Re: Help! Trip coming up. Where to find sourdough spots in Naples?!

Quote from: robca on Yesterday at 01:56:52 PMAs an Italian, lievito madre in Italian is not sourdough. Sourdough, as commonly defined, it’s much more acidic and usually contains a lot more water.

Lievito madre is, simply, a day old dough that is stored with the same hydration as the dough being mixed. Overnight it forms a dry crust, which is removed before using it in the new batch. Historically, it contained a mix of yeast and lactobacillus, so it’s less active than brewer’s yeast and more acidic. But it’s nowhere near the tang commonly associated with sourdough: the low hydration and only one day storage minimizes the acidity from the lactobacillus. When you start adding brewer’s yeast (like Da Michele does based on every source online), it’s not lievito madre anymore.

In this case, it’s probably “pasta di riporto”, i.e. a day old dough mixed in the new batch, together with a bit more of brewer’s yeast. It’s entirely possible that many pizzerias use pasta di riporto to add a bit of flavor, and ca…