Good article on cold fermentation of pizza dough

[DrakeRemoray]

Saw this today on SeriousEats.com. I usually cold ferment my dough overnight. I will have to try for a longer cold ferment in the future...
The Pizza Lab: How Long Should I Let My Dough Cold Ferment? | Slice Pizza Blog

Drake

[dmun]

Three days seems to be the sweet spot. Four works, but at five, something starts to break down, and the dough balls are wet and hard to handle.

Kenji Lopez-Alt’s food lab articles are all worth reading. One thing is that he actually tests his theories rather than just spouting opinion. (like me)

[SCChris]

Thanks Drake for the link..

Dmun / Drake, have you ever bumped into a copy of the periodical "The art of Eating"?

Just curious before I order a copy.

www.artofeating.com


Chris

[DrakeRemoray]

Nope have not seen that mag. Let us know if it is any good...

[SCChris]

A one year subscription has been ordered and I'll keep you in the loop.

Chris

[texassourdough]

I pretty much agree with dmun but would add a caveat. Optimal cold retard is not as simple as just "days". It is a function of many factors among which flour, sourdough vs. IDY, temperature, and time all play very important roles. And probably hydration.

Higher hydration, lower protein flour, sourdough, and higher temperature all seem to shorten acceptable retard time. Sometime around three days starch degradation tends to lead to sliminess and funky smells start to creep in. Two days of retard will pretty reliably result in better flavor than one day (though you may want or need to reduce yeast a bit - say use half to 2/3 as a starting point.) Three days is iffier and in my experience with less clear improvement. As an aside, I can usually tell how old the dough is at my favorite pizzaria. We have made it a game - they serve me a pizza and I guess how old the dough is and I am usually right! They are that consistent and I find that truly impressive! They usually serve dough after a one to two day retard. They prefer two days but often end up using day old dough. They occasionally use three day old and make focaccia out of it on the morning of the fourth day. I find the key difference in their Caputo 00 based dough to be texture, particularly after the second day.

[DrakeRemoray]

Thanks for the insight Tex...I am going to give 3 days a try this weekend (I usually only do overnight). I can't make dough on Thursday night and party is on Saturday, so I am making it tonight. Caputo at 67% I usually use .25% yeast and 2% salt, i think i will keep them the same this time...fingers crossed.

[Tscarborough]

I have always done overnights, but have recently been trying 2 and three day. I like the 2 day, but the three day does not work with my dough, too wet.

[texassourdough]

The diff between two and three days is the starch degradation which is a normal and predictable phenomenon. Those who go longer than three are probably hallucinating a bit or using really low hydration or bread flour dough. Lower protein flours tend to fall apart around day three.

[SCChris]

Re: The art of eating quarterly.. Recomended! See

http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f30/...tml#post100158 (The art of eating - info?)


Chris