Neopolitan Pizza (Biga)

Directions

• Make the Biga Pre-ferment (2 days before)
• Add the flour to a large container. A large bowl or, ideally, a pizza dough proving tray or similar.
• Reserve around 50g of the water and pour the rest over the flour, getting as much flour wet as possible.
• Mix the reserved water with the yeast (check your yeast packet, but most instant dried yeast should be mixed with warm water to activate
• Add the yeast mixture to the flour and water and use a dough scraper to start bringing the ingredients together.
  
  It’s worth noting that this will be a very dry and shaggy mixture and won’t hold together like a normal dough.
  
  The aim is to ensure that all the water has been hydrated by the flour and that we’ve mixed the yeast evenly throughout.
• When there is no water left, you should have something that is very clumpy and dry. You can now place it into a container with an airtight lid
• Rest Biga for 1 hour
• Place Biga into the fridge
  
  
• Making the Pizza Dough
• Remove the Biga from the fridge around 4:30 hours before you plan to start cooking
• Rest at Room Temperature (21ºc) for 1 hour still in the air-tight container
• Mix the Biga with the remaining ingredients for the dough (water, salt & yeast)
  
  This will be a very wet and sloppy mixing process but it will come together and form a dough eventually (trust me!)
  
  By hand this normally takes around 30 mins or, if you’re using a mixer then it should be more like 15 mins
  
  You’ll know that it’s ready when it has come together into one dough and it has started to look smooth (it won’t be totally smooth yet)
• Rest the dough in an air-tight container for 1 hour
• You should now be around 2 hours from when you want to eat Pizza.
  
  Weigh the dough and divide it into equal pieces (just tear pieces from the main dough and add as required to get to the required weight, but add the extra pieces of dough to one side so that you still have one smooth side to the dough).
  
  Each piece of dough should weigh roughly 270g
• This step takes some practice, but persevere and you’ll get the hang of it.
  Shape the dough into balls by placing the smooth side face down and pulling the edges out and folding them into the middle of the dough.
  
  Rotate around the dough continuing this and you should start to get a rounder shape and feel that you are building tension in the dough ball.
  
  You can then flip the dough over and cover it with your hand as you roll it in a circular motion while applying some downward pressure into your work surface.
  
  When you have a nice tight ball shape, you can pinch the seam tightly at the bottom of the dough ball to seal it.
• Place all balls into an airtight container, leaving some space as they will spread a little while they rest.
• Rest the dough balls and rest at room temperature (21ºc) for 2 hours
• When you’re ready to start cooking your pizzas, you should sprinkle them with semolina or flour and use a dough scraper to remove them from your container.
• When making your pizza, start from the middle and push down to push the air towards the crust of your pizza.
• There are several techniques to then stretch the pizza to its full size (around 12″). I like to use my hand in a crab-like form around the crust (you don’t want to push that air out) and pull the dough out to one side. I then slightly rotate the pizza and continue this movement until I have stretched it to full size.
  You can also try, with your hands together and facing down, rest the pizza over the top of your knuckles and gently pull your hands apart to stretch the pizza. Then rotate and repeat.