Most of what you do to pizza dough, from mixing and salting to resting and stretching, either builds the gluten network or lets it relax. This page explains what gluten is and how each step changes it, using Modernist Pizza (2021) and Ken Forkish’s The Elements of Pizza (2016).
What gluten is
Flour itself contains no gluten. Modernist Pizza explains that wheat flour has four groups of proteins, and two of them, gliadin and glutenin, form gluten once they’re hydrated: “Until the proteins come into contact with water, there is no gluten.” That’s why the book prefers to talk about a flour’s gluten potential rather than its gluten content.
The two proteins are built differently. In a review of gluten chemistry, the food chemist Herbert Wieser describes gliadins as mainly single protein molecules and glutenins as large aggregates linked by disulfide bonds, with hydrogen, ionic and hydrophobic bonds also holding the network together. Between them they give dough its ability to absorb water, its cohesiveness, its viscosity and its elasticity.
Forkish’s description is the practical one: adding water lubricates the protein strands so they can stretch, and dough becomes “a web of gluten and starch, which holds onto the gas that comes from the dough’s fermentation.”
How mixing, salt and time build it
Water and mixing. Mixing, by hand or by machine, organizes the gluten, and folding organizes the dough further, as Forkish puts it. How far to take it depends on the recipe. Forkish mixes most of his pizza doughs by hand for the most delicate crust, warning that machine-mixing for too long “puts too much organization into the dough’s gluten network,” making it more elastic and the crust chewier. For his stiffer New York dough he uses a stand mixer for only about 90 seconds on the slowest speed. Modernist Pizza’s artisan dough, by contrast, is mixed by machine to full gluten development and checked with the windowpane test, stretching a piece thin enough to see light through.
Enzymes. Flour’s protease enzymes snip gluten strands. Modernist Pizza notes that, counterintuitively, this can speed gluten development, and that it can make dough more extensible.
Salt. Modernist Pizza explains that gluten proteins naturally repel one another and that the chloride in dissolved salt helps them stick together, building a stronger bubble wall. You can see it soon after mixing: saltless dough is slack and sticky. Salt also slows fermentation.
Rest instead of work. Bread bakers often use an autolyse, resting flour and water before adding salt and yeast. Forkish skips it for his pizza doughs: they’re drier than most bread doughs, so the flour absorbs the water quickly, and the tiny amounts of yeast mean the dough gets a natural rest anyway. He gives the dough a quick, gentle knead about 20 minutes after mixing instead. More in autolyse for pizza dough and kneading pizza dough.
Strength, stretch and flour
Bakers describe a dough’s gluten in two directions: its resistance to stretching, which you feel as elasticity, and how far it stretches without tearing, its extensibility. A pizza needs some of each. Forkish wants enough strength “to support its toppings, keep its shape as you slide it into the oven, and hold onto the fermentation gases,” but he also writes: “Elastic is not a happy word in the pizza maker’s lexicon.”
Protein. Higher-protein flours form a stronger gluten web. In the United States, Modernist Pizza gives bread flour 11 to 13% protein and high-gluten flour 13% or more, and says flours labeled all-purpose ranged from 8 to 13% in its testing. Forkish notes that high-protein flours can make dough that’s elastic and hard to shape, and that such dough “needs longer fermentation to break down the gluten a bit.” High-gluten flour, he adds, is part of what makes a New York pizza what it is.
The W number. Italian mills describe strength with the W number from the alveograph, a machine that inflates a sheet of dough until it bursts: the height of its curve shows resistance, the length shows extensibility, and the area under it is taken as the flour’s strength. The EU specification for Pizza Napoletana calls for a flour with a W of 220 to 380 and a P/L, the ratio of resistance to extensibility, of 0.50 to 0.70. Modernist Pizza adds a useful caveat: a Neapolitan dough made two days ahead will be easy to shape “no matter how strong the gluten is,” because it has had time to relax. See W value and P/L ratio.
Bran. Whole wheat flour has plenty of gluten-forming protein, but Modernist Pizza explains that bran interferes with gluten development, so a dough with a lot of whole wheat flour can bake to a lower volume.
How time relaxes it
Forkish’s summary is blunt: “In time, the gluten network in dough degrades. Enzymes eat it up, literally.” That’s the main reason pizza dough is fermented for hours and stretched only when it’s ready.
Two of his recipe habits work with this:
- Shape the balls early. Neapolitan pizzerias typically bulk-ferment for about 2 hours, then ferment the dough balls for longer. Forkish explains that shaping the balls early leaves less gluten organization, for a more delicate crust, and that the long rest after shaping makes the dough “very extensible: easy to shape with little resistance.”
- Use the dough when it’s mature. Cut the timeline short, he warns, and the dough will be too elastic to stretch easily and bake into a dense, chewy crust. Too much time is the opposite problem: the dough expands too much and loses its integrity.
Two less obvious influences: Modernist Pizza says the acids that lactic acid bacteria produce in a sourdough strengthen gluten bonds, and that glutathione, which leaks from active dry yeast soaked in cold water, relaxes dough and makes it sticky and slack.
When the dough is ready to stretch
Go by the recipe’s schedule and the dough, not a universal rule. Forkish’s cues for a mature dough ball are that it’s relaxed and stretches out easily, has gassy holes on the bottom when you turn it over, and feels soft and pliable, “both delicate and structurally sound.