Glossary
The terms you'll meet in biga pizza dough recipes, explained simply.
- Active dry yeast
- Dried yeast in granules, usually dissolved in some of the water first. Use about 0.4 g for every 1 g of fresh yeast. See fresh, active dry or instant yeast.
- Appretto
- Italian for the second rise: the fermentation after the dough is divided and shaped into balls, until they are ready to stretch. Also called ball fermentation.
- Baker's percentage
- A way of writing a recipe where every ingredient is a percentage of the total flour, which counts as 100%. 70% hydration means 700 g of water per 1 kg of flour. It makes recipes easy to scale and compare.
- Bassinage
- Adding part of the water late in mixing, a little at a time, once the dough has developed some strength. It helps a dough take more water without turning slack.
- Biga
- An Italian pre-ferment: a stiff mix of flour, water (usually around 50%) and a little yeast, mixed without kneading and fermented before it goes into the final dough. See how to make biga pizza dough.
- Canotto
- Italian for "dinghy": the contemporary Neapolitan style with a very tall, airy rim, typical of high-hydration and 100% biga doughs.
- Coil fold
- A gentle way to strengthen a soft dough during its rest: lift it from the middle so it folds under itself, turn the container and repeat. It builds structure without more mixing.
- Cornicione
- The raised rim of a Neapolitan pizza. A well-fermented biga dough gives a puffy, airy cornicione.
- Diastatic malt
- Malted grain powder with active enzymes that turn starch into sugars during fermentation. It helps the crust brown in ovens that don't get very hot.
- Final dough
- The dough made by mixing the fermented biga with the rest of the ingredients: water, salt, oil, a small yeast boost and, if the biga holds only part of the flour, more flour. Also called impasto.
- Fresh yeast
- Soft, crumbly blocks of live yeast, also called compressed or cake yeast. The usual choice in Italian biga recipes. It keeps for about two weeks in the fridge.
- Hydration
- The water in a dough as a percentage of the flour. Neapolitan doughs are usually 60–75%. In this calculator, total hydration includes the biga's water.
- Instant dry yeast
- Fine dried yeast that can go straight in with the flour or water. Use about 0.33 g for every 1 g of fresh yeast.
- Leopard spotting
- Small dark spots on the rim of a pizza baked in a very hot oven, a sign of good fermentation and strong heat.
- Pasta di riporto
- A piece of dough kept back from a previous batch and added to a new one for flavour. It isn't needed with a 100% biga, which already does that job.
- Poolish
- A liquid pre-ferment with equal weights of flour and water (100% hydration). Wetter and faster than a biga, with a milder, more lactic flavour.
- Pre-ferment
- Part of the flour, water and yeast fermented ahead of time and then added to the final dough. Biga and poolish are pre-ferments.
- Puntata
- Italian for the first rise, or bulk fermentation: the dough rests as one mass after mixing, before it is divided into balls.
- Spiral mixer
- A mixer whose spiral hook and bowl both turn, developing dough quickly with little heat. See mixing the final dough in a spiral mixer.
- W (flour strength)
- A measure of how strong a flour is, from a lab test called the alveograph. Higher W flours hold up better in long fermentations; Italian pizza flours often state it on the bag.
- Yeast boost
- The small amount of yeast added to the final dough, around 0.1% of the flour. Most of the rise comes from the yeast that grew in the biga; the boost helps it along.