Classic Dough or Poolish

[pkadare]

So I'm going to start making my own dough and I'm wondering if the pizzaiolos in the Pit would recommend starting with a "classic" or a poolish based dough for Neapolitan pizza. I do plan on beginning with something in the lower range for recommended hydration until I get used to working with the dough.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[Skip]

pkadare , I've been making my own pizza dough for several years. Just lately I've reviewed how many different recipes I've used and some I've tried to tweak to make them better, sometimes with success and sometimes not. My recommendation would be pick 1 or 2 recipes from a reliable source like King Arthur or Kenji and stick with them at least for a while until you get to the dough results you like. A long time ago I read that technique has as much to with dough success as the recipe itself and I'm a believer.

[pkadare]

Thanks Skip! I think I've found a recipe to start with. It is a fairly low hydration recipe which I think will be good to start with. I'm going to do a separate post with a link to a video series (6 videos) that detail the process start to finish.

[Skip]

I feel I've tried too many different recipes. In just the past couple months I returned to the basics and gone with a couple recipes I'm trying to improve on.

[RonB]

Since you have your starter recipe, try making it with and without a poolish.

Look at several recipes with a poolish and you can calculate how to convert your non-poolish recipe to a poolish recipe. Ya might even want to make 'em both and compare the results side by side.

[RichardCullip]

I’ve had my best success with a 72 hour dough like the recipe found at

https://bakingsteel.com/blogs/recipes/72-hour-pizza-dough

it’s a simple dough with 70% hydration. The only drawback is time. It does take some advanced planning

[rickgregory]

I'm with Skip - start simple and classic. Kenji's dough on Serious Eats is a classic Neopolitan dough https://www.seriouseats.com/basic-ne...a-dough-recipe

A poolish will give you a more developed flavor but it's a complication. They're not HARD, just one more thing to do. FYI, you'll see people use a biga too and there's no taste difference between a biga (which is traditionally a smaller percentage of the dough mixed dryer than a poolish) and a poolish. When I use a preferment that's not my sourdough starter I use a poolish since it's easier to mix in, being 100% hydration.

[Brookie]

Try Ken Forkish poolish pizza dough some time using 00 flour.

[Richard Chrz]

I prefer a bigga hydration of say 70 percent (some might say that is not bigga. And then a poolish starter, 100 at 100 percent. Then find your favorite feeding methods of, say 1:3:3 or even 1:1:1 or of course 1:2:2.

[rickgregory]

This just got posted recently and might be of help if you move to the sourdough side: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/wood-...-dough-recipe/