Pizza Dough and Baking Pizza on your Grill In my book, Generations of Passionate Home Cooking, I explain in detail the process of producing a good sourdough starter/sponge.  On the leeners web site they go over the process in some detail using their Goldrush Sourdough Starter. Superior pizza dough is like Nirvana – it is a trifecta of taste, chew, and smell. Like all things exceedingly worthwhile, it requires the best ingredients. Pizza Dough 1 1/2 Cup of sourdough yeast sponge 1 Tablespoons SAF Red Instant yeast Optionally, 1 1/2 tablespoons King Arthur Pizza Dough Flavor 1 Cup of King Arthur’s Italian-Style Flour (“00” milled) (8.5% protein level) more as required 3 Cup of King Arthur Artisan Organic Select Flour 1 + 1 Teaspoons salt added at two times Bottled drinking water Great flavor olive oil Combine flours and mix well. Early in the morning, pour the sponge (1 ˝ cups of it) into your work bowl. Add yeast, half the salt, 1 cup of flour and bottled drink­ing water until the mix is loose. Let this stand covered with a wet cloth for an hour. Now stir in 3 cups of flour with the other half of the salt with a paddle or by hand until the dough is still a little sticky. This is moisture dependent. Adding more liquid allows more flour. The flour should be added a little at a time. Add a little more "00" flour if needed Now hand-knead the dough or mix it with a dough hook setting the speed to low for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is somewhat smooth and elastic. If doing this with a mixer, do not add too much flour. The dough should be somewhat sticky else, it will be too dry. If necessary, add back gradually a little water until the consis­tency is just right. Coat the insides of a clean stainless steel or glass bowl with a film of great olive oil. Now turn the dough in it to coat it all over. Now cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a wet towel and set it in a warm place to rise for an hour, or until it doubles in volume. You may place the bowl in the refrigerator overnight. The cold retards the whole operation but an extra day develops further character and nutrition. You pickup where you left off the previous day, once the dough has come back to room temperature. When double in volume, punch down and knead until the dough is glossy and fully elastic. Cover and let rise again to twice volume. Punch down the dough and divide it with a knife or scissors into four or six equal balls, depending on the size pizzas you are making. Dust dough ball in flour, shake of excess. Roll out dough ball very thin trying to keep the thickness uniform on parchment paper larger than the pizza. You may stack the “blanks” on their parchment paper, one of top of another until ready to make pizza. Assemble pizza per recipe and trim parchment paper to just larger than the pizza. Place pizza and its parchment paper on cooking stone using a batten. Don’t have a bat­ten you say? A double walled cookie sheet is very stiff and will work fine as a batten. You also use the batten to retrieve the cooked pizza by sliding the parch­ment paper onto it. Watch video for more information. Making Homemade Pizza on the Grill    Also see URL:https://youtu.be/mOhsvTDtkLM Return to Passionate Home Cook Blog Spot Notes: Sponge and dough The sponge and dough method is a two-step bread making process: in the first step a sponge is made and allowed to ferment for a period of time, and in the second step the sponge is added to the final dough's ingredients, creating the total formula. In this usage, synonyms for sponge are yeast starter or yeast pre-ferment. In French baking the sponge and dough method is known as levain-levure . The method is reminiscent of the sourdough or levain methods; however, the sponge is made from all fresh ingredients prior to being used in the final dough. A sponge ferment is usually a sticky process that a cup of flour, water, and a tablespoon of yeast. then mixed with a fork. Let this sit 3 days at room temperature, is fed with several tablespoon of flour and more water, each day. During this tme the sponge will begin to sour as lactic acid bacteria also develop. When the sponge's fermentation time has elapsed, the final dough's ingredients are added to make the dough. Note that the sour flavor can be increased by adding additional citric acid. Also see King Arthur Instant Sourdough Flavor Special Ingredients King Arthur Flour TYPE 00 FLOUR 11% Protein.54% Ash This silky smooth flour is made from select US wheats. It provides the strength and extensibility required for pizza dough that yields authentic Neapolitan pizza crusts. Optimized for baking at high temperatures to produce the perfect blend of crispness and chew, with the puffy, leopard-spotted cornicione that enthusiasts expect. King Arthur ORGANIC SELECT ARTISAN 11.7% Protein.55% AshMalted An organic equivalent to a French Type 55 with slightly more ash (milled from premium hard winter wheat) can best be described as an all-purpose or low-protein bread flour making it very versatile in bakery. Yields a dough that handles easily and has great fermentation tolerance. Ideal for artisan breads, laminated dough, and Neapolitan pizza as well as cookies, scones, and quick breads. Pizza Dough Flavor - 4 oz For over the top flavor in your homemade pizza or Italian bread dough. Features cheese powder, garlic, and natural flavors.