Re: Sourdough starter quantity predictive model

The amounts in pizza doughs are often smaller than in bread doughs, and you may only use the same flour, so a levain would not be much different from feeding the starter as you normally do, maybe a bit more.

The are three reasons I can think of to make a levain:

• To scale up the amount of starter you make.
• Use different kinds of flour than the starter is normally fed with.
• To change the hydration of the starter/levain you plan to use in a dough.

All three are more common in a bread dough, but there’s nothing wrong with using it for pizza dough. Some people may have a wholemeal starter and not want too much wholemeal in their pizza dough, so they make a levain with a seed of wholemeal starter and feed it with whatever flour they use in the pizza dough.

Others want wholemeal in their pizza dough, but got a 100% white starter, and may want to make a levain fed with wholemeal.

I just use starter from my starter jar for a pizza dough. If I plan to make the …