scott123

The Gold Medal is only a titch stronger than the Stone Buhr- probably about .3% more. Every little bit helps, but, if you want to match the author's crumb (which I think is a fairly worthy goal) then you need to match the strength of his flour. And if you want this open of a crumb with an extra day, then you'll need even stronger flour than that. The first photo in this thread is quite impressive. The crumb is not quit as open as the recipe, but, for the flour you're using, it's an amazing achievement. Do you have to refrigerate the dough one more night? If you can't get your hands on stronger flour, sticking to the recipe could be the ideal approach. There's no free lunch here. If the flour is weak, your crumb will suffer (evidenced even further by your AP results). It's kind of hard to describe the effect that DM has. Flaky, crunchy, perhaps brittle. While I'm sure it's not a traditional ingredient, I agree with the recipe author that it elevates the end product. So I wouldn't omit it entirely, just play around with a little less. I would reach out to local pizzerias and see if they'll sell you some pizza flour. For instance, I'm reasonably certain that this is considerably stronger flour than what you're using: https://www.facebook.com/CPKGuam/videos/1788620021155405/?v=1788620021155405 Generally speaking, if you try to toss bread flour or AP flour dough like this, it will tear. If you can get your hands on flour that's too strong, you can always dilute it with some weak flour. The tricky part about this is that if a pizzeria is using high gluten/strong flour, then it means that they're importing it by the container/half container, which means that they're doing very high volume. When you get into high volume, that means a corporate structure/red tape, so it's not like befriending a small pizza shop owner and getting them to sell you flour. But, if you want a more open crumb and/or a longer ferment, you'll want to turn over every stone. I also see that Guam has a Neapolitan pizzeria or two. They won't be using a w370 or higher flour, but, they might be able to order you a bag.

The recipe, as it stands, is about a 19 hour dough. By refrigerating the finished dough overnight, you're at least doubling that. For dough, time is atrophy. Most of the time, with strong North American flours, an extra day in the fridge is not a big deal, but you're using a recipe and a flour that is inherently fragile. By giving the dough more time than it can handle, it's giving up the ghost and causing the defects that you're witnessing. I'm a little befuddled as to why the author of that recipe would go to such great lengths to talk about the importance of strong flour and yet recommend a weak flour next to a strong one. It's even more of a head scratcher that he's making a quality of crumb with the strong flour that he could never produce with the weak flour- especially with how well the recipe appears to be thought out. Comparing European and American flours is exceptionally difficult. I've been studying and comparing results for years, and while I'd like to be at a point where I can take an American flour with x protein and tell you it has x W value, I'm not there yet. These estimates, though, placed in context with the flours recommended in the recipe, should be close enough to give you an idea of where you're at, and where you want to be: Molino Pasini Sfoglia (W300-320) Stone Buhr bread flour (11.5-12.1% protein) (W335) Molino Pasini Lievitati flour (W350-370) King Arthur bread flour (12.7% protein) (W370) Basically, the Stone Buhr is a little stronger than his weak flour, but not by much. Even if you stick to his overnight schedule and nix the extra day, I'd still, if possible, try to track down something stronger, such as a real bread flour like King Arthur (the Stone Buhr is really just AP posing as bread). I can't guarantee you that King Arthur will thrive with the extra day, but I'm fairly confident it should be fine. I wouldn't push it past a day, though. Now, beyond the flour strength, I would also look at the diastatic malt (DM) supplementation. DM is an agent of atrophy, ie, it's hastening the dough's demise. The Italian flours have no DM, while the American flours have a little. To confuse matters even further, DM potency isn't standardized among the different brands. The DM in the recipe could be either weaker or stronger than the DM that you're using. Perhaps you could reach out to the author and get the strength of the DM he's using (expressed in Lintner), compare that to the 60 lintner DM you're using, and subtract maybe .1 or .2% for the DM that's already present in your flour. Regardless, should you go that extra day, the DM might require some tweaking. Can you score King Arthur bread flour in Guam?

1. What brand of bread flour are you using? 2. How long are you letting the dough warm up before you cut and shape it? 3. What brand of diastatic malt powder are you using?

