A little help in the kitchen
Pizza dough calculator
Choose how many pizzas you want, the dough ball weight and the hydration. The calculator returns every ingredient in grams using baker’s percentages, so the recipe scales exactly.
How the maths works
The calculator uses baker’s percentages: flour is always 100% and every other ingredient is a percentage of the flour weight. You choose the dough you want, and the calculator works back to the flour.
Total dough (g) = number of balls × ball weight (g)
Total percentage = 100 + hydration + salt + yeast + oil + sugar
Flour (g) = total dough (g) × 100 ÷ total percentage
Each ingredient (g) = flour (g) × its percentage ÷ 100
Hydration counts water only; like King Arthur Baking, the calculator keeps oil separate. For bread or sourdough, use the baker’s percentage calculator. If a recipe gives cups, convert it with the ingredient weight chart.
Worked example: four 250 g balls
Four 250 g balls make 1,000 g of dough. At 60% hydration, 3% salt, 0.05% instant yeast and no oil or sugar, the total percentage is 163.05. Flour = 1,000 × 100 ÷ 163.05 = 613 g. Water = 613 × 60 ÷ 100 = 368 g, salt 18 g and instant yeast 0.31 g. The rounded amounts add up to 999 g; the missing gram is rounding.
Starting points by style
These ranges come from published formulas, and the presets sit inside them. Treat both as starting points: flour, oven and kitchen temperature all change how a dough behaves.
| Style | Hydration | Salt | Instant yeast | Oil and sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan (AVPN rules) | 55.6–62.5% | 2.2–3.75% | 0.002–0.06% | None: the rules forbid fat and sugar in the dough |
| New York style | 52.5–65% | 1.6–3.3% | 0.17–0.5% | Oil 1–3.3%, sugar 0–3.3% |
| Pan pizza | 58–73.5% | 1.75–2.5% | 0.4–1.5% | Oil 0–6.4% in the dough plus oil for the pan, sugar 0–2% |
The AVPN (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana) sets its dough per litre of water: 1,600–1,800 g flour, 40–60 g salt and 0.1–3 g fresh yeast, with dry yeast at a third of the fresh weight; the table converts these to baker’s percentages. New York ranges span King Arthur Baking’s home recipe, Tom Lehmann’s formulas and a Pizza Today trade dough. Pan ranges span Lehmann’s pan formula, John Arena’s Detroit-style dough and King Arthur Baking’s pan and Sicilian recipes.
Dough weight and baking
| Style | Dough per pizza | Oven | Bake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan (AVPN rules) | 200 g for 22–24 cm, up to 280 g for 28–35 cm | Wood-fired: floor about 380–430 °C (716–806 °F), dome about 485 °C (905 °F) | 60–90 seconds |
| New York style, home oven | About 300 g for 33 cm (13 in) | 260–290 °C (500–550 °F), steel or stone preheated for 1 hour | About 5 minutes, then 2–3 minutes under the grill |
| Pan pizza, home oven | 365–730 g for a 23 × 33 cm (9 × 13 in) pan | 220–230 °C (425–450 °F) | 15–25 minutes, depending on thickness |
The AVPN’s recipe page gives a hotter 430–480 °C (806–896 °F). A home oven reaches neither, so a home bake takes minutes, not seconds. For another pan size, scale the dough weight by the area factor from the baking pan size converter.
Instant, active dry and fresh yeast
The three types are not interchangeable gram for gram. Fresh (compressed) yeast is about 68–73% water, against about 7% for active dry and 5% for instant (BCcampus). Dried yeast is more concentrated, but sources disagree on the ratio:
| Source | Instant per 1 g fresh | Active dry per 1 g fresh |
|---|---|---|
| Lesaffre (SAF-Instant) | 0.33 g | Not stated |
| Red Star (a Lesaffre brand) | About 0.4 g | About 0.4 g: swaps one for one with instant |
| King Arthur Baking | 0.33 g | 0.4 g |
| Tom Lehmann (PMQ, Pizza Today) | 0.375–0.4 g | 0.5 g |
| BCcampus textbook | 0.25–0.33 g | 0.55 g |
The calculator applies your percentage to the yeast type you select and does not convert it. To swap 0.4% instant for fresh, Lesaffre’s ratio gives 1.2%. For active dry, Red Star keeps 0.4% (noting a slower rise), while the King Arthur Baking and Lehmann ratios give about 0.5%. Follow your yeast packet when in doubt.
