Making Pizza for more than a year regularly

A 70% hydration dough, using a Poolish pre-ferment has gotten me the best results. Also using fresh yeast instead of instant yeast worked better for me.

Recipe:

Poolish pre-ferment:
533g wheat flour type 00 (11-15% protein)
533g cold water
0.7g fresh yeast (a little more than pea size)

Main dough:

The complete poolish
800g wheat flour type 00 (11-15% protein)
320g of water
40g fine sea salt
5,3g fresh yeast

1. Mix Poolish ingredients roughly together and let stand overnight at room temperature.

2. Mix Polish + half the amount of water + flour + yeast for 8min in a stand mixer on medium to high speed – you can also do it by hand.

3. During the 8min as soon as the flour has bound the water, put in the remaining half of the water sip by sip, not too fast.

4. After the 8 minutes, work in the salt for three minutes.

5. The dough should be sticky now but usable to put it out onto a work surface. Now start stretch and fold until a ball is formed. There are quite a few good videos out there on how to do this step, it’s quite easy and loads of fun 🙂

6. After the ball is formed, let it sit for 15 minutes.

7. Make 280 gram pieces and form those into little balls, doing some more stretching and folding.

8. Let them stand in a (large enough) box (sealed from air) for 5 hours at room temperature.

9. After they have grown significantly in size, use a spatula and some semolina to get them out of the box without breaking up the air inside them (You want the air). Put them into a semolina-bed, turn them and onto the work surface they go.

10. Using your hands going from the middle to the edge, spread them evenly until they’re the size of your hand. Then, using gravity and the underside of your hand, rotate them in the air to stretch them even further.
    This technique can be a bit tricky and takes some practice but is worth it every time, plus it looks so cool haha 🙂
    I’d still recommend watching some videos on how to do it first.

11. Then I carefully use my pizza tool to put it in the pizza-oven. This can also be a bit tricky so I’d also recommend watching a video beforehand 🙂

12. I used a pizza oven pre-heated to 400 degrees C and baked them for no more than two minutes, rotating after the first minute using a rotating wheel.
    Make sure that after the stone has the desired temperature to turn the flame to low because otherwise your pizza will be burnt.

13. Ate too many pizzas 🙂