+1 for Trader Joe's, although it's probably about the same price as Phillie. I've been making quite a few cheesecakes recently, and have been working extensively with the cheaper brands, especially Walmart, which I believe is about 85 cents in the 2 pack. The Walmart cheese is definitely softer/wetter and sticks to the packaging more. For my cheesecake, I soften the cheese in the microwave to be able to incorporate it into the other ingredients. The Walmart cheese curdles about 40 degrees lower than Trader Joe's. TJ's is much more stable at higher temps. As far as taste goes, I've tasted the cheap cheeses and the non cheap ones on bagels, and, while the cheap were still pretty good, I could taste a slight difference. The cheap cream cheese might not be worse, but it's not the same. At some point I need to blind taste them side by side.. If you're anywhere near a Wegmans, their private label might be a middle ground in terms of quality and price. I haven't tested it that much, but they seem to a do a really nice job with private label dairy.

Ardent makes my favorite flour for pizza and bread, Spring King. For pizza, Full Strength (General Mills) comes close, but, otherwise, nothing can touch it. This being said... https://www.ardentmills.com/products/traditional-flours/hotel-and-restaurant-hr-all-purpose/ "Flour Protein: 9.0-13.0%" While it's fairly normal for flours to vary a bit in specs from bag to bag, ranging from 9% to 13% protein is absolutely insane. If you're incredibly motivated, you could, in theory, test each bag and get a ballpark of how strong it is, but it'll just be a ballpark and will involve a lot of trial and error to dial in.

Chocolate liquor and erythritol, on their own, will not work. And this isn't a case of it'll-be-okay-but-not-great. It will be inedible. This is because erythritol has very little sweetness, and, undissolved, it has a notoriously unnerving cooling effect (almost like mint), and, in a water free environment like a chocolate bar, it's almost impossible to dissolve (on it's own). Erythritol really doesn't work as a sole sweetener, ever. This is why you'll never find a commercial product sweetened only with erythritol. You'll always find it with other things- like polydextrose and inulin (sometimes called 'dietary fiber' - these help keep the erythritol dissolved) and high intensity sweeteners. Erythritol plays a role- desserts typically are better with it, than without, but it's not the star, it's not even a supporting actor. It's an extra. And if you try to shoehorn it into a larger role, it's incredibly unforgiving. This is a slightly more knowledgeable attempt at low carb chocolate than most, https://www.wholesomeyum.com/low-carb-keto-chocolate-bar-recipe/ but they really don't grok the concept of dissolving the erythritol and the inulin. Heat is not enough. This is why you see little white specks of undissolved sweeteners in the chocolate. They also don't add a high intensity sweetener. I think, with the inulin and the cocoa butter, this might be edible, but I doubt many people would find it good. And the texture, as you can see, is pretty far from ideal. But the bottom line is that, unless you can keep erythritol dissolved, it's going to taste horrible. How do sf chocolate bar manufacturers dissolve erythritol and keep it dissolved? I don't know. My best guess is that they melt the erythritol and inulin in water and cook it into a hard ball glass, then pulverize it and add that to the chocolate. But that's just a guess. Whatever it is, it serious food chemistry that you might want to avoid. If you have the erythritol and the chocolate liquor... I'd probably go the ganache route. Get yourself some polydextrose or inulin, some heavy cream and a high intensity sweetener. On the topic of high intensity sweeteners... stevia is okay for tea, but the strong sweetening requirements of dark chocolate are too much for it. It's not going to taste right. If you score some cocoa butter and go with a milk chocolate ganache, you'll lessen the amount of sweetener you'll require and maybe move in a more stevia friendly direction (or maybe monk fruit), but, if you truly want a decent quality of sweetness, nothing's going to touch artificial sweeteners. Splenda will take you a huge distance, but splenda and something else (like acesulfame potassium or possibly aspartame) will take your quality of sweetness even further. One caveat. Polysaccharides (inulin/poydextrose) can be laxating. But they typically aren't as laxating as maltitol and, imo, more importantly, they don't spike GI like maltitol does. But, if you're going to work with erythritol, you can't avoid them. They're just about the only thing that keeps erythritol from crystallizing into a cooling nightmare.

As I was going through the recipes, I noticed that two had soy sauce in varying amounts, but none had msg. I think, in terms of aesthetics, soy sauce is too dark for lobster sauce, but it could definitely use more umami than the stock provides. Bouillon might be better than pure Accent. I've always considered lobster sauce to be a very close cousin to egg drop soup, and that's bouillon city. Additional umami should go a long ways towards resolving the mildness. Unless, of course, you prefer it mild.

