Pizza dough calculator: hydration, yeast by °F, schedule
Pizza dough is worked out as a percentage of the flour weight: flour is 100%, water 55% to 70%, salt 2% to 3%, yeast well under 1%. The only awkward variable is the yeast, because it depends on how long the dough ferments and how warm your kitchen is. Enter your dough balls in ounces and your kitchen in °F.
The kitchen, not the walk-in.
Hour of the day, 0 to 23.
Before balling.
Flour
13.43 lb
Water
8.73 lb
65%
Salt
5.4 oz
2.5%
Instant dry yeast
0.06 oz
fresh (cake) yeast: 0.17 oz · 0.077% fresh
The schedule
- Mix the dough
- 5:00 p.m., the day before
- Ball up
- 7:00 p.m., the day before
- Balls readyafter 22 h proofing
- 5:00 p.m., same day
40 balls of 9 oz: 22.50 lb of dough in total.
How the calculation works
Everything is in bakers’ percentages: flour is 100%, and every other ingredient is expressed against it. 65% hydration means 10.4 oz of water for every pound of flour, not 65% of the total dough weight, which is the mistake almost everyone makes first.
So the flour weight comes from the dough weight you want: flour = total ÷ (1 + hydration + salt + yeast), all as fractions. Weigh, don’t measure by cups: a cup of flour can vary by an ounce or more depending on how it was scooped.
Yeast, by time and temperature
This is the only part that needs a method. The longer the ferment, the less yeast you need; the warmer the room, the faster it works. As a working approximation, yeast activity roughly doubles for every 14 °F or so.
| Room | 8 h | 12 h | 18 h | 24 h | 48 h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 61 °F | 0.324% | 0.216% | 0.144% | 0.108% | 0.054% |
| 64 °F | 0.280% | 0.187% | 0.125% | 0.093% | 0.047% |
| 68 °F | 0.231% | 0.154% | 0.103% | 0.077% | 0.039% |
| 72 °F | 0.191% | 0.127% | 0.085% | 0.064% | 0.032% |
| 77 °F | 0.150% | 0.100% | 0.067% | 0.050% | 0.025% |
| 82 °F | 0.118% | 0.079% | 0.052% | 0.039% | 0.020% |
Calculated with the formula below, calibrated against the reference points a pizzeria kitchen expects. For instant dry yeast, divide by 3.
The formula: fresh yeast % = 2.2 ÷ (2^((T − 64.4 °F) ÷ 14.4) × hours). It is published so you can check it, not so it can be taken as authority. Most US kitchens use instant dry yeast, which the calculator shows first; fresh cake yeast is the figure the formula works in.
Direct or poolish?
Direct means everything goes into the mixer at once. With a poolish you make an equal-parts flour-and-water preferment the day before with very little yeast, and fold it in the next day. A poolish buys extensibility and deeper flavor; it costs you knowing your volume a day ahead. The calculator caps the poolish share at your hydration, since past that there is no water left for the final mix.
Recipes that use this calculator
- Neapolitan dough: the AVPN proportions, and what they mean in a real kitchen.
- Direct, poolish or biga: what each method buys you, and how to run a poolish.
- Dough for a pizza truck: lower hydration and a 48-hour cold ferment.
- Gluten-free dough: a different calculation, with no gluten network to build.