Neapolitan pizza dough calculator

Everything starts with the flour

In a pizza recipe, every ingredient is written as a percentage of the flour weight. With 1 kg of flour and 70 % hydration, you weigh 700 g of water. Salt and yeast follow the same rule. These are baker’s percentages, and they are the only way to compare two doughs whatever the quantity.

The calculator works the recipe backwards. You know how many pizzas you want and the dough ball weight you are after; it adds up all the percentages, divides the total dough weight by that sum and finds the flour. Everything else follows:

flour = total dough weight ÷ (1 + hydration + salt + yeast + malt + oil)

With 4 dough balls of 250 g, 68 % water, 2.5 % salt and 0.2 % yeast, the divisor is 1.707: 1,000 g of dough needs about 586 g of flour.

The starting protocols

The buttons at the top of the calculator load the doses of my direct protocols. You can then change any value.

The three contemporary versions share the same ingredients. What changes is how time and temperature are managed, between bulk fermentation at room temperature and rests in the fridge. To fit each step into your day, use the dough schedule.

Why 60 % and no more for traditional

Traditional Neapolitan stays a moderately hydrated dough. Any 00 flour absorbs about 60 % water, and that hydration is what makes such a short bake possible, 60 to 90 seconds: the more water the dough holds, the longer it takes to evaporate it and bake the pizza. Contemporary goes up to 65–70 % for a direct dough, and I aim for 68 % in my protocols. I see no benefit in going higher: an over-hydrated dough becomes a risk for the bake. The two styles are compared in traditional or contemporary.

Salt and yeast: small numbers, big effect

Salt is dosed at 2.5 % in both styles. It brings flavour, strengthens the gluten network, helps the flour absorb water and slows yeast activity.

Fresh yeast is counted in tenths of a percent: 0.3 % for traditional, 0.2 % for contemporary. On 600 g of flour that is 1.2 to 1.8 g, an amount you weigh to a tenth of a gram. If you only have dry yeast, the calculator shows the equivalent: divide fresh by 2.5 for instant dry and by 2 for active dry. The yeast converter explains these equivalents, and the yeast amount calculator helps when your resting time falls outside the protocols.

Malt and oil: optional

Both fields stay at zero by default, because my direct protocols contain neither.

• Malt brings sugars and enzymes, useful with a slow flour, a long fermentation or a preferment. Allow about 2 % syrup or 1 % powder. It also affects colour in the oven.
• Oil makes the dough more extensible, keeps the pizza better after baking and adds flavour, but you need more than 4 % to notice it. It adds no crispness.

An example

For 6 traditional pizzas with 220 g dough balls, so 1,320 g of dough, at 60 % water, 2.5 % salt and 0.3 % fresh yeast:

• flour: about 811 g;
• water: about 486 g;
• salt: about 20.3 g;
• fresh yeast: about 2.4 g.

Before kneading, work out the water temperature too: the dough should come out of kneading at 23–25 °C (73–77 °F).