That is the inescapable conclusion to the late salt adder's logic. But not everyone's on board the late salt train. The observational evidence is substantial that, while salt definitely slows yeast activity in dough, adding it earlier in the mix doesn't seem to be detrimental to the yeast in the slightest. Yes, salt is anti-fungal, so, while I wouldn't personally add salt to the yeast and water (I know many who do), as far as yeast impact goes, I see no difference between fully mixed and proofing dough, and mixing the flour and salt into the water at the same time. Another aspect to late salt is that, while a 70-80% hydration bread dough can comfortably dissolve salt added after the flour has hydrated a bit, your typical 60%ish pizza dough can have issues. It's not like a salt covered pretzel. Most people don't enjoy hitting a pocket of undissolved salt in dough. It can also cause problems with stretching and launching. In a high water preferment where the water activity might accelerate the yeast's anti-fungal properties and where you want fermentation to run wild, sure, no salt there. But, once you're making the final dough, I think late salt is both unnecessary and a potential can of worms. Now, late oil... if you're working with an exceptionally rich dough... maybe 8% oil or more, then that can seriously impair gluten development unless added later. I was a bit surprised by that 5-6 pH level statement as well so I did some research. https://www.cargill.com/salt-in-perspective/salt-in-bread-dough "all doughs, not just sourdoughs, contain acidifying bacteria which contribute to the bread¹s flavor" "A typical dough has a pH low enough (approximately 5) for the gluten protein to carry some positive charge." And https://www.foodelphi.com/bread-making-presentation/ "Initially, dough has a pH of about 6.2, and during fermentation, the values are about 5.76 or 5.67" Also http://www.fao.org/3/a-au108e.pdf "Fermenting dough has a pH between 5 and 6" The second link has no author listed, but, the other information in that presentation seems to reveal a fairly extensive level of technical knowledge. The third link (FAO/United Nations) seems to be reputable and that doesn't reference sourdough at all. So... neutral water + slightly acidic flour (6ish) + time = pH between 5 and 6. In other words, and, if you're not sitting down, you might want to be , all bread is technically sourdough, it's just that natural leavening ramps up bacterial activity and combines it with acid friendly strains of wild yeast. I also believe carbonic acid is a bit player in the pH equation, from the CO2 dissolving in the water fraction of the dough (most likely in small amounts). Dough isn't seltzer (between 3-4 pH), but I think it's a small step in that direction.

True. I spend countless hours trying to get beginning pizza makers to focus on their oven setups, but it's really just a drop in the bucket. Baking steels continue to grow in popularity, but they aren't for everyone (especially not urban apartment dwellers with broiler drawers) and unscrupulous manufacturers have made tremendous inroads with cheap fake baking steels- thin steel sheets that are actually worse than stones. I can completely understand the home cook who just wants to have fun making pizza and prefers avoiding the hassle of complexity. But to spend so much time and energy on such a fruitless endeavor- when bake time reduction offers such tangible success... it's soul crushing.

This covers the basics of gluten fairly well: http://www.cookingscienceguy.com/pages/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Explaining-Gluten.pdf It goes into how calcium and magnesium in hard water, along with salt, strengthen gluten. But it doesn't go into why they strengthen gluten. This is why: https://modernistcuisine.com/mc/gluten-how-does-it-work/ "Salt provides more than flavor—it strengthens gluten bonding. Although the gluten proteins naturally repel one another, the chloride ions in salt help them overcome that repulsion and stick together." http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2010/issue79/ "Adding a small amount of salt can further strengthen the gluten network; ions from the salt cluster around the charged portions of the glutenin proteins and prevent them from repelling each other, which allows glutenin molecules to cluster more closely together." So, the two major components of wheat protein, glutenin and gliadin, don't, on their own, create the gluten framework- they don't create the structure of bread. They form the gluten framework by bonding- physically (through kneading and rising, basically molecular abrasion) and chemically. The chemical aspect that encourages bonding is electrical, making any and all ions critical to the process. This is why both no salt and soft water based breads lack structure. Distilled water, because the solids have been removed, is the softest water possible. So, without ions, without electrolytes- the sodium and chloride in the salt, and the calcium and magnesium (and other dissolved minerals) in the required hard-ish water, you don't get the necessary gluten strengthening that forms good crumb structure.

