Pizza dough

What it's for

To make pizza dough with the right proportions, starting from how many pizzas you want. Hydration is the percentage of water to flour (55-65% classic, 70%+ for pan pizza).

Tip

For a long rise (24-48h in the fridge) reduce the yeast. Salt slows the rise: keep it away from the yeast while mixing.

What «hydration» means

It's the percentage of water relative to the flour, not to the total: with 1000 g of flour, 65% hydration means 650 g of water. It's how bakers write every recipe, and it has an enormous practical advantage: the proportions stay identical whether you make two pizzas or twenty, and to change the quantity you only change the flour.

Salt and yeast are written the same way: salt sits between 2 and 3% of the flour (20-30 g per kilo) and below 2% the pizza tastes of little. Yeast has no fixed percentage, because it depends on time and temperature: it's the only ingredient decided by looking at the clock.

More water doesn't mean better pizza

High hydration gives bigger holes and a lighter crumb, but it changes the way the dough handles: above 70% the dough sticks to your hands and doesn't stretch the way you're used to, and under a weak flour it collapses altogether. The sensible measures: 55-60% for a classic round pizza stretched by hand, 65-70% for a Roman tray pizza, beyond 75% only with strong flours and folding techniques, not kneading by hand in a bowl.

Yeast is chosen after deciding when you'll eat

It's the reverse of what nearly everyone does. First you decide the time, then you add the yeast that suits: for a 2-3 hour rise at room temperature you need about 3 g of fresh yeast per kilo of flour; for 8-10 hours 1 g is enough; for 24-48 hours in the fridge 0.3-0.5 g will do. Less yeast and more time give a tastier pizza that's easier to digest, and it costs nothing: it only costs remembering to make the dough the evening before.

The flour, and the number nobody looks at

Long rises need a flour that holds up: on professional sacks it's marked with a W, and a W of 260-320 is the right one for 24 hours, while a weak flour (W 170-200, the supermarket bags with no figures) gives way after many hours and the dough tears. Without that figure, a useful clue is in the nutrition table: more protein, more strength, and above 12-13 grams per 100 the flour will take a night in the fridge.

Nearby tools

To convert between fresh yeast, dried yeast and sourdough there is Yeast conversion, and to rework any recipe's amounts Scale a recipe. For the oven there is Oven temperatures, and to measure without scales Kitchen measures.