🍕 Pizza Planner

The pizza

Changing the style reloads with that style's own numbers — your pizza count and eating time are kept.

New York. Wide, thin, foldable slice with a crisp underside and a chewy rim. Needs a lower, longer bake than Neapolitan. 16" is the classic slice-joint size; 14" is easier in a home oven.

Tipo 00 · W 260-280 · 12.5-13% protein. A strong-but-forgiving 00. Works for every style here: Neapolitan at high heat, and it has the strength for 48-72h cold ferments in the NY / Sicilian / pan doughs. This is the default for all styles. Comfortable range: 58–70% hydration, and up to about 72 hours in the fridge.

Indoor oven + steel / stone — the right oven for New York. Indoor oven with a baking steel or stone as hot as it goes (260-290C), 6-9 minutes, one at a time. New York in this oven: 275C for 7 minutes, turning at the halfway point.

Yeast is worked out for you at 0.075% of the flour — 0.77g of instant dry yeast. That figure comes from the ferment length and your fridge temperature, not from the number of pizzas.

How you are baking them

The oven changes the deck temperature, the bake time, how often you turn them and how many go in at once — all of which is in the plan below.

The dough

Baker's percentages of the total flour. Grey numbers are what this style calls for.

Starter and fermentation

When do you want to eat?

The whole schedule is worked backwards from this. It moves every step — but it does not change the amounts. The amounts follow the ferment length and the pizza sizes.

Start again from the New York defaults

New York

4 × 432.3g dough balls

Wide, thin, foldable slice with a crisp underside and a chewy rim. Needs a lower, longer bake than Neapolitan.

Total dough
1729.1g
Hydration
63%
Yeast
0.075%
0.77g worked out for you
Start making it
Saturday 26 September at 14:45
2 days 3h before you eat
Eating at Monday 28 September at 18:30 Oven: Indoor oven + steel / stone for about 37 min

The oil and sugar are what separate this from Neapolitan: the oil shortens the gluten for that tender-chewy chew, the sugar pushes browning at a lower oven temperature. Sauce is thin and pourable, not thick.

What to weigh out

The dough

Total flour Caputo Cuoco / Chefs (Saccorosso) 1031.9 g 100%
Water 650.1 g 63%
Salt 20.6 g 2%
Olive oil 15.5 g 1.5%
Sugar 10.3 g 1%
Yeast 0.77 g 0.075%

Instant dry yeast (Caputo Lievito Secco). Total yeast across the whole lot is 0.77g — 0.075% of the flour. Water for the mix should be about 20°C, which lands the finished dough near 23°C.

The schedule

Start Saturday 26 September at 14:45 → eat Monday 28 September at 18:30 · 2 days 3h in total
Saturday 26 September
  • 14:45 Mix the dough 20 minutes
    • Put 650g of water in the bowl at 20C, then add the flour on top -- water first, then the flour on top of it. This is the Italian order and it hydrates evenly.
    • Add 0.77g of yeast and mix on the lowest speed for 2 minutes until no dry flour is left.
    • Add the 21g of salt and mix for another 2-3 minutes.
    • Add the 16g of olive oil and keep mixing until it disappears into the dough.
    • Finish on low until the dough is smooth and clears the side of the bowl. Do not be tempted to run the mixer fast -- speed tears the gluten instead of building it.
  • 15:05 Cover and rest (bulk) 1h 00m
    • Cover the bowl and leave it at room temperature.
    • At the end of this the dough should look a little puffy and have gained some volume -- not doubled, just livelier.
    • If you are at all uncertain about hydration, do 2 or 3 stretch-and-folds during this rest. Lift one side, stretch it up and fold it over the middle, turn the bowl a quarter and repeat.
  • 16:05 Divide and ball up 18 minutes
    • Divide into 4 pieces of about 432g each (15.2 oz). Weigh them -- eyeballing it is how you end up with one giant pizza and three small ones.
    • Shape each into a tight ball: pull the dough towards you across an unfloured bench, pinching the seam underneath.
    • Put them in a covered tray or individual containers with a bit of room to grow, seam side down.
  • 16:23 Cold ferment in the fridge (48 hours) 48 hours
    • Into the fridge they go, covered, for the whole of this period. Put them somewhere they will not get knocked, and not against the back wall where they can freeze.
    • Your fridge is set at 4C. Be aware that a fridge running just 2C warmer ferments about 30-40% faster, so if your fridge usually sits warm, check the dough a few hours early rather than late.
    • They will roughly double and look slightly glossy, with small bubbles under the skin. If they have blown up and smell strongly of alcohol, you have left them a bit long -- use them anyway, they will just be softer and more difficult to handle.
    • Do not open the tray to inspect them repeatedly. Every time you do, you let the cold out.
Monday 28 September
  • 16:23 Take the dough out to come up to temperature 75 minutes
    • Out of the fridge, still covered, at room temperature. Cold dough tears.
    • Give it the full 75 minutes. It should feel relaxed and springy -- if it is still cold and tight at the end, wait longer rather than fighting it.
    • Use this time to get the sauce and toppings ready, and to get the oven on if you have not already.
  • 16:53 Get the indoor oven + steel / stone to full heat 60 minutes
    • Indoor oven with a baking steel or stone as hot as it goes (260-290C), 6-9 minutes, one at a time.
    • Target: about 275C.
    • Give it the full preheat. An under-heated oven is the single most common reason a home pizza comes out pale and soggy in the middle.
  • 17:38 Stretch and top the pizzas 15 minutes
    • Work on a bench dusted with semolina or flour -- not on a wet surface.
    • Press the middle out with your fingertips, leaving the outer inch untouched. That rim is the cornicione; do not knock the gas out of it.
    • Pick the dough up and let its own weight stretch it to size, turning as you go. Keep your hands near the edge, not in the middle.
    • Top lightly and quickly. Sauce first, then cheese, then anything wet or heavy, then the delicate things.
  • 17:53 Bake, turning at the halfway point 37 min
    • Indoor oven with a baking steel or stone as hot as it goes (260-290C), 6-9 minutes, one at a time.
    • Keep the peel moving -- a small shake back and forth to make sure the pizza is loose before you take it to the oven.
    Batch In the oven Out Turn it
    Pizza 1 17:53 18:00 at the halfway point
    Pizza 2 18:03 18:10 at the halfway point
    Pizza 3 18:13 18:20 at the halfway point
    Pizza 4 18:23 18:30 at the halfway point
  • 18:30 Eat
    • Slice and eat them as they come out. Pizza waits for nobody.
    • Afterwards, come back here and rate it -- what you changed and how it turned out is the only way the next one gets better.

