Food & Cooking

Pizza Dough Calculator

What this does

Break any pizza count and ball size into exact flour, water, salt, yeast and oil weights using baker’s percentages.

Enter your details

Runs in your browser

Calculator inputs

How to use it

Using the pizza dough calculator

  1. 01

    Plan your pies

    Count pizzas and pick ball weight; 260 g covers standard home-oven pies; go 230 g for thin Neapolitan.

  2. 02

    Weigh to the gram

    Mix the displayed ingredient weights; a cheap digital scale pays for itself in one saved batch.

  3. 03

    Ferment accordingly

    Same-day dough uses the full 1% yeast; for cold fermentation in the fridge, cut yeast to roughly a third.

Good to know

Thinking in baker’s percentages

Professional dough formulas never say “three cups of flour.” They say 60% hydration, 2% salt; numbers that survive any batch size and instantly tell an experienced baker how the dough will behave. This calculator converts your dinner plans into that universal language.

Hydration is handling, not just crispness

Sixty percent yields dough confident beginners can stretch without tears. Push toward 65% and the crumb opens up but the dough gets sticky and demanding; drop below 55% and pies bake dense and crackers appear early.

Yeast is a clock, not a flavor knob

More yeast does not make better bread; it makes faster bread. Long, cool fermentation trades a little patience for the complex flavors and digestibility that make people ask for your recipe. Halve or third the yeast whenever the dough rests overnight.

How it's calculated

The math behind this calculator

Flour(g) = Pizzas × Ball weight ÷ 1.63 Then water 60% · salt 2% · yeast 1% · oil 0.5% of flour

Baker’s percentages express each ingredient against flour weight. With water at 60%, salt 2%, yeast 1% and oil 0.5%, total dough weighs about 1.63× the flour; so dividing your target dough mass by 1.63 recovers the flour amount, and every other ingredient follows as a percentage of it.

Assumptions & limitations

  • Hydration fixed at 60%; versatile for home ovens and stones alike.
  • Salt 2%, instant yeast 1%, olive oil 0.5% of flour weight.
  • Ball weights around 260 g suit 12–14″ pies; Neapolitan style runs 220–250 g.

Worked example

Four 260-gram balls total 1040 g of dough; dividing by 1.63 gives 638 g of flour, which pulls along 383 g water, 13 g salt, 6 g yeast and 3 g oil.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What ball weight should I use?
About 260 g for a 12–14-inch home pie, 230 g for thinner Neapolitan-style, and 320 g+ for thick Sicilian slabs.
Can I change the hydration?
The rows show 60% as written. To adjust manually, recompute water as your percentage × flour while keeping the flour divisor consistent.
Fresh yeast instead of instant?
Triple the weight: swap the 1% instant yeast for roughly 3% fresh compressed yeast.
Does flour type change the math?
Weights stay identical, but whole-wheat drinks more water; many bakers add 5 extra points of hydration for it.

Keep exploring

Related calculators