Pizza dough fiasco

Continuing in my quest to try all the pizza dough recipes I have and find my perfect homemade pizza combo, I was all set to make pizza tonight. Most of the remaining recipes I have are no-knead recipes, which involve making the dough at least 12 hours in advance and letting it rest overnight.

So, at 12:30 a.m. (because I was a slacker and put it off for five hours), I mixed up some dough using this recipe from New York chef Jim Lahey.

I let it rest until 5:30 tonight (definitely in that 12-to-24-hour range). Then I lightly floured the counter and dumped the dough. It turns out I should have looked at it more closely first. Because it had the consistency of thick soup — or really soupy dough, perhaps. After a last-ditch attempt to save it (If I add extra flour and kind of hand-mix it on the counter, will it form a dough ball? Uh, no.), I gave up and scraped the mess into the sink and down the garbage disposal.

First of all, let me say how disappointing it is to wait for 18 or so hours only to learn that your dinner isn't going to turn out. Luckily, the recipe I tried last time is a simple (kneading-required) one, which only rises for an hour. So I whipped that up and it is rising as I type this, so I can still have pizza tonight.

So, what went wrong? Well, I have a few possibilities, though I guess the only way to know for sure is to try it again with a few adjustments. (But can I deal with another heartbreak after waiting 18 hours for the dough to rest?) If anyone knows what went wrong, I would be grateful for your advice.

For one, the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups water. In my (very small) experience with yeast, the water always has to be 120 to 150 degrees to activate the yeast. Yet, this recipe doesn't specify. So, I stared at it. And I looked up a similar recipe, which called for warm water, and I decided to use warm water. So perhaps it was supposed to be just room temperature water?

Also, I've been a bit confused about different types of yeast. Most of the newer recipes I see call for instant yeast and say "such as SAF brand." I have no clue what SAF brand is, but I have bought instant yeast packets at the grocery store that have worked in the past. I believe I used the correct type (instant yeast from a packet — and it was not expired), but I was surprised this called for only 1/4 tsp. when most recipes call for a full packet (2 1/4 tsp.).

Lastly, the dough was supposed to rest in a warm spot of about 70 degrees. The problem with a studio apartment is there isn't a lot of room for temperature variance. My walk-in closet is usually slightly warmer but not quite that warm, especially when my air conditioning is on. So I set my oven to warm for a couple minutes then turned it off and put the dough in there. This is my usual procedure, and it seems to work OK. But the problem with it resting for 12 to 24 hours is that the oven obviously didn't stay warm the whole time. So a couple times during the day, I turned it to warm for a minute, then off again, in an attempt to keep it slightly warm in there. That's probably not ideal for the yeast, but I didn't have a better idea.

At least this tried (once) and true kneading recipe should work out, so I WILL have dinner tonight!