Neapolitan Pizza Method for a sourdough bread baker using 100% hydration sourdough starter

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Thumbpicker on 23 Mar 2025 at 23:45

I'm hoping a regular neapolitan pizza maker who also makes high hydration sourdough can chime in and help answer something for me.

I have 100% hydration starter that I use for my sourdough and I use it to make neapolitan pizza dough. A lot of the recipes are confusing to me because they use biga's and preferments...

So I always make my pizza dough the following way... Although I often wonder if I'm not fermenting my dough balls enough... This is what I'd like someone to comment on... Look over my method and tell me if I'm going wrong...

So I make 60% hydration pizza dough using Caputo Pizzeria flour... with 2% salt. 

So my recipe is as follows:

80g Sourdough starter (40g flour and 40g water)

200g Water

360g Caputo Pizzeria 00 flour

8g salt.

Mix for 12 minutes in my planetary mixer, hand knead to make sure it's smooth... 

Let ferment at about 27c for 4.5 hours.

Punch down and knead the dough, then form into two tight doughballs and let it ferment and rise again for a further 1.5 hours.
Refrigerate for 2-3 days and use in my Ooni Koda 16 etc...

 

Warm refrigerated dough balls at 30c for at least 1 hours before use.

So this generally does work but the dough isn't really very extensible and sometimes I tear it in the middle stretching it - but if I'm careful I usually get there in the end.
 

After a lot of research I think perhaps my problem is sourdough pizza needs to be what I'd consider to be overfermented when comparing times to soughdough bread.

 

Perhaps I should change my method from:

6 hours bulk => 2-3 days retard => 1 hour warm dough up and bake. 

to

3 hours bulk => 2-3 days retard => 5 hours warm dough and final proof and bake.

 

I don't think currently my dough balls are particularly "wobbly" when you shake them... they are fermented but require some effort to stretch out.

I make my pizza with stiff sourdough starter (LM). It's not exactly the same as with regular sourdough, but close enough.

I'd say, forget the times when you bake with sourdough. Each sourdough is different. The temperature in the fridge may also vary.

Fermentation with biga or poolish (with commercial yeast) is generally much faster than with sourdough.

I don't know about the flour you are using, but 60% overall hydration is not a lot. I know that the original recipe has a pretty low hydration, but imo with flour with high protein content you should go higher. With pizza flour 00 I go generally for 70% hydration. 

My bulk fermentation last only until I see some activity. Not a lot of volume increase. Depending on the amount of starter and the temperature maybe only 2h. But it can take also significantly longer.

Afterwards I make the dough balls and if I don't bake the pizza on the same day, which is usually the case, I put them into the fridge. Generally only until next day.  My fridge has 6C, so that there is still minimal activity (maybe).

The next day I take them out of the fridge a few hours before baking. At least 2-3h before. If I see that the dough might need more fermentation I take them earlier out of the fridge.

Warm fermentation is at 24-26C.

If your fridge has 4C then probably at some point the fermentation will stop completely. 2-3 days at 4C (or below) is imo a bit too much time for sourdough. Afterwards it might take a while until the fermentation starts again.

Your percentage of sourdough culture,  fermentation times, and cold retard look reasonable. I am no expert on Neapolitan style pizza. I am pretty good at making the  NY style Neapolitan variation. The main difference in the dough is NY style features a much more sturdy base. It is much lower in hydration than Neapolitan.

 I think you are looking at the wrong part of your formula. The fermentation is fine. 60% hydration is very low even for NY style. For true high temperature quick cooked Neapolitan, it is totally off. 60% hydration is in the range of a bagel dough. For NY style I think the hydration range is around 65% -  73% hydration. Give or take. Neapolitan, on the other hand features much higher hydration. 75%. - North of 80% hydration. With that being said, to achieve a more extendible dough you need to rise your hydration to at least 65%. I like 69% for my NY style dough. To approximate Neapolitan style texture I would go up to a minimum of 72%. Using lower protein Italian flour is also recommended. By the way, I long ago switched to commercial yeast for my pizza making. My opinion is that some applications are just better suited to commercial yeast. That is just my opinion . Many pros use natural yeast in their pizza dough. Let me know know what you think. I am curious as to why you ended up at such a low hydration? 

Best regards,

Will F.

I'm a little concerned about your final warming stage. I think the center of a dough ball would be too cold, and the outside too warm after 1 hour at 30C.  The standard you linked to calls for storing the dough balls in a proofer at a coolish temperature but not near refrigerator temperatures. The proofer is also supposed to keep the humidity in a 60 - 70% range. This all suggests that the dough ball should be allowed to warm up for longer, though maybe not as long as the 5 hours you were thinking about.

Your water could have different mineral and pH values compared with the water specified in the standard, and that could possibly contribute to handling differences.

(I'm speaking theoretically here because I haven't made much pizza, especially Neapolitan.)

TomP

It's possible the higher hydration are an Americanized version. 

With this new information, Your easiest road is to start within the standard at 65% hydration. I think you will notice a big difference in extensibility. I will have a closer look at the document you referenced when I am fully awake. Good luck. Post up your examples if you like.