Step 1

Levain/Starter

Step 2

Prepare your 160g of starter by mixing 30g starter with 65g water and 65g flour. This is approximately a 1:2:2 starter preparation, but other builds are fine too. Mark your jar with a rubberband and let it sit overnight or until at least doubled.

Step 3

Saltolyse

Step 4

Mix the flour, water, and salt together in a bowl. Cover and let sit about 1 hour.

Step 5

Fermentation and Gluten Development

Step 6

Add the ripe starter to the dough, stretching, folding, and gently squishing the starter into the dough.

Step 7

Cover and let the dough rest for about a half hour. Then do two rounds of coil folding or dough rolling, one lamination, and one final round of coil folding. Separate each of the four rounds of gluten development with a 20-30 minute covered rest. Here are videos showing how to coil, roll, and laminate dough.

Step 8

When the dough has expanded by 50-75%, end the bulk fermentation. For my warm ambient temperature, this was four hours after adding the starter to the dough.

Step 9

Preshape and Second Rise

Step 10

Lightly oil a baking pan, or several small bowls, or several 16-ounce round takeout containers (photo above) to hold the dough balls during the final proof.

Step 11

Scrape the fermented dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and divide the dough into four pieces of about 320g each. (You can make the pieces larger or smaller if you want.)

Step 12

Roll each dough piece into a ball, place it in your proofing container(s), and cover. If using a pan, you can put the entire pan in a plastic bag.

Step 13

The final proof can be at room temperature for 1-3 hours or in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours (possibly longer). Various combinations of room temperature and cold proofing work too, and duration depends on the dough and room temperatures.

Step 14

Oven Preheat and Topping Prep

Step 15

Set your oven and pizza stone to preheat at 500°F for at least 30 minutes. I use an infrared thermometer to confirm my stone's temperature before baking and sometimes between pizzas too.

Step 16

If your dough is refrigerated, you can bring it out to room temperature to start warming up for easier stretching. After a 24-hour refrigeration, I got good results with both warmed up dough and with the one dough I left in the refrigerator until the last minute.

Step 17

Set up your toppings, sauce, cheese etc. and the area where you will be forming your pizzas.

Step 18

Prep a small bowl of flour or cornmeal to put on your pizza peel, or several 14x14-inch sheets of parchment paper. I like to run coarse cornmeal through my Mockmill on a medium-fine setting to make the chunks a little smaller.

Step 19

Shaping

Step 20

Sprinkle flour and cornmeal on your pizza peel or lay out a square of parchment paper.

Step 21

Lightly flour your countertop. Remove a dough ball from your proofing container and lay it on the flour.

Step 22

Place your fingers in the center of the dough and gently push the edges outward.

Step 23

Flour your hands, and then grasp one side of the dough circle with both hands and lift the dough off the counter. Holding the top edges of the circle (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock), let the dough stretch downward while you rotate and re-grab the dough like you're turning a steering wheel. This will develop about a 1-inch crust edge and stretch the middle of the circle. Try not to let any part of the dough get thin enough to see through or you may end up with a hole. If you do tear the dough, re-roll it and move on to another ball while the gluten in the re-rolled ball relaxes for a minimum of 15 minutes.

Step 24

Lay the stretched out dough on your pizza peel or parchment. If using a peel, check that the pizza can move by jerking the peel forward and backward to see if the dough slides. If it doesn't slide, lift the stuck area of dough and flour underneath it, Do this until you have an easy slide. It's fine if the dough sticks to the parchment paper. If you need to adjust the dough on the parchment, reach under the dough with one hand and pull it outward.

Step 25

Now top your pizza dough to your liking. Try not to take a long time doing this, because the longer the dough is on the peel, the more likely it is to begin to stick. (Use parchment paper if you expect to top your pizza very slowly.)

Step 26

Before approaching your oven with the pizza, check again with the quick forward and backward motion of the peel that your pizza can still slide.

Step 27

Baking*

Step 28

Slide your pizza onto the hot pizza stone and bake for 8 minutes, then switch the oven to broil for 1 minute more.

Step 29

While this pizza is baking, shape the next ball of dough and put toppings on it.

Step 30

Remove the pizza from the oven with a peel or metal spatula, or even by tugging on a corner of the parchment paper. Put the pizza on a cooling rack if you're not eating right away to keep the bottom from getting damp.

Step 31

Leave the empty oven on broil for one minute to reheat the stone, then switch back to bake mode and load the next pizza.

Step 32

Repeat until all the pizzas are cooked.

Step 33

*For baking these pizzas in an Ooni pizza oven, see the instructions in the Sourdough Pizza recipe