Whole wheat flour contains pieces of bran that act like tiny little knives which cut through the gluten in the dough. It's essentially a volume killer. This is why you rarely see 100% whole wheat breads, but, rather, find it as a fraction of a blend. A little denseness can work in bread, but you really don't want a dense pizza crust. Generally speaking, whole wheat flour isn't the best choice for pizza dough. If you're dead set on adding it, both keep it to either 15% or less and combine it with a high gluten flour like Sir Lancelot. Bear in mind, though, every bit you add is volume lost. Another volume/gluten killer is distilled water. It doesn't sound like you're using distilled water for your dough, which is good, but, the distilled water, combined with the whole wheat flour is why your starter isn't floating. Not that ending up with a floating starter is going to solve all your problems. Much like whole wheat flour is okay for bread but isn't ideal for pizza, sourdough is generally best for bread as well. Bread is far more forgiving. A lot of pizza books are, unfortunately, written by bread bakers, so it's fairly common to see home pizza makers treat pizza like bread. Pizza is not bread. Sourdough barely exists in the pizza world. The handful of commercial entities successfully working with natural leavening devote their entire lives to mastering it- not days, not months... years, and, at the end of all that torture, the end result really isn't that different from commercial yeast (perceptible sourness is acid, and excess acid can be damaging to gluten). If, after you successfully mastered commercial yeast, you want to go down the sourdough rabbit hole, feel free, but, until then, sticking to commercial yeast (IDY in a glass jar) will guarantee you the most stress-free consistent results possible.

I would spend some time with this: http://icecreamscience.com/corn-syrup-used-ice-cream/ There's a chart towards the top that goes into the various forms of sugar and their freezing point depression values. As you can see, both glucose and fructose offer considerably more freezing point depression by weight than sugar, and glucose's lower relative sweetness allows you to use more of it to reach the desired sweetness while providing even further freezing point depression. I've never made a brownie using only glucose, but I have made brownies using only polydextrose that turned out beautifully. As we speak, I have a tin of brownies sitting in my kitchen cabinet that's 1 part polydextrose to 4.5 parts sugar. I use the polydextrose as a type of very low sweetness corn syrup (I would compare it to a 10 DE corn syrup) to give me sugary texture without sweetness. If I were tackling this, I'd probably take an existing brownie recipe and swap out the sugar with 138% glucose. This should match the perceived sweetness. Because of the taste suppressant effects of freezing, I'd push the sweetness even further (and the freezing point further) with some fructose as well- maybe 2-3% the weight of the original sugar. This gets theoretical, but I believe there's a chance that multiple sweeteners provide a freezing point depression synergy. Freezing point depression is basically water entrapment. You're isolating bits of water from other bits. This is not that different than sauce thickening. Since sauce thickening shows a synergy when multiple thickeners are used, I'm theorizing that freezing point depression may show a synergy when multiple sweeteners are used- hence my recommendation of combining glucose and fructose- rather than ramping up the glucose further to compensate for the taste suppression of the cold. You might also look at maltose. I know very little about maltose, but the specs look encouraging, and, assuming synergy is a factor, the more might be the merrier. Beyond more sweetness, because of the taste suppression, you'll need more cocoa as well. Polydextrose's extreme hygroscopicity is a clumping nightmare. Glucose powder should be a lot easier to work with, but, since it is more hygroscopic than sugar, it might require a bit more careful addition to the batter. Powdered glucose is very costly, though. Glucose syrup might add too much water to the recipe. You can try reducing the eggs to compensate for the water in the syrup, but it might not be enough. Because my polydextrose is so clumpy, I work with a polydextrose syrup that's solid at room temp. If I heat it to about 160, I can carefully incorporate it into eggs straight from the fridge without the effect of cooking the eggs. You might have success in both reducing the number eggs a bit, as well as cooking down your glucose syrup and adding it to the eggs warm. As you ramp up the glucose, it will, to an extent, impair gluten development. The brownies I made yesterday were made with bread flour, and I mixed them pretty aggressively. My goal was a chewier brownie, but these might be a bit too chewy. If the brownie pieces in your ice cream are small, you might benefit from a bit more chew. Another thing to consider is that tender brownies might have a tendency to fall apart when you mix them into the ice cream. One other thing to consider is that the extra glucose will alter the way the brownie bakes. Right now, I'm baking my polydextrose/sugar brownies at 300 for 70 minutes. As I mentioned, I haven't baked with glucose, but I'm reasonably certain, like polydextrose, extra glucose will raise the temp at which the proteins in the flour set, which will require a longer bake time at a lower temp. As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts to making a truly ice cream friendly brownie. As long as you're aware of the various factors, though, I think it's all very doable. Find small baking pans- perhaps pyrex cups, and, with a kitchen scale and a jeweler's scale in hand, start making a bunch of different permutations, freeze them, and see how they taste frozen.

