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Multi-grain sourdough pizza recipe calculator


Instructions

  1. Place sourdough and warm water in large mixing bowl.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix together flours and salt.

  3. Add the mixed flours and salt to the sourdough and water.

  4. Mix with a wooden spoon, place on floured board, and knead (I knead for 10–15 minutes by hand), using a bit of the mixed dry flours on the cutting board to prevent sticking.

  5. At this point, there are alternate techniques:

    • I place the dough in a sealed container and let it rise in the refrigerator for 3 days; then I punch it down, divide it into how ever many individual pizzas I want, and let it rise at room temperature for 2 hours; at this point, I can either freeze the doughs for future use, or stretch them out on a parchment (or silicone baking sheet) and bake at 550 degrees F for about 8–9 minutes. This is my oven's highest temperature.

    • Alternatively, the dough can rise at room temperature all day to sour itself.

Feed sourdough

  1. At some point, add the additional flour and water (see last ingredients with the light green tone) to the sourdough crock to replenish it for the next pizza. I add a tiny bit more water and flour to compensate for sourdough that sticks to the wooden spoon.

  2. I refrigerate the sourdough and feed it (making pizzas) on a 14-day cycle.

A note on kneading

I put aside a bit of the flour mix and place it on my kneading surface (a cutting board) so that the mix doesn't stick. This needs to be replenished every now and then as the kneading occurs. But by the end of the kneading, none of this additional flour remains: it is all incorporated into the mix.

Different mixes

I feed my sourdough on a 14-day cycle, at which time I make 6 individual 190-gram pizzas, eating them about every other day (yes, it's pretty extreme, but I'm not eating much bread anymore). My mix uses 35% whole wheat flour, 25% sourdough, and a 61% hydration as indicated by the default values in the yellow fields above (press "reset" to get them back). Alternatively, one can make a white-flour pizza (no whole wheat) with the following values, serving 2 people: Number of pizzas (1); Individual pizza weight (320 g); Percent whole wheat (0%); Percent hydration (60%); Sourdough (200 g).

I don't use any whole wheat flour in my sourdough starter, but the calculator allows you to do so, if you prefer.

Typical hydration percentages depend on the types of flours used, and range from 55% to 80%.

Typical sourdough percentages range from 10 to 33%.

Information on sourdough can be found on the King Arthur website. Basically, sourdough consists of half white flour and half water by weight, along with "naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast," per Wikipedia.