No it doesn't sound like it died. It's just patience. You need to think of your bigga mix in a different way to the way you think of a standard yeast starter. Nothing was wrong with it - in fact it sounds perfect. Your biga was saying to you "Hi, I'm your new baby, be patient with me and I'll reward you with exceptional character ........"

Biga and poulish are used in Italian and French pizza and bread bakers (and US and British bakers specialising in sourdough bread) who have been using the same started mix often for generations. It's prized and inherited. So in some of the old established French bakers for example you could be eating bread that is from a starter of a hundred years old or so. And if for some reason they lose their mother mix another establishment will give them a bit of fresh starter to get started again.

To get your initial biga started I'd suggest you to be really patient and start to plan it a few days out perhaps a week if you can. As I think I said earlier I cheat a little and start it with a few grains of dried yeast.

In your situation, when it collapsed when you stirred it, you were simply still dealing with a very young and inexperienced baby biga that needed to be allowed to regrow for another day or so. In fact the longer it takes the more character will be in your starter when you eventually use it.

Once you have it you split it and save half in the fridge for another day - which you again split. The bit you save you dilute with more flour and water to nourish and feed it. This of course also provides you with a life long supply of sourdough bread as well as baguette. With baguette you simply introduce steam into your oven by putting a heavy baking tray in the bottom to warm up and then just pour water on it as you put the bread in.

Too much info from me again - but intended to encourage you to persevere and experiement with your biga!

You absolutely must not give up on this because it's intended to be challenging in order to only give the prize to those that learn and persevere .....

dry them after you slice, you can also let it sit out a while too to dry up

Thanks uk1 I will definitely perservere... and I'm a perfectionist in the kitchen too, so this is perfect for my obsessive personality! :D

I'm so pleased ... because I realised when reading my own post how it might make people edge a few inches further away for fear that I might actually be as mad as I appear to be.

If you can, try and think of the biga as something that you simply have to master and then try and keep it fed.

If the obsession really takes over - throw off all abandon and find a supplier of Caputo Flour from which virtually all good pizzas in Naples originate. Then learn to "add more water, add more water ....". I originally ended up having a large bag of Caputo flour flown from Naples I became so obsessed and desperate. But now you should find it more local. The combination of Caputo flour, your biga starter, a hot oven can change your life ........:(

This does make me sad and I recognise in the eyes of others potentially dangerous .....:D

I'd given up hope on homemade pizza but this has inspired me once again. I like thin crust, and every time I make it, it comes out more doughy than crispy. It's almost a bread texture, and i end up wanting to cut some of it off. For being so close to Chicago, that's not the kind of pizza i'm trying to go for!

I share your pain. I hate thick pizza and getting it thin is a struggle. And if like me you don't have the room to do that tossing in the air stuff then I hope this helps.

Firstly, make the dough mix wetter than you feel comfortable with. Then, if you can use polenta to stretch the dough ball on - this also helps with the crispness. Thirdly, the dough behaves very strangely although it has a memory. It seems to say "OK, you've pulled me around a bit give me a rest."

So once you start stretching it after every stretch let it rest for a few minutes, then stretch again, then rest it - then again. It seems to allow you to stretch it more once it's rested. Try and avoid rolling if you can because you want long air bubbles.

Earlier I suggested a few ways of getting the heat underneath if you do not want to acquire one of the small pizza ovens. If your pocket and enthusiasm allows Ithen this will really give you the temperature you need but I'm not certain they are sold in every country due to the very high temperature it reaches.

WARNING:

Good luck and report back.

Remember ...... you're not a real man until you can make a proper pizza.;)

I made one in my kiln once, no problem getting the 500C, just set the ramp and waited for the beep when it was hot. according to my son it came out nice, and he's had pizza in different parts of Italy with his Granny. I dont really like pizza so I didnt try it, I teach Calzone and Stromboli at school for pizza dough recipes

Getting a pizza stone changed my life! Well that, and becoming lactose intolerant.. so I have to make my own pizza... mmm I'm hungry now.

Made a delicious mozzarella, mushroom, and sausage stromboli for dinner tonight. Used dough from a local pizza shop - cheaper and 1000X easier than making homemade dough.

But I don't want easier! ;) :p

uk1 I hate to bug you, but is the biga supposed to grow at some point? I just have a jar of watery milky stuff with flour at the bottom. It *smells* yeasty, but it's not growing (after the initial spurt, that is...)

I once had a roommate who asked "why would you bother making pizza? It's so cheap to order one."

"Exactly," I replied.

She didn't get it.

Ha ha ha so true! ^

And no, making pizza at home is not cheap, in both time and money. Even before I tried this new method, I would spend $50-$75 for fancy toppings and flours just to make an "okay" (in my book) pizza dinner. The one benefit was always that I could make so many pies that I would make it up in volume. (And in waistline :) ).

It's no problem at all ..... I'm more than happy to help!:)

I think your expectations of speed may be a bit too optimistic - so some background.

Pure biga relies on the natural yeasts in the air. The same yeasts that will make cheese become blue cheese or stilton, are the same air-borne natural yeasts that will find the nutrients you put out for it ie a little flour and perhaps some sugar in some lovely friendly warm water. So in real time it would take as much time to make cheese go blue as it would to make your first biga. That's why it's prized and fed daily. And the reason why when you make bread from a biga or poulish it's sourdough is because it's sour because of the same causes of making cheese blue. That's not technical talk it's just my idiot's view of it. But obviously you want your pizza this year ... or this week. Hence my sort of cheats biga.

My suggestion is that you make a few of starters at the same time so the slowest one becomes your pizza in a week or two and the one that you help on a bit will give you a pizza in a few days. If you want something to start your pizza for today or tommorow it's simply going to have to be a bolt standard yeast starter which will be good enough but will never develop the character of your biga.

So I suggest you get three tumblers. For some reason in my experiments short or if you have none tall but narrow tumblers seem better than short squat ones. 7oz to 10oz is fine. Mix a table spoon of flour with a half teaspoon of sugar with some warm/tepid water so it's around a half way up the tumbler. In one glass add a quarter of a teaspoon of yeast. In the second add a teaspoon. And in the third add the full 6gms ie a sachet. Stir them all so they throth a bit.

The full strength one will give you your todays pizza fix but nurture the other two each day. Stir them each day. Ocaisionally give them a little flour to feed on. When the leansest eventually froths, split the mix and retain a half for further feeding and dividing. The other half will be a pizza starter. But even with that starter it may take a day. In Naples people will know where they sell pizza at lunch time using yesterday dough. In the evening it will always be todays dough.

This level of obsession and perfection and it's obvious frustrations takes tremendous patience. But the first time you get your first crispy pizza using a proper biga mix will make it all worthwhile, although I do understand why most proably wouldn't bother.

If this isn't clear or you need any further help just ask.

Real obsession!

I ended up with a garden oven, a kitchen small oven, flour from Italy no end of temperature probes .... and don't talk to me about tomato smears ........ just to produce a bit of bread with topping. But when you get it right nothing compares with the thrill. Well .... not in my sad life.:D