Normally, you need a tax id to get an RD membership, but, right now, they're open to the public- no card necessary. I am definitely not talking about Caputo flour- at least not in the context of a home oven. For those with Neapolitan capable ovens (like an Ooni or a Roccbox), Caputo works very well, but, it's lack of malt is extremely anti-browning in home ovens. When you delay browning, you extend the bake time, which ends up drying out the crust and producing a stale hard texture. I'm talking about wholesale pizza flour. Your local RD will have 50 lb bags of Full Strength brand flour and All Trumps- and various All Trumps analogs. For pizza, these will all run circles around either all purpose or retail bread flour. Modern NY style pizza is traditionally made with high gluten (All Trumps), but high gluten has a strong tendency to make too chewy of a crust, so I prefer medium high gluten flours like Full Strength- and Spring King. If you want to buy Flour Water Salt Yeast and use it to make bread, I have no doubt it will produce phenomenal results, but, Forkish is a baker, and pizza is not bread. Forkish is part of your flour issue. The flour is definitely to blame, but, had you not been using a recipe that incorporated such an extreme amount of water, you might have weathered the new flour's shortcomings a little better. Extra water in pizza dough is not your friend- 70% water doesn't exist in the commercial pizza universe- at least, it doesn't for non pan pizza. In New Haven, there's outliers that can hit 68% hydration, but, that's oven related. Everywhere else, you're almost never going to find anything higher than about 65%, with medium high gluten flours playing well with about 62% water. With the weaker flours they use in Naples, these numbers drop even further (generally below 60%). If you find someone telling you to add 70% water to pizza dough, it means that they've never talked to a professional pizza maker- or in the case of Forkish, they've talked to pros, but didn't listen.

So far, I've gotten probably 8 buckets from the bakery department, and one had cuts in the seal and the other one wasn't completely airtight. But the other six have performed flawlessly. While I agree that there's a bit of a gamble when getting free buckets, if you're shopping at the supermarket already, it's not like you're going out of your way. If the bucket isn't airtight, it's not hard to throw out.

Do you know anyone else who bakes? Maybe you could split a bag. One thing you might consider regarding wholesale flour is quality. I can't speak for galettes, but the quality of wholesale pizza flour absolutely destroys any retail offerings. And this isn't just flour. Across the board, pizzerias get access to the best flour, the best cheese and the best tomatoes- all at considerable savings over retail. Do you live anywhere near a Restaurant Depot? Presently, they're open to the public.

I regular push flour stored in buckets to a year and a half. As long as the bucket has an airtight seal and you store it in a cool place (like a basement), it will last a long time. Obviously, this is white flour. Whole wheat has a crazy short shelf life. Some great bucket options have been mentioned, and you're probably already aware of this avenue, but, I'm a huge fan of free. Most supermarket bakery departments have large covered plastic buckets that they're constantly throwing out. If you ask, they'll normally give you these buckets for nothing. You can also try other departments, like the deli, although things like pickles might leave a smell. Bakery ingredients (usually glazes and icings) clean off easily with no residual odors. Make sure you get a bucket with a very tight fitting lid, with a seal that is intact (sometimes the seals get cut when they open them).. With some jiggling, I can fit one 50 lb. bag of flour into two 4.25 gallon buckets.

If wheat has been harvested at the wrong time, ie, it's been allow to sprout, it's enzyme activity will be too high, making it unsuitable for milling into flour- and potentially producing the results you're witnessing. But ruined wheat is super easy to detect and I don't think KA, even in the middle of a pandemic, would stoop to that. Unless a miller is using an aging agent such as bromate, flour needs aging for proper gluten development. My best guess is that your flour is just very very young. If you can, I would just give it time. If youth is the issue, a month should help.

