Food
Pizza Dough Calculator
Enter dough weight or flour weight plus hydration, salt and yeast percentages.
Pizza dough by baker's percent
A typical Neapolitan-style dough sits around 60–65% hydration with about 2.5% salt. Yeast depends on time and temperature — less yeast for long cold ferments, more for same-day dough. Weigh in grams; cups are a poor friend to hydration maths. This calculator scales flour, water, salt and yeast to your dough ball count or total flour weight. It is a scaling tool, not a fermentation schedule — bulk ferment and proof times still need your judgement. For costing toppings and dough together see recipe cost; for other recipes see recipe scaling. Large bulk doughs sometimes need yeast tweaks beyond pure linear scaling. Room-temperature flour and water make hydration behaviour more predictable than fridge-cold ingredients straight into the bowl. Keep a notebook of ball weight, ferment hours and bake results so scaling stays tied to what your oven actually delivers. For catering batches, weigh dough balls individually rather than trusting average division alone.
Worked example
Four dough balls at 250 g each need 1,000 g dough. At 65% hydration with 62.5% of dough as flour (illustrative baker’s percentages vary), a common pattern is about 610 g flour, 396 g water, ~15 g salt and a pinch of yeast for a cold ferment — adjust to your preferred baker’s percentages. Doubling to eight balls doubles flour, water and salt; yeast may rise less than linearly for overnight cold bulk.
Limits and assumptions
Flour absorbency differs by brand and protein. Preferment and biga methods need their own water accounting. Not food-safety advice for commercial kitchens.
Frequently asked questions
What is dough hydration?
Water as a percentage of flour weight. Higher hydration tends to mean a more open, stickier dough.
Can I double a pizza dough recipe freely?
Linear scaling works for flour, water and salt. Yeast and ferment time may need tweaks for large batches.
Prefer volume cups?
Weighing is more reliable for dough. Convert once, then stick to grams.
How much salt is typical?
Around 2–3% of flour weight is common. Stay consistent once you find a taste you like.
Can I use sourdough starter?
Yes, but account for the water and flour in the starter when setting hydration — the simple yeast field is a starting point only.