I've read about differing techniques for getting the best flavor, texture, and chewiness in my pizza crust. One of the commonly suggested routes is to include a sourdough starter as part of the process, but I also find suggestions to use a poolish pre-ferment. From what I understand the main difference in technique is that a sourdough starter typically uses simply flour and water(introducting natural lactobacillus), where as poolish you would also include off the shelf bakers yeast. The sourdough starter also seems to be an ingredient that you build up over days, or even longer, where as the poolish you make in less than a day.
What I haven't been able to determine, is what if any differences will I find in my pizza dough using one product over the other? Would the pizza crust taste different, look different, rise different, or exhibit other differing characteristics between the two processes? My ultimate goal is Neapolitan margherita pizza in a home oven).
Best Answer
Three things:
Most traditional Neapolitan pizza dough does not use a pre-ferment - poolish, biga, or sourdough starter. Not to say it may not be good, but it wouldn't the way most are made.
Sourdough starters change their flavor profiles by age and by geographical region. In general, I would expect a bit more of a 'tang' from the sourdough starter than from the poolish.
Sourdough starters usually don't rise as much - commercial yeast is just in general stronger than its wild counterparts. So a dough made with a sourdough starter may not rise as well.
Between the two, I would prefer poolish over sourdough for a more traditional taste. However, I'd be more likely to try something like a cold starter and super slow rise like a Pain à l'Ancienne in order to promote more natural sugars in the bread which would result in better browning. The primary challenge with Neapolitan pizza dough is the lack of heat in a home oven. Part of the thing that heat does is the browning - hence the recipe that promotes better browning but with traditional ingredients.