Neapolitan dough

[Chiefsilverback]

I've had two attempts now using Chef Jacob's videos/recipe over at Stella Culinary. Here are a couple of pics of my dough from the last attempt.

Pic 1 - dough has fermented overnight, split and 'balled'. It felt 'wet' and didn't handle like Chef Jacob's does.

Pic 2 - after the second rise, the dough has expanded out rather than up and is still very sticky.



Any recommendations on what might I might need to tweak?

As an aside I tried a different configuration of Key Schoppe's SNS pizza oven using a chimney of bricks under the stone and then a second in the SNS. I only used 3 fire bricks under in a triangle pattern under the stone and I ended up with very uneven heat on the stone, ranging from 350 to 550. I'm probably going to pickup a Hovergrill any way so I'll try that next time.

[Dr ROK]

Are you weighing your flour?

[Chiefsilverback]

Yes

[W.A.]

Add little more flour when shaping...

[RonB]

The wetter dough may not be a bad thing. It should be easier to shape if you use a good dusting of flour to overcome the stickiness, and you might get a better rise. Ciabatta is a very wet dough that rises really well.

[Breadhead]

Chiefsilverback ...

Assuming you weighed your ingredients accurately. Just looking at the picture of your dough I would venture to GUESS that you might not have final shaped your dough balls as tight as Chef Jacob did in this video, before you put them in the refrigerator to delay the fermentation.

Did you use 00 flour?

Follow this video closely and all should come out perfectly.👍

https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/stella-bread/sb-016-how-to-make-neapolitan-pizza-dough

[Chiefsilverback]

I'm following his recipe/methods but the dough just doesn't seem to handle like his?

[Breadhead]

Chiefsilverback ...

I'm stumped.

INGREDIENTS
330 g 00 Pizza Flour (100%)
195 g Water, Cold (59%)
1 g Yeast, Instant (0.3%)
5 g Salt, Kosher (1.5%)

It's a very low hydration dough. I'm not sure how your dough got that wet and sticky, other than using too much water. Next time make sure you use 00 flour and weigh your water precisely. Then when you portion the dough into dough balls and final shape them make sure they are real tight before putting them in the fridge.

[Chiefsilverback]

Admittedly I don't weigh the water, I have metric measuring jugs so I could be a few grams out on the water, but only be a % or two.

Measuring 1 gram of yeast is a bit tricky, my scales don't register that low but again I'm probably only out by a % or two. Is the recipe really that unforgiving?

[Breadhead]

Bread baking, pizza dough is bread, is an exact science. Will a % or 2 change your dough that much? I did yours. My assumption from looking at your dough, you got more water in it than you think you did.🤔 Get a scale that is accurate to 1 gram increments and my bet is your problem is solved.👍

[Breadhead]

Chiefsilverback ...

If you want a really great scale for baking bread that can be used for everything this one is really good. Not to expensive either.👍

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VEKX35Y/?tag=amazi0a8-20

[Breadhead]

In the bakers percentage system the primary ingredient is always 100%. Then all other ingredients are weighed as a percentage of the weigh of the flour in this case. If you used 1000 grams of flour you would use 590 grams of water to get a 59% hydration rate. 20 grams of salt would = 2%.

[Mr. Bones]

Breadhead, thanks for the recommendation.

Mine just landed near the stoop today, whilst' I was at work.

Looking forward to using it!!!

[Breadhead]

Cool Mr. Bones ... I think you will be pleased with it. To utilize it to its full potential it is necessary to understand the bakers percentage. I posted a link about the bakers percentage below.

[Breadhead]

Chiefsilverback ...

The Baker's Percentage made easy...
https://stellaculinary.com/podcasts/...o#comment-9901

[Chiefsilverback]

That does make perfect sense, especially when it comes to scaling the recipe, there's nothing worse than trying to workout what half of 3/4 cup is!

[Breadhead]

Bakers are smart dudes. They've been using this system for many decades. Now... even the Modernist Cuisine books were written using only the bakers percentage for ALL of the recipes. Now you can mix your BBQ rubs using your new scale.👍 It's much easier and a lot more accurate.👍