Set how many dough balls you want and how you like your dough — get exact grams for flour, water, salt and yeast. Add a poolish or biga, or start from an official recipe’s yeast.
Updated · How we source our numbers
For Neapolitan pizza, AVPN sets 200–280 g per ball for 22–35 cm pizzas, which works out to 55.6–62.5% hydration. Other styles have no official standard, so set your own ball weight and hydration.
Pizza recipes are written in baker’s percentages: flour is always 100% and everything else is a share of the flour weight. Your total dough is the number of balls times their weight, so the flour is that total divided by the sum of all percentages:
flour = total dough ÷ (100 + hydration + salt + oil + sugar + yeast) × 100
Everything else follows from the flour. A preferment simply moves part of that flour and water into a starter you mix the day before; the totals don’t change.
No official body publishes a table linking yeast to fermentation time and temperature, so the calculator doesn’t estimate one. Each style loads its source’s own yeast amount:
| Source | Yeast | Fermentation |
|---|---|---|
| AVPN Neapolitan rules | 0.1–3 g fresh yeast per litre of water (about 0.006–0.19% of flour) | 12–24 h in total |
| King Arthur New York-Style Pizza | ¼ tsp instant (about 0.75 g) per 360 g flour, about 0.2% | 1 h, then 8–10 h at room temperature |
| King Arthur Weeknight Detroit Pizza | 3 g instant per 360 g flour, 0.83% | About 2 h, then 45–60 min in the pan |
King Arthur gives the New York yeast only as ¼ tsp. We convert it with the 3 g per teaspoon of instant yeast that King Arthur prints in its Detroit recipe.
The two King Arthur recipes show the pattern: about 0.2% yeast for an 8–10 hour rise, 0.83% for a 2-hour one. For your own timing, set the yeast % yourself and watch the dough, not the clock. Active dry yeast swaps 1:1 with instant; fresh yeast is about three times the weight (King Arthur, Red Star).
Choose Neapolitan — AVPN rules and the calculator checks your flour, salt, yeast and ball weight against the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana’s published regulations.
| AVPN rule (per litre of water) | Range | As baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| Flour (type 00 or 0) | 1,600–1,800 g | hydration 55.6–62.5% |
| Salt | 40–60 g | about 2.2–3.75% of flour |
| Fresh brewer’s yeast | 0.1–3 g (dry: about a third) | about 0.006–0.19% of flour |
| Total fermentation | 12–24 hours | — |
| Dough ball | 200–280 g | for 22–35 cm pizzas |
Source: AVPN International Regulations (2024). Baker’s % columns are our arithmetic from those figures.