What are baker's percentages?

Baker's percentages express every ingredient as a proportion of the total flour weight (flour = 100%). If a recipe says 65% hydration it means water weighs 65% of the flour weight — not 65% of the total dough. This makes scaling up or down trivially simple: change the flour weight and every other figure follows automatically.

What hydration should I use for Neapolitan pizza?

Traditional Neapolitan (Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana — AVPN) specifies 55–62% hydration with 00-type flour. 60–62% is the most widely used range for home bakers. Higher hydration gives a more open, airy crumb but is harder to shape.

How much does a pizza dough ball weigh?

It depends on the style. Neapolitan (28–30 cm / 11 inch): 200–250 g. New York 12-inch: 250–280 g. New York 16-inch: 380–430 g. Roman al taglio per portion: 100–120 g. Pan / Detroit per portion: 200–250 g. Use the ball weight input to match whichever style you are making.

How much yeast should I use and does fermentation time matter?

Yeast percentage and fermentation time are inversely related. For a same-day dough (4–6 hours room temperature): 0.5–1% active dry yeast. For an overnight cold ferment (12–24 hours in the fridge): 0.1–0.3%. For a 48–72 hour cold ferment: 0.05–0.1%. Lower yeast and a longer, cold ferment develop more flavour and a more extensible, easier-to-shape dough.

How do I convert between dry yeast, instant yeast, and fresh yeast?

Instant yeast (e.g. Caputo Lievito) and active dry yeast are interchangeable gram for gram in most pizza recipes — both are around 95% dry-matter. Fresh (cake) yeast contains roughly 70% water, so multiply your dry-yeast figure by 3 to get the equivalent fresh-yeast weight. The calculator shows this conversion automatically below the results table.

Pizza Dough Calculator

Q: How does the calculator work out each ingredient weight?

It first calculates total dough weight (balls × ball weight). Then it solves for flour: flour = total dough / (1 + hydration/100 + salt/100 + yeast/100 + oil/100). Every other ingredient is flour multiplied by its baker's percentage. The result is exact to 0.1 g.

A pizza dough calculator that gives you exact gram weights for every ingredient — flour, water, salt, yeast, and oil — based on the number of dough balls you need, the target ball weight, and your chosen hydration. Four style presets (Neapolitan, New York, Roman, Detroit) are built in, or you can dial every percentage to your own recipe.

How it works

The calculator uses baker’s percentages, the standard professional system where every ingredient is expressed relative to flour. Flour is always 100%; every other ingredient is a fraction of that. This means you can scale a recipe to any batch size without re-rationing anything.

The maths runs in two steps:

Step 1 — total dough weight

total dough = number of balls × ball weight (g)

Step 2 — solve for flour

Because total dough = flour + water + salt + yeast + oil, and each of those is a known percentage of flour, we can rearrange:

flour (g) = total dough / ( 1 + hydration/100 + salt/100 + yeast/100 + oil/100 )

Every other weight follows directly:

water = flour × hydration / 100 salt = flour × salt% / 100 yeast = flour × yeast% / 100 oil = flour × oil% / 100

Because the division happens first and multiplication happens after, the results are numerically exact — there is no rounding shortcut hidden anywhere.

Worked example

You are making pizza for six people and want 6 Neapolitan balls at 240 g each.

Total dough: 6 × 240 = 1,440 g
Neapolitan preset: hydration 62%, salt 2.5%, dry yeast 0.2%, oil 0%
Divisor: 1 + 0.62 + 0.025 + 0.002 = 1.647
Flour: 1,440 / 1.647 = 874 g
Water: 874 × 0.62 = 542 g
Salt: 874 × 0.025 = 21.9 g
Dry yeast: 874 × 0.002 = 1.7 g

Check: 874 + 542 + 21.9 + 1.7 = 1,439.6 g ✓ (0.4 g rounding across four ingredients)

Style comparison

Style	Hydration	Salt	Dry yeast	Oil	Character
Neapolitan	60–62%	2.5%	0.1–0.3%	0%	Thin, charred leopard spots, soft centre
New York	63–66%	2%	0.3–0.5%	1–3%	Crispy rim, foldable, slight chew
Roman al taglio	72–80%	2.5%	0.2–0.4%	2–4%	Open airy crumb, pan-baked, thick
Detroit	68–72%	2%	0.4–0.6%	3–5%	Focaccia-like, caramelised cheese edge

Hydration is the single biggest lever: lower hydration doughs are stiffer and easier to hand-shape; higher hydration doughs are more open and flavourful but require more skill (bench scrapers, wet hands, or a stand mixer).

Fermentation and yeast notes

The yeast figure in baker’s percentages assumes active dry or instant yeast. The correct dose depends almost entirely on how long and where you plan to ferment:

Same-day, room temperature (4–6 h): 0.5–1.0% dry yeast
Overnight, refrigerator (12–24 h): 0.2–0.3% dry yeast
48–72 hour cold ferment: 0.05–0.15% dry yeast

Less yeast and a longer cold ferment produce more flavour compounds (organic acids, esters) and a more extensible dough that is easier to stretch without tearing. Most home pizza enthusiasts find the 24-hour cold ferment the best trade-off between convenience and flavour.

If using fresh (cake) yeast, multiply the calculator’s dry-yeast gram figure by 3. The calculator shows this conversion automatically below the results table.