FlourScaleHow the pizza dough calculator works
Pizza dough is best written in baker's percentages: every ingredient is a percentage of the flour weight. That makes it easy to go from "four 250 g balls" to an exact recipe. The calculator multiplies the number of balls by the ball weight (plus any allowance for dough left in the bowl), then divides by the total of all percentages to find the flour. Every other ingredient is the flour weight multiplied by its percentage.
Flour = total dough ÷ (1 + hydration + salt + yeast + oil + sugar), with each percentage written as a decimal.
Typical settings by style
- Neapolitan: roughly 200–280 g per ball, 0% oil and sugar, salt around 2.5–3%. The traditional AVPN rules work out to a fairly low hydration, high-50s %, while many home bakers prefer 60–65% for easier stretching in domestic ovens. Very little yeast with a long, cool rise.
- New York style: about 250–300 g for a 14-inch pie, 60–65% hydration, around 2% salt, 1–3% oil and often 1–2% sugar, which helps browning in ovens that cannot reach Neapolitan temperatures.
- Thin crust / bar pizza: lighter balls and lower hydration (around 50–58%) for a crisp, cracker-like base.
- Pan / Detroit-style: heavier dough and high hydration (about 70%+) for an airy, focaccia-like crumb.
The presets are sensible starting points, not rules. Adjust hydration to your flour: strong bread flour or Italian '00' can take more water than all-purpose.
Worked example
Four 250 g Neapolitan-style balls at 62% hydration, 2.8% salt and 0.2% instant yeast.
- Total dough = 4 × 250 = 1,000 g
- Total percentage = 100 + 62 + 2.8 + 0.2 = 165%
- Flour = 1,000 ÷ 1.65 = 606 g
- Water = 606 × 0.62 = 376 g; salt = 17 g; instant yeast = 1.2 g
Yeast and fermentation time
Yeast quantity is tied to time and temperature. Short same-day doughs (a few hours at room temperature) need more yeast — often around 0.5–1% instant yeast — while 24–72 hour cold-fermented doughs may use 0.1–0.3%. Cold fermentation in the fridge develops flavour and makes the dough more extensible. Let cold dough balls warm up for 1–3 hours before stretching. For very small yeast amounts, a 0.01 g scale is worth having.
Tips
- Add 2–3% "bowl loss" so every ball reaches full weight.
- Dissolve salt in the water, or add it after the flour has hydrated briefly.
- Control dough temperature with our DDT calculator for consistent fermentation.