Il Circolo del Forno

Baking Guides

Hydration, flour types, sourdough, fermentation, and baking: technical guides to understand what happens in the dough, not just follow a recipe. Apply what you learn with our tested recipes.

Topic:
6 guides
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Guide 01 🫳 Dough

How to calculate dough hydration

What does 65% or 80% hydration mean? How to use baker's percentages to scale any recipe. From ciabatta to focaccia, understanding hydration changes everything.

📖 Read: ~5 min 🎯 Beginner
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Guide 02 🫳 Dough

Which flour to use for pizza and bread: W value, proteins and differences

The W value indicates flour strength. Type 0, type 1, wholegrain: which to choose and why. How to blend flours to get the result you're looking for in any recipe.

📖 Read: ~6 min 🎯 Beginner
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Guide 03 🔬 Fermentation

Sourdough starter: maintenance and feeding

How to feed your sourdough starter, how to know if it's active, and how to adapt feeding frequency to the seasons. The 1:1:0.5 cycle explained practically.

📖 Read: ~7 min 🎯 Intermediate
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Guide 04 🔬 Fermentation

Fermentation and temperatures (biga, poolish, autolyse)

Pre-ferments improve flavour, digestibility, and shelf life. How to use biga (stiff), poolish (liquid), and autolyse. Ideal temperatures for bulk fermentation and cold retarding.

📖 Read: ~8 min 🎯 Advanced
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Guide 05 🔥 Baking

How to get a crispy crust in your home oven

Steam, a baking stone, cast-iron dutch oven, and baking steel: all the techniques to simulate a professional oven and get bread and pizza with an authentic crust at home.

📖 Read: ~7 min 🎯 Intermediate
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Guide 06 🍕 Regional styles

The difference between Neapolitan, Roman, and pan pizza

The three great schools of Italian pizza: dough, hydration, baking temperature, and the characteristics of the final result. Which to make at home and how to adapt techniques to your oven.

📖 Read: ~6 min 🎯 Beginner
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