"Kent" > wrote:
> Do you use a starter?
> If so, long do you ferment it? How long can or you store it? Should you
> store it before using it? Do you save a bit of dough from one pizza, and
> use that as a starter at your next pizza attempt?
> Do you add yeast in addition to the yeast already in the starter?
> Have any tried other flours. What is your favorite unbleached, wheat,
> though white flour. I have started trying 50% whole wheat, to raise the
> glycemic index of the whole pizza. If you're prone to hyperglycemia, as I
> am, you should be addressing this, to prolong life.

I use a "sourdough" starter I keep around for all my "bread" baking
activities, including pizza dough. When I make anything, I refresh the
starter and use the remainder for baking something. For pizza, I make the
dough in the morning and then let it ferment slowly through the day, about 8
hours or so. I use regular bread flour for the pizza dough. I don't add any
additional yeast to the dough beyond what's in my starter.

For making bread, I do it a little differently. I refresh the starter at
night, and then use the remainder to make a poolish for the bread. For the
bread I began this past Friday night, I used the starter, 3 cups of water,
and 3 cups of flour. I let that ferment overnight. The next morning I add
the remainder of the flour, the salt, and anything else I'm putting in. No
additional yeast here either. This last batch (2 loaves) I added sun dried
tomatoes and canned ripe olives. I do the normal first rise (90 minutes),
form the loaves, do a second rise (60 minutes), then bake.

After refreshing my starter, I leave it out at room temperature for about 12
hours, stirring it down a couple of times. Then it goes into the
refrigerator. This last time it was 3 weeks and 2 days from the previous
time I used it. It didn't seem too much the worse for wear. Certainly not if
it could do the first rise of the dough in 90 minutes (after the overnight
ferment of the poolish).

Since I've been doing this starter thing, I don't use yeast any more. I
began this starter 2 years ago. In the mean time, I've got a container of
yeast in the freezer that's basically been sitting there for 2 years. Yeast
(active dry) seems to last forever in the freezer.

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