Indoor oven + steel / stone

right oven for this style

Indoor oven with a baking steel or stone as hot as it goes (260-290C), 6-9 minutes, one at a time.

275C for 7 minutes, turning at the halfway point, 1 at a time.

Needs a full hour at maximum with the steel already in place, so the steel is saturated with heat rather than just the air. The grill element on for the last few minutes helps the top.

▸ Where these ratios come from (14 sources)

These are the pizza-specific sources behind every default in this planner — AVPN for the Neapolitan window, Caputo's own kitchen for the Neapolitan and poolish formulas, the Pizza Making Forum for the New York and New Haven numbers, Serious Eats for the pan doughs, and two independent cold-ferment guides for the yeast doses.

  1. Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana - Dough Hydration AVPN spec: for every litre of water, 1.6kg flour (62% hydration) up to 1.8kg (55%). Bake around 430C for 60-90 seconds. Confirms the official Neapolitan window we use.
  2. Caputo Flour - Authentic Neapolitan Pizza Caputo's own kitchen: 1kg 00, 640g water (64%), 30g salt (3%), 3g instant yeast, 270g balls, 24h in the fridge. The house reference for the Neapolitan column.
  3. Caputo Flour - Pizza Dough with a Poolish A worked poolish formula: 600g flour / 600g water / 1g yeast for 12-16h, then 400g flour, 50g water, 25g salt (2.5%), 20g oil, 20g honey. 280g balls for 12".
  4. Pizza Making Forum - New Haven style Consensus that New Haven is a high-hydration dough, around 68%, and that the malted flour (GM Full Strength, as used by Pepe's) is part of it.
  5. Pizza Making Forum - New Haven apizza formula A worked New Haven clone: bread flour, 69% hydration, 2.5% salt, 2% oil, 12h poolish at 0.4% ADY, 48h cold ferment, 90 minutes to come to room temperature, baked about 600F for 8 minutes.
  6. Pizza Making Forum - New Haven, 312g balls 312g dough balls, 69% water, 2% olive oil, 2.5% salt, 40 minutes bulk, 38 hours cold, 3 hours temper, stretched to 14-15".
  7. Pizza Making Forum - The definitive New York dough Shops that care do a cold ferment or a poolish, hydration 'low sixties, 62% at the most'. Confirms the 58-65% window and the thin, pourable sauce.
  8. Pizza Making Forum - dough weight vs diameter 16oz of dough stretched to 14" gives a thickness factor of 0.10; a true NY pie sits between 0.07 and 0.08. This is where the g/in2 figures for the NY column come from.
  9. Serious Eats - The Pizza Lab: Three Doughs to Know Square pan / Sicilian dough: flour 100%, salt 2%, instant yeast 1.5%, olive oil 3%, water 70%. Also documents the no-stretch, oil-the-pan method we use for both pan styles.
  10. Ooni - The Great Debate: Biga vs Poolish A biga is a stiff mix at 60-70% water in Ooni's wording, 6-12h; a poolish is equal flour and water and usually 30-50% of the total flour. Source for how the two starters differ and why a wet biga behaves differently.
  11. Gozney - 100% Biga Pizza Dough A 100% biga worked example: biga of 1kg flour, 450g water (45%), 10g yeast, then 210g more water in the closing dough for 66% total, and 2.5% salt. Basis for the biga defaults here.
  12. DoughVault - Cold Fermentation guide Instant yeast for a 4C fridge: 24h 0.15-0.25%, 48h 0.08-0.15%, 72h 0.05-0.10%. Also warns a fridge running 2C warm ferments 30-40% faster, which is why the planner adjusts for your fridge temperature.
  13. Jordos Pizza Calculator - Cold Fermentation A second, independent yeast table: 24h 0.10-0.15%, 48h 0.05-0.10%, 72h 0.03-0.05% IDY, plus the rule that cold dough needs 60-90 minutes at room temperature before stretching.
  14. LAPA - Caputo Nuvola vs Cuoco explained Cuoco at 12.5-13% protein and W 260-280 absorbs 65-70% water comfortably. Background for treating Cuoco as the do-everything flour.