Friday night is pizza night at TFL! I promised to show a thick crust light as air focaccia type pizza. Here she is. Parbaked crust weeks ago and frozen for just such an occasion as a cold cold COLD Friday !
Crisp light and airy with a ton of toppings. Fresh Mozzarella and Romano and roasted mushrooms with Sweet Italian Sausage seasoned with extra fennel and oregano. Special sauce and there you go.
The two levains are SD and YW they fight it out overnight and come out friends. Add EVOO, and NON diastatic malt for flavor and both Semolina and Arrowhead BF. 460g of levain and we arrive at 2000g of dough. All the rest were already devoured as parbaked crusts. I made a new batch yesterday and they are in the freezer for another cold wintry Friday. 
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I’m now hungry for some pizza for breakfast 😆😋.
I love everything about this one. I need to clean my freezers out so I can follow your great idea.
Happy Pizza making!
Ian
Thank you! I love toppings. The crust is light as a feather the YW levain is still great without adding anything but flour. I have read it will change to SD but I have no way of knowing. So far it looks and smells different from the SD.
Where did you hear that the YW would turn into SD? I have read the exact opposite, that it would never pick up the same microbes as a traditional SD levain/starter. Either way, I need to make a new one myself and start using it again. I need to do a lot of things!
I am sure that if you mix yeast water with flour, you will get a dough that can ferment. To me, that's a "SD" starter or levain. Whether it's exactly like one started with just flour and water from scratch, probably not. You could wonder if it can be backslopped indefinitely, but only time will tell.
TomP
That’s what I figure. I don’t know where I read it Ian but I don’t know that I believe it changes. I keep them separate.
That’s what I did Tom because I was tired of maintaining the water. So much easier to maintain this. Don’t know what backslop is lol. I’ll probably do another Apple YW in Spring.
Backslopping, IIUC, is the practice of maintaining a leavening agent by re-feeding part of it. IOW, the standard way we all maintain ordinary starters. This doesn't work forever with, e.g., yogurt because most yogurts include LAB that need heat to thrive and backslopping won't support all of them.
It seems to me that one big difference between yeast water and ordinary starters must be a lack of lactic acid bacteria. This would be reflected in a relatively high pH. I asked my chatbot to come up with some pH figures for YW but it couldn't. A high pH would cause the YW not to last well, even refrigerated. When used to ferment bread, the higher pH would result in less protein attack during long fermentations. This would presumably show up especially with flours that have trouble holding up well over a long bulk ferment, I would think.
After YW gets mixed with flour, LAB in the flour ought to start lowering the pH. Whether this can happen quickly enough to prevent unwanted organisms from gaining a foothold is anyone's guess. Using whole grain flours ought to favor faster LAB development so I would favor using whole grain flours to mix with YW.
Is partly dependent on the fruit one uses. I found that Granny Smith apples were easiest to maintain as they are way more tart. The sweeter apples were more difficult. Adding fruit fresh is reported to help maintain and I started putting in a big piece of orange peel. So acidity at work.
That’s why I used Granny Smith apples and also added a big piece of orange peel to raise the acidity. Fruit Fresh will work as well . Acidity is the key
But it was a couple places. I doubt anyone tested the bugs to see what was growing. I’ll just meander along as I’m getting great results . Thanks for looking!
Yeast water is a "sourdough". Don't forget - "sourdough" is a type - emphasis on type - of "starter". The main thing that happen is yeast eats and discards something - this in turn is "fed" on by other microbes or tossed. The microbes are specific to the environment and location. A "sourdough" culture is just a blend of these - whatever they happen to be. Enjoy!
A few years ago when on holiday in Greece, I was told about using water and raisins to start a starter, before I knew about yeast water. So I tried it and it worked at the first attemptq.
I then did exactly what Caroline did and added some flour to the RYW to make 100% SD starter and used it to good effect over the holiday. Even brought it back to London and carried on using it back home to make some great bread until a fridge freezer malfunction during another holiday killed it and since when I'm not inclined to freeze starters while I'm away.
But the breads made over a period of at least a year with the starter were excellent, with a distinct slightly caramelly undertone in the flavour compared to my traditionally created starter.
My sister in law in Italy also used an apple yeast water as the basis for her stiff lievito madre that has made some superb breads and panettoni over the years.
I made a raisin YW first years ago when it was fist presented here on TFL. The raisins do have flavor that transfers to the bread and it’s very tasty.
I found getting an apple one going is easier for me but then I make them different by adding a different fruit . I haven’t tried a vegetable. Someone on here used Basil and said it was great. Would make a lovely flavor profile for pizza dough ! I think I need to try it. c
Happy Pizza day Will. That pizza looks and sounds divine. I love that you used two different levains to leaven the dough. The crumb looks fabulous.
Benny
You are right the crumb and levains are working excellently. Have a great time!!
Great looking Pizza. Thanks for the toppings combination, as I'm always on the lookout for ideas.
Cheers,
Gavin
Bennie has amazing combos. We don’t care for pepperoni anymore because we can’t get a good one locally.
It was one of my best yet because the crust came out so well, that makes or breaks pizza for us.
Thank you Gavin