Well this is actually hiking. But for one of our Alaska Adventures, my wife and I hiked the Chilkoot Trail, over the historic pass and down into Canada. At some point I will write up the details of that trip. But for now it’s enough to know when you get down to the Visitor’s Center in Canada, they present you a certificate as an “Honorary Sourdough”. As you might guess that’s how the original gold rushers survived the long and cold trip. (Eating it not getting certificates!)

A few years ago, I started baking with my own Sourdough Starter…and yes it’s based on Alaskian Yeast but I added some Italian, thrown in for good measure.

 

For those interested in my successes and failures at pizza and bread making below are a few things I’ve experienced or links I’ve found useful.

1. Once you make your starter, it’s almost indestructible. Just leave it in the refrigerator, and if it gets old and grey, be sure to pour the liquid off before feeding it. Maybe add a bit more water when feeding it to keep the 100% hydration.
2. And feeding it, I finally learned that one should feed it equal parts of Starter, Flour and Water (by weight, get a scale, just do it, I held off for years, this one is cheap and works). Feed it three times (if it’s still relatively active two times is ok, just once if it’s very active), doing it until it doubles in volume hopefully, when you feed it. These take 8-12 hours each feeding. So, if you want bread or pizza Friday night, start at least by Wednesday morning with your feeding. 
3. You do get lots of starter this way…so use it in the early stages for pancakes, or give it away. With each feeding take 1/2 cup to 1 cup or weigh it 50-100gm of starter, and mix with water, then add the flour equal weights. I use All Purpose 75% and Rye or Whole Wheat 25% Mix.
4. If you need to start from scratch or want a great bread recipe, check out:  Sourdough-Bread. And you can buy Sourdough Yeast from Amazon. I recommend Italian or Alaskan. 
5. Once it’s ready, then my best projects have been the Sourdough Bread loaf, Sourdough Baguettes, Neo-Neapolitan Pizza and Calzone’s.
6. There is a Pizza dough receipt on the web at: Sourdough Pizza Crust. Also Check out all the Recipes at Gozney.con
7. I also created an Excel Sheet to help convert standard measure cup recipes to grams. There is some debate over how much Starter to use instead of yeast. Some say just a couple of Tablespoons will give a long dough proof and rich sour taste. Most use maybe a cup of Starter. You must however, adjust your recipe to reflect the water and flour already in the Starter….since mine is 100% hydration, equal parts water and flour I take 1/2 of my Starter by weight and reduce both the flour and the water in the recipe by that amount. Just a little math.

8. I do all this in my KitchenAid Mixer with to dough hook. For my dough, I now mix Flour and Water first and let sit an hour. Then add the Starter, then add salt and oil per recipe. Let rest for a bit…. say an hour. You can mix and kneed by hand if desired…. very important for Pizza dough. You will then proof the dough, 6,8, 12, 24+ hours. In the refrigerator.

   For Pizza I make individual doughballs sized to your oven and let them proof covered at room temperature 4-5 hours.

If you are into techniques for Bread also try. Autolyse. (Some breads begin mixing with an autolyse. This refers to a period of rest after the initial mixing of flour and water, a rest period that occurs sequentially before the addition of yeast, salt and other ingredients. This rest period allows for better absorption of water and helps the gluten and starches to align. The autolyse is credited to Raymond Calvel, who recommended it as a way to reduce kneading time and thereby improve the flavor and color of bread.) Wikipedia   I now do this for Pizza.

I did convert the Sourdough-Bread recipe above is converted to grams. If you want that recipe contact me.

The Pizza dough I’m using is actually this one.

Sourdough Starter 200g

Caputo “00” Blue (high heat flour) 1000g, or sometimes i substitute 100-200g good bread flour, i.e. Red Mill.

Water 600g

Salt 26-28g; EVO 14g

The whole batch makes plenty, Eight doughs of ~230g each. Be sure to follow these steps. Mix Water and Starter, then Salt and EVO. As above. If you hand mix, kneed in the balance of the flour, kneed 15-20 minutes. That’s important! Don’t skimp on time to kneed.. Let it rest for an hour covered with a cloth. Then bulk fermentation in the refrigerator overnight or two nights.

Make into eight balls of ~230g, put on a floured (Semolina) cookie sheet (I now have dough boxes) and flour the top and cover with plastic wrap really good. I let them  cover with damp towel and let proof 3-4 hours. Carefully take the doughs off using a floured scraper and put on Semolina floured counter top and begin working from inside of dough outward, stretching and avoiding flattening the edges. I have not learned to spin mine yet, but this dough is very elastic.

(I have had success with rolling the dough, best with a French rolling pin, perhaps turning it over on itself one or two times and rolling out very thin. Use flat or at times I will take the edge and twist/braid it for the outside crust. I also sometimes like to prebake the crust before topping it. Coat the edges with EVO, carefully lift using floured pizza peel and set in your Gozney oven at around 350-400C or in your normal oven on your heated (500+deg) stone for 2-3 minutes. Just enough for the dough to bubble and rise and stiffen a bit. This helps to make it easier to put back into the oven once you load it up.)

Mine take about 90 seconds in the Gozney or 6-10 minutes in my oven to do the final cook, less if you have a hotter oven. Let cool a bit, slice and enjoy. BTW I modified this from Chef Vito’s Recipe to use sourdough. You can try it too.

 

Neo Pizza	Starter	Flour	Water	Salt	EVO
Recipe	2.0	14.2	4.2	9.2
120g/cup		1700.0
237g/cup			1000.0
6g/tsp				55.0
Starter wt/cup or 225-240	200
Recipe Wt.	400	-200	-200
Hydration	100%
Net Grams	400.0	1500.0	800.0	55.0	20
1/2 Batch	200	750	400	27.5	10

 

My Sourdough Thoughts