I haven't come across anyone working with yeast in a tub, but, I can tell you that the plastic lid is going to be far too air permeable for longevity. If you have a local bakery that will sell you fresh yeast that you can use within a day or two, that's ideal. But the yeast has to be super fresh on their end (no more than a day or two in their fridge) and super fresh on yours. And it's got to be a one shot deal- ie, if you score a 2 lb. brick, whatever you have leftover after using it gets tossed. Other then fresh yeast, which, for obvious reasons, isn't really practical for most, the best yeast for the home pizza maker is this: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Fleischmann-s-Classic-Bread-Machine-Yeast-4-oz/10306744 It's instant (instant is better than active) and is in an airtight jar. When stored in the fridge, you can easily get a year and a half from it. You won't find this in the UK, so the next best option is to make it by purchasing something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mauripan-Instant-Dry-Yeast-500g/dp/B086K4SLRC/ and storing it in something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kilner-Wide-Mouth-Preserve-Litre/dp/B078WYZZ4Y/ That specific .5 liter jar could work very nicely with a 100g pack of vacuum packed IDY, but, right now, I'm not finding any 100g packs from reputable sellers. No matter what, make sure it's vacuum packed instant dry yeast, and, the split second you open it, get it into an airtight glass jar with a metal lid and a rubber seal. As far as your overnight idea goes... the Caputo cuoco can definitely handle it, but longer room temps can be difficult when dialing in the yeast, because you're typically talking about so little. I also think that a longer balled ferment makes it even a little harder to hit the perfect schedule. I'd kind of like to see you fully dominate a same day dough first, but, if you were going to go overnight, I might go bulk until morning (starting as late as possible in the evening) and then ball when you get up. This test you did in the glass- was that dough bulked first? The glass test does tell us, to a point, how far you can take the dough. Assume the dough started off in a ball-ish shape, and not a perfect column, that could be 3x it's original size. I definitely wouldn't take that dough further than that- and might even go for a little less. If you're fermenting in clear plastic containers (a good idea starting out), you can match the pockmarks on the side of the glass jar with the bottom of the dough in the container. I took the yeast quantity directly from the VPN specs, and have never actually calculated the baker's percent. .06% (1g/1650g) is a crazy small amount. For my same day NY dough (no bulk), I'm at about .5%. I'd like to see you get your hands on IDY, but, I get the feeling that the recipe is mostly to blame. If you want to work with the yeast you have... I might give .2% a shot with... 2 hours bulk and 6 balled. It won't be perfect, but it should get you in the ballpark. Considering the underproofed dough, this looks really good. At this point, I think it's just about making more pizza. As you recognized, because of the less than ideal proof, the dough was hard to stretch. You should be able to dial in the proof within about 5 batches, and as you dial it in, stretching will get more and more comfortable. You're doing the slap technique that's in the video I posted, correct?

Fermentation/proofing generates heat, which, in turn, accelerates the process even further. Because bulk fermentation is all one mass, it keeps some of this heat from dissipating. Yeast activity ramps up, as do enzymes (dough degradation). Bulks degrade the dough a little faster- which, for a same day, is generally a good thing, and, assuming the yeast is viable, they generate more CO2 than balls. This is still a bit theoretical, but I believe that even though the act of balling is equivalent to a punch down, where the majority of whatever gas is formed is pressed out, I think there's a method by which dough retains some of this gas, so the net oven spring of a double proof is greater than a single one. Improved final volume is either greater gas retention, and/or gluten extended further by letting the dough rise, deflating it, and then letting it rise again. I've also read that balling/punching down redistributes yeast and introduces it to new nutrients. So a bulk is a bit more flavor (atrophy) and a bit more final volume. The length of the bulk is not that critical, though. It's not like a 3 hour bulk is going to be noticeably less flavorful or have considerably less volume than a 4 hour hour one. You generally don't want the dough to deflate during the bulk, as this can damage the gluten. The most important element of the bulk is consistency- picking a time and sticking to it, so that the balled ferment always proofs at the same rate. The length of the ball is much more important, because the balled proof has a very clear goal. You want dough that, by the time you go to stretch it, is at or near the peak of it's volume. The traditional approach of allowing the dough to double is really just an oversimplification for beginners. Depending on the flour, the hydration, and how you treat the dough, you can see anywhere from between doubling and quintupling, and, if you're chasing perfection, you really want to push the dough as far as it will go- without having it deflate. Determining peak volume for a particular dough can generally only be done by failing- by giving the dough too much time, seeing how long it takes to deflate, and then making the dough again and using it right before the deflation deadline. The most important part of this initial process is consistency. Every step has to be done the same way, every temperature involved has to be close to identical and the schedule cannot deviate. The only thing you want to change, as you've already figured out, if the dough is proofing too quickly or too slowly for your schedule, is to make minor adjustments to the yeast. This particular recipe, with the yeast you're using, might work perfectly well with 6 hours bulk and maybe 8 hours balled. But that's obviously not a very user friendly schedule. Before you dive in and start ramping up the yeast, though, I would look at the form of the yeast that you're using. Are these yeast packets?