Fermentation: assumptions, not promises
Each preset assumes a schedule from its sources:
- Neapolitan: 12–24 hours in total under the AVPN rules, with proofing cabinets ideally at 18–20 °C (64–68 °F). The association’s recipe page allows from 8 hours.
- New York style: Lehmann mixes the dough to 27–29 °C (80–85 °F) and refrigerates the balls: ready after about 12 hours, usable for up to 72, with 2–3 hours at room temperature before shaping. King Arthur Baking uses about 0.2% instant yeast and 8–10 hours at room temperature.
- Pan pizza: Arena refrigerates the dough for 24 hours at about 3 °C (38 °F), then pans it and proofs it until airy.
Warmth speeds every schedule up and cold slows it, so King Arthur Baking treats recipe times as a guide and suggests checking early. Judge the dough, not the clock: it should look puffy and feel springy. Press in a floured fingertip. If the dent stays, it is ready; if it springs straight back, wait; if the dough feels fragile or sinks, it has gone too far.
Common fixes
- The dough shrinks back. Cover it, rest 10–15 minutes and stretch again (King Arthur Baking). Cold dough needs 1–3 hours at room temperature first.
- It is too sticky. Dust with flour as you shape; next time lower the hydration a few points.
- The crust stays pale. Preheat a steel or stone for an hour and finish under the grill. Lehmann adds sugar to New York dough for browning in cooler home ovens; the AVPN rules exclude it.
- The dough tears or collapses. It has probably over-fermented. A gentle reshape can help; next time use less yeast, a cooler spot or a shorter rise.
- You want more flavour. Lehmann recommends longer fermentation, not more yeast. Or try a preferment: see poolish, biga and levain compared.
Keep the recipe with your others
CookBook saves recipes from websites, social posts, photos and cookbooks and organises them. In cooking mode you can change servings and the measurement system; ingredient amounts scale, but cooking time does not.
Sources
- AVPN: International Regulations for Verace Pizza Napoletana (PDF)
- AVPN: International Regulations (recipe page)
- King Arthur Baking: New York-Style Pizza
- King Arthur Baking: New York-Style Pizza workbook (PDF)
- King Arthur Baking: No-Knead Pan Pizza
- King Arthur Baking: Sicilian-Style Pizza
- King Arthur Baking: Ingredient weight chart
- King Arthur Baking: Yeast (professional reference)
- King Arthur Baking: What is baker's math, and how can I use it in my everyday bread baking?
- King Arthur Baking: How to tell if bread dough has risen enough
- PizzaMaking.com: New York Style Pizza Crust (Tom Lehmann formula)
- Pizza Today: Dough Doctor: Back to Basics (Tom Lehmann)
- Pizza Today: NY-Style Pizza Dough
- Pizza Today: Detroit-Style Pizza Dough (John Arena)
- PMQ Pizza: Q&A with the Dough Doctor (Tom Lehmann)
- PMQ Pizza: The secrets of instant dry yeast (Tom Lehmann)
- Lesaffre, SAF-Instant: Craft baking
- Red Star Yeast: Yeast conversion chart
- Red Star Yeast: Common yeast baking questions and answers
- BCcampus: Understanding Ingredients for the Canadian Baker, Yeast
A little more help
Frequently asked questions
Can I use this calculator for a sourdough pizza dough?
Not directly, because it has no starter field and assumes commercial yeast. Use the baker’s percentage calculator instead: it counts a sourdough starter as flour plus water and shows both final-dough and overall hydration.
How do I weigh 0.3 g of yeast without a precision scale?
Stir 1 g of yeast into 100 g of the recipe’s water, then use 30 g of that mixture, which carries about 0.3 g of yeast, and reduce the remaining water by the same 30 g. If you bake pizza often, a scale that reads 0.01 g is simpler.
Which flour suits each pizza style?
The AVPN rules call for Italian type 00 or type 0 flour with roughly 11–13.5% protein. New York-style formulas use bread flour or high-gluten flour, and Tom Lehmann puts a New York crust’s chew down mainly to flour protein. Pan pizza recipes use bread, pizza or high-gluten flour.
Does the calculator allow for dough left in the bowl?
No. It returns exactly the dough weight you ask for. If you usually lose a little dough to the bowl and bench, enter a slightly heavier ball weight. King Arthur Baking’s professional scaling method rounds up for the same reason.
Still have a question? Visit our help centre.
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Referencing these numbers or explanations? Copy this citation and link to the page.
“Pizza dough calculator”, CookBook Manager. Updated . https://cookbookmanager.com/tools/pizza-dough-calculator
Text, tables and data on this page are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). Credit CookBook Manager and link to this page when you reuse them.
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