Recipe card
4 balls × 250 g · 59% water · 1,000 g dough
| Flour | 617 g |
|---|---|
| Water | 364 g |
| Salt | 17.9 g |
| Instant yeast | 0.49 g |
Calculator
Pizza dough calculator
Enter how many balls you want and what each should weigh. Hydration, salt, oil, sugar, and yeast are baker’s percentages of the total flour. A poolish or biga takes part of the flour and water, and all of the yeast. Salt, oil, and sugar stay in the final mix.
Quick answer. The Neapolitan preset, 4 balls at 250 g, 59% water and 2.9% salt, is 617 g flour, 364 g water, 17.9 g salt, and 0.49 g instant yeast.
Weights
1,000 g dough · 4 × 250 g
| Ingredient | Baker’s % | Weight | Per ball |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flour | 100% | 617 g | 154 g |
| Water | 59% | 364 g | 91 g |
| Salt | 2.9% | 17.9 g | 4.5 g |
| Oil | 0% | 0 g | 0 g |
| Sugar | 0% | 0 g | 0 g |
| Instant yeast | 0.08% | 0.49 g | 0.12 g |
Same leavening, using King Arthur’s professional factors: 0.6 g active dry yeast, 1.5 g fresh yeast.
Displayed weights are rounded. The target dough weight is exact.
How the weights are calculated
Add the baker’s percentages: 100 for the flour, plus water, salt, oil, sugar, and yeast. Flour weight is the dough weight divided by that total divided by 100. Each ingredient is the flour weight times its own percentage.
Oil and sugar are weights you put on the scale. A spoonful is not a percentage. Yeast is the type you selected: 0.2% instant yeast is not the same weight as 0.2% fresh yeast. The equivalents under the table use King Arthur’s professional factors, instant = fresh × 0.33 and active dry = fresh × 0.40.
For a poolish or biga, the preferment’s flour is a share of the total flour, and its water is that flour times the preferment hydration. All of the formula’s yeast goes into the preferment. If that asks for more water than the dough contains, the result stops instead of showing a negative amount to add.
Four balls at 250 g on the Roman preset (78% water, 30% of the flour in a poolish): the poolish is 163 g flour, 163 g water, and 0.82 g instant yeast. The final mix is 381 g flour, 261 g water, 13.6 g salt, and 16.3 g oil.
Style notes
- Neapolitan
- A traditional center: water in the high 50s, salt near 3% of the flour, no oil and no sugar. Many contemporary Neapolitan doughs are wetter. The yeast figure is a small starting point, not a fermentation schedule.
- New York
- A slice-shop shape of formula: low-60s hydration, a little oil, a little sugar. Shops differ.
- Detroit
- A soft, wet dough. Oil the pan on its own. That frying oil is not part of the oil percentage here.
- Roman
- Pizza al taglio / in teglia: high hydration, olive oil, and a poolish. This is not thin round pizza romana, which is usually a drier dough.
- Pan
- An American pan dough: more oil and sugar than a Neapolitan or New York round.
The yeast in a preset is a starting point. For a real schedule, use the yeast calculator and come back with the percentage it gives you.
Questions
- How much dough do I need for a pizza?
- This calculator starts from the weight of each ball, not from a diameter. The default is 4 balls at 250 g. The AVPN 2024 regulation uses dough balls of 200–280 g, proportional to the pizza’s diameter: 200 g for 22–24 cm and 280 g for 28–35 cm. Enter the ball weight you want and the page scales the flour, water, salt, and yeast.
- What hydration should Neapolitan pizza dough be?
- This site’s Neapolitan starting point is 59% water and 2.9% salt, with no oil and no sugar. The AVPN 2024 regulation specifies 1.6–1.8 kg of flour per litre of water, which is 55.6–62.5% hydration. Fifty-nine percent sits inside that range. It is a starting point for this calculator, not a rule for every flour.
- How do I add a poolish or a biga?
- Choose poolish or biga under Preferment. A poolish starts at 30% of the total flour and 100% hydration. A biga starts at 40% of the flour and 50% hydration. You can edit both numbers after that. All of the formula’s yeast goes into the preferment. Salt, oil, and sugar stay in the final mix.
- How much yeast is in the Neapolitan preset?
- The preset uses 0.08% instant yeast, weighed against the flour. That is a small starting point, not a fermentation schedule. For a real number of hours and a dough temperature, use the yeast calculator. Its result can fill the yeast field on this page.
- Does oil count toward pizza dough hydration?
- No. Hydration is water weight divided by flour weight. Oil is its own percentage of the flour, and so is sugar. Pan oil that you pour into the pan is not part of either number.
- How do I convert the recipe from instant yeast to fresh yeast?
- Choose Fresh in the yeast menu. The percentage stays what you typed, and the gram weight becomes fresh yeast, which is heavier than instant. King Arthur’s professional reference uses instant = fresh × 0.33 and active dry = fresh × 0.40. The equivalents under the weights use those factors.
Last reviewed 1 November 2026.
Sources
Neapolitan, New York, Detroit, Roman, and pan percentages on this page are this site’s starting points. They are not a bakery’s formula and not an official specification. The AVPN range is cited for Neapolitan ball weight and for flour per litre of water. Yeast equivalents use King Arthur’s professional factors.