Well, @Franci did ask about pala style in an Ooni, but, unless I'm wrong, the rest of the conversation has related to Neapolitan style pizza, so when she mentioned Italian home pizza makers using Polselli, I assumed that the Neapolitan aspect was implied. If she was referring to Italians baking pizza in their home ovens, that's a different ball of wax. For pan pizza in a home oven, I think it's possible to coax something passable from the flours being discussed, but, for non pan pizza in a home oven, because these flours are all so incredibly anti-browning at lower temps, they are all recipes for disaster, imo, with the lower protein of the Polselli being a worst case scenario. With their Americana flour, Caputo understands the importance of malt and high protein flour for cooler ovens, but I think, so far, that knowledge hasn't made it's way very far throughout Europe, and, whatever inroads it has made have been on the wholesale front, and not retail. All of the Italians I've dealt with own some kind of Neapolitan capable equipment, so I really can't speak to what the average Giovanni Q Pubblico is making in their home ovens. Based on the fact that I've dealt with at least a few thousand European home pizza makers, though, and I haven't run across any Italians working with home ovens, I have a strong feeling that they are going to be the last Europeans to get the high protein/malt memo. The fact that high protein/malt is so closely associated with American pizza (hence the 'Americana'), it's most likely only going to compound the problem.

Technically, it's the VPN recipe but you're very welcome. Thanks for the kind words. I'm looking forward to seeing where you go from here.

For about a decade, I was a huge proponent of long cold ferments. I've always been at the forefront of the time = flavor philosophy and that less time = flavor compromised pizza, which, if you look at the online pizza making community, is pretty much universally adhered to. Even you exhibited a little short ferment shame in your earlier post Like many, it wasn't a case of "I set out to make an emergency dough, because that's what I like," but, rather, you felt like you were forced to compromise because of your impatience. But I'm finding myself moving away from some of that dogma. One thing that helped me to perceive this a little differently was coming to grips with understanding the chemistry. The flavor you get with long fermentation is basically amino acids/umami via proteolysis. It's fundamentally just process derived msg. Now, I'm not necessarily telling people that a 2 day dough can be recreated in 2 hours with the addition of some Accent (not yet), but, I am confident that the extra 'flavor' people respond so favorably to in long fermented dough is umami. Instead of looking at long fermentation as this mysterious, magical, inherently better process, I now look at it as a means of adding more or less umami to dough- and, while sometimes I want to ramp up those amino acids, sometimes I don't. Don't get me wrong, I not necessarily "Yay, 1-2 hour doughs!" I think, for most styles, you want at least a tiny bit of time derived umami, not to mention I believe it can take longer than 1-2 hours for the flour in dough to fully hydrate for optimum texture (temperature can play a role). But I don't think that Neapolitan needs to be an umami bomb. I think that the magic of Neapolitan pizza comes from the super puffy and soft texture and char, not a super flavorful crumb. While, in the past, I might have bristled at the loss of flavor in a shorter ferment, I can now see the benefits of a blanker canvas. Pardon the pun, but I also find myself cooling on refrigeration. At least, I do for shorter ferments. You never want to bake cold dough, and, depending on your container, it can easily take 6+ hours to reach room temp in the center of your dough balls. Once you get into minimum warm up times, refrigeration can push the clock too far. And when you add bulks to the mix (which I'm very much warming on), it's an added layer of complexity. There's also a camp who believes that refrigeration comprises texture. I'm not completely sold on this concept, but, since warm up times can be problematic for shorter ferments anyway, if cold is compromising texture, it's just one more reason to avoid it. Now... am I going to freak out if I encounter someone tossing their dough balls in the fridge overnight and then letting them warm up 6 hours the next day? Of course not. But I think the traditional same day room temp Neapolitan approach deserves more respect than it's been getting. Like most people, I thought that this tradition was born out of spacial limitations- or possibly even corner cutting/greed, but, in recent years, that stigma has faded. TL;DR? This has been a very long winded way of saying that I resonate very strongly with the VPN specs- but not because I'm blindly following them, but rather, that I started off believing that I knew better- that I could basically take bread baking knowledge and somehow improve upon the original, but I've now reached a point where I can see that keeping it simple isn't necessarily a compromise. For me, the sweet spot is anywhere between 8 and 24 hours total time, with a portion of that being a bulk. I've also reached the same traditional place with water. Pizza is not bread. This is my best attempt at narrowing down some of the parameters in the official VPN specs: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pizza/comments/8rkpx3/first_pizza_attempt_in_blackstone_oven_72_hr_cold/e0s9sqr/

In my travels, I've met hoards of Caputo fanboys/fangirls, countless pizzaiolos that worship at the 5 Stagioni altar, and a considerable number of Pivetti devotees, but, so far, at least, outside Italy, I haven't run across a lot of praise for Polselli. Not to say that there isn't, I just haven't run across it. http://www.polselli.it/download/334/?lang=en At 11.5% protein and a W value of 270, the Polselli Classica could be a little stronger, imo. I'm guessing that Italian home pizza makers are most likely not taking this flour beyond a same day ferment much. Within that paradigm, I'm sure it performs admirably. But I lean a bit more towards a W of 300ish, which is where the Caputo Cuoco sits. This person ran an interesting experiment comparing Classica to Caputo pizzeria flour (at the time, a W value of 295) https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=39897.msg400212#msg400212 He said that they 'looked identical when baked up.' I disagree :) But I think the number of people that would care that much about the difference would be minimal. If the Polselli is readily available- and, these days, readily available is an important feature, then enjoy the Polselli in good health. But, like the Caputo pizzeria, I wouldn't recommend pushing it past a day.

FWIW, that white pie has one of the prettiest Neapolitan crusts that I've ever seen on this forum. I had a sense that the pizzeria flour @ 48 hours wouldn't be as wonderful as your emergency dough, but the gumminess is throwing me for a bit of a loop. How are you stretching these? Are you using the slap technique? If you are, how aggressively are you slapping? The reason I bring this up is that slapping with a heavy hand tends to promote gumminess. It's so closely associated, the second I hear 'gummy' my mind goes to the slap. Basically, aggressive slapping compresses the dough and makes it harder for heat to penetrate. It might just be as simple as 48 hours breaking a (relatively) weak dough down, which, in turn, freed up water, with a wetter dough resulting, with a similar amount of heat/bake time as your last bake- resulting in a wetter crumb. Was the dough overly sticky and/or slack? What bake times did you play around with? Did you go as long as 90 seconds? Visually, I'm not going to lie, this doesn't really look like a dough that's too far past it's prime. On the last pie, those blisters that you're seeing at 8:30pm, in Naples, those are generally considered to reveal overproofing, with smaller, more freckled leoparding being the goal. Considerable numbers of home pizza makers are happy as a clam with that kind of blistering. All the same, if you keep the pizzeria flour to 24 hours or less, you be less likely to see those.

My feelings are mixed. I've seen some puffy crumbs with Nuvola, but also some crumbs that weren't puffy at all. For me, it's difficult to view Nuvola outside of the greater Caputo lens. Like many American pizza makers, when I started this journey, I was a pretty rabid Caputo fanboy. And then, about 10 years ago, I learned that, in Naples, they didn't have the market share, which surprised me. And then I watched Caputo take over the Pizza Expo in Vegas and, amazingly, make it even crasser. Combining that with the Americana- attempting to sell Americans their flour back to them at a markup- with the inference that we don't know how to mill good flour for our styles of pizza, the transitional whole wheat Typo 1 (bran is a gluten/volume killer), and the more recent corner cutting with the reformulation- needless to say, my love affair with Caputo has come to a close. Not that I'd ever to tell anyone to avoid the Cuoco or that the 5 Stagioni Napoletana is inherently superior. As a company, though, I resonate more with 5 Stagioni- and Pivetti- and I'm also hoping a domestic 00 producer steps up their game. GM was showing some promise with their Neapolitan, but, then they got greedy and starting jacking up the price. North American flour that hasn't been marked up by the Italians shouldn't be comparably priced. Ardent Mills came out with an 00 last year. Perhaps they could be the competition that brings down the price of GM. At the end of the day, I think it's kind of ridiculous to sell wheat to to the Italians and then buy it back again. So... it's not that I'm anti-Nuvola, I just, at this point, don't trust Caputo any more.