bread flour from Lentz Mills. That’s a local company and I know the owners. Very nice people & very dedicated to their products. RD Carries it but only in 50# bags.
As far as storage, Lowes sells a 5 gallon food rated bucket for less than $5 but the lid is extra. You can find it on the website. Much cheaper than Cambro or Rubbermaid.
1 Like
@sck: my reply here is way slow. But I stumbled across it in internet downtime. I wonder if you found a solution? Bread is an art, and there’s always more that I and others can learn.
I got a feeling that I may fail again. This time this is the proportion I use:
3.25 cups unbleached all purpose flour (Central Milling)
3/8 teaspoon instant yeast (from my freezer, I think its SAF)
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 2/3 cups water.
I mixed the in flour, yeast and salt well in a bowl, then added the water:
I covered the bowl, left it on the stove above the pilot light for 24 hours:
Take the dough out to try to form it on a table. It just doesn’t form into a ball. Its pretty wet and doesn’t hold shape. Just spreads out horizontally.
I am letting it rise a second time now. But so far from what I can observe all the intermediate results are the same as before.
Did you ferment for the full 24 hours? I use a no-knead process for pizza dough, and after it’s been in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap) for a day it expands quite a bit. You did probably fold it too much, and the hot skillet cooked the dough before it got a chance to rise. I don’t fold it at all before stretching it out into pizza crust.
Yes- full 24 hours. No folding beforehand. The stove is not hot. I put it on the stove to keep it slightly warm. But that’s the extent the dough has expanded. I am starting to suspect it may be the yeast.
Let’s share your final product photo… I wonder if you simply have a different expectation
I am fairly sure its my usual 1.5 inch high hard biscuit if I don’t figure out some ways to ‘rescue’ it now.
For some reason I didn’t see the photos before. That dough does look wet, but it’s difficult to measure using the volume units. I’d reduce the water or add more flour next time. Here’s a recipe using metric weight units.
Yes it is also very wet. One of the things I am doing right now is to let it spread out on the piece of cloth on the table to let the moisture evaporate a bit.
I remember mine being very wet and it turned out very good. At least according to my standard…(stealing a photo from the old Chowhound)
I made the no knead bread 4-5 times… I think you are fine. Are you sure it is not because you have a very high standard? 
Anyway, good luck.
Not really. My ‘bread’ has been consistently brick-hard. Like enamel-damaging hard. At this point, I am just looking for minimally acceptable…
If you are using same yeast and have not yet had good results i would buy new yeast, cheap and easy enough to see if that’s the issue
2 Likes
I would also get bread flour, such as from King Arthur. Maybe you should sift it. And I definitely recommend weighing your ingredients. And I would not let the dough rise near a pilot light of the stove.
1 Like
