Managing dough on a pizza van
Dough for a van is the same dough with a different constraint: you cannot control the temperature, and you cannot make more. Drop the hydration a few points, mature cold over 48 hours so a day's trading can slip, and build in the slack — because the dough you loaded at nine in the morning is all the dough there is.
What changes from a fixed kitchen
| In a kitchen | In a van | |
|---|---|---|
| Hydration | 62 – 68% | 58 – 62% |
| Maturation | 24 h, room or cold | 48 h cold, used across two days |
| Temperature control | Stable | Whatever the weather is |
| Running out | Mix more | Service over |
| Ball size | Consistent | Consistent, and counted twice |
Lower hydration is the single most useful change. A 60% dough tolerates a warm afternoon in a metal box far better than a 68% one, handles cleanly with flour on a small bench, and does not slump in the box when the van heats up.
Cold maturation is what buys you the slack
Balled and boxed at 4–5 °C, dough matures slowly enough that a 48-hour batch can be used across two trading days. That matters more on a van than anywhere else: a wet Saturday that halves your covers does not have to mean a bin full of dough on Sunday morning.
Take out only what the next two hours need. Dough that comes up to temperature and then goes back in the fridge is never as good the second time.
How much to make
The honest answer is that you find out, and the only way to find out is to write it down. For a fortnight, record: date, pitch, weather, balls loaded, balls sold, balls binned. It takes ten seconds and after two weeks you will have a better forecast than any rule of thumb.
Until then, load for your median day plus about 15%, and accept that running out at eight o'clock on a good night costs you less than binning thirty balls twice a week.
Transport
- Stack boxes, do not stack balls. One layer per box. Two layers fuse in transit and tear when you separate them.
- Secure them. A braking event turns forty balls into one ball.
- Load cold and keep them cold. The journey is part of the maturation whether you planned it that way or not.
- Flour the box, not the ball. Semolina on the base, nothing on top — flour on the surface bakes to a dusty finish.
The pitch is the other half of this
Dough planning only works if you know what trade to expect, and on a van that depends on where you are and whether people know you are there. A page with this week's pitches, kept current, does more for your dough waste than any recipe change.
Registration, gas safety and street trading for a UK pizza van