How to calculate pizza dough: flour, water, salt and yeast

Pizza makers don't write recipes in grams but in baker's percentages. The flour is always 100 %, and every other ingredient is a share of it. 60 % water means 600 g of water for 1 kg of flour. The beauty of it: a recipe scales to any amount without changing the dough.

The share of water is called hydration. It decides how soft the dough is and how it handles. Salt is usually 2 to 3 % of the flour, and only some styles add oil or sugar.

Hydration is what sets the styles apart. Neapolitan dough sits around 60 %: easy to shape, with an airy rim from a very hot oven. New York style takes a little more water. Pinsa and Roman pizza in teglia go up to 75 to 80 %, a very soft dough that bakes into a light, crisp crumb.

More water needs stronger flour. Italian flours state their strength as a W value: a medium Tipo 00 handles up to almost 70 % water and a rise of about a day. Wetter doughs and longer rises call for a strong flour with a high W value, or Manitoba, which takes almost 80 %. Bread flour suits New York style, all-purpose flour a sheet pan pizza.

Every flour takes its own amount of water. A recipe with 60 % water for Tipo 00 turns stiff with Manitoba and slack with all-purpose flour. So when you swap the flour, adjust the water too: more for a strong flour, less for a weak one. Best hold some back and add it by feel.

Work backwards from the pizzas you want. A 30 cm (12 in) Neapolitan pizza takes a dough ball of a little over 250 g. For 26 cm, just under 200 g is enough; for 36 cm, a little over 360 g.

Four pizzas therefore need about 1 kg of dough. At 60 % water and just under 3 % salt, that is a little over 620 g of flour and about 370 g of water. Sheet pan pizza and focaccia are worked out by the size of the tray instead.

How much yeast you need depends on how long and how warm the dough rises. Yeast multiplies in the dough, so the more time it has, the less you need to start with. A quick sheet pan pizza that goes into the oven after just half an hour takes a whole 42 g cube of fresh yeast for about 600 g of flour; for an hour, a little over half a cube will do.

A Neapolitan dough, on the other hand, matures for 12 to 24 hours. The rules for true Neapolitan pizza allow 0.1 to 3 g of fresh yeast per litre of water, and some recipes use a third of a gram for four pizzas. It looks like a typo, but with that much time it's plenty.

The long rise is worth it: the dough gets far more flavour. The rules have it rise at room temperature, ideally 18 to 20 °C (64 to 68 °F): mixed in the morning, it's ready for dinner. Many home recipes let it mature in the fridge for 24 to 72 hours instead. That is no longer strictly Neapolitan, but it's easy to plan, as the yeast works slowly in the cold.

Pizza makers also watch how warm the dough is after kneading, because that sets how fast it rises. They control it with the water and a simple rule: take three times the dough temperature you want, then subtract the room temperature, the flour temperature and the warmth that kneading adds. A stand mixer warms the dough far more than kneading by hand.

Neapolitan pizza bakes in a pizza oven at over 400 °C in 60 to 90 seconds. A home oven usually reaches 250 °C, where it takes about 9 to 11 minutes on a tray. A preheated pizza stone or steel helps, as it passes the heat straight into the base.