Salt, water, malt and oil in pizza dough

The short answer

Every quantity in a pizza dough is expressed as a percentage of the flour weight. For Neapolitan pizza I use 2 to 2.5 % salt, 60 % hydration for traditional and 65 to 75 % for contemporary, malt only when the dough needs it, and no oil.

Salt

Its four jobs

1. Flavour. The more salt, the more taste. It is the first thing I look at when setting the amount.
2. Gluten strength. Salt tightens the network.
3. A brake. It slows the activity of yeast, enzymes and bacteria, and so the pace of fermentation.
4. Absorption. It helps the flour take up water during kneading, which makes a high-hydration dough less runny and easier to handle.

How much, and when

Pizza doughs generally use between 1.8 and 3 % salt. I recommend staying between 2 and 2.5 %; my Neapolitan recipes, traditional and contemporary alike, use 2.5 %, which is 25 g per kilo of flour.

Any sea salt works, fine or coarse, as long as it dissolves. I add it once the first part of the water has been absorbed, dissolved in a little water. You often hear that salt kills yeast: added at the end of kneading, or mixed straight into the dough, it has no effect on the rise. I simply keep the habit of never adding them together. More on yeast in yeast types.

Water

Hydration is a ratio to the flour

Hydration is the weight of water as a percentage of the flour weight: 1 kg of flour at 65 % hydration means 650 g of water. It affects three things:

• the speed of fermentation and maturation: water amplifies both;
• the extensibility of the dough;
• the baking time: the water has to evaporate, and the more there is, the longer the pizza takes to bake.

Choosing your hydration

I set it on three criteria:

1. The pizza. The balance of the dough structure depends on the water.
2. The flour. A stronger flour, or one with more ash, absorbs more. Any 00 flour takes 60 % straight away; beyond that, you have to build the network to get it to drink more. See flour.
3. The bake. The shorter the bake, the more carefully hydration has to be chosen.

Traditional Neapolitan bakes in 60 to 90 seconds, and it is precisely its 60 % hydration that makes such a short bake possible. Beyond these values, a Neapolitan dough becomes tricky to handle, and preferments are the easiest way to reach the top of the range. Doughs at 80 % and above belong to pan pizzas, which are handled less and baked differently.

Climate plays a part too: for a dough around 70 %, I stay nearer 65 to 69 % in mild, humid weather, and can go up to 71 to 75 % when it is dry and cold.

Water temperature

Water is, with flour, one of the few levers you have to bring the dough out of kneading at the right temperature. By hand, room-temperature water usually works; with a mixer, which warms the dough, use cool water. In midsummer, with a kitchen at 28 °C (82 °F), cool water is the right call even by hand. For an exact figure, use the water temperature calculator.

Tap water is fine, but its taste varies from one area to another: if you can, use filtered or mineral water.

Malt

Malt brings two things: sugars and amylase enzymes, which break starch down into simple sugars. Both act on fermentation and on the colour the pizza takes in the oven.

I use it in two situations:

• with a flour that is enzymatically slow;
• with heavy fermentation, above all with a preferment. A biga or poolish has fermented for a long time: it has used up part of the sugars and its enzyme activity has dropped. Malt added in the final mix restores both.

In my 50 % biga dough, malt syrup makes up 2 % of the total flour; I dissolve it with the yeast in the first water of the final mix. My direct doughs contain none.

What about honey?

Honey plays a similar role: it adds sugar and stimulates the yeast. It is used sparingly, mostly in poolish, at about one teaspoon per 300 g of flour. In a home oven, a poolish with a little honey helps the crust brown.

Oil

Fats such as oil, usually olive oil, change the dough in three ways:

• greater extensibility;
• better keeping after baking, because they slow starch retrogradation, in other words staling;
• more flavour.

These effects only become noticeable above 4 % of the flour weight. The small amounts you sometimes see in recipes, such as 10 g per kilo (1 %), stay below that threshold.

Oil belongs in neither traditional nor contemporary Neapolitan dough. And despite a common belief, it does not make the crust crispier: crispness depends only on baking. The one case where a little is justified is the home oven, which does not get hot enough: oil then helps the dough colour instead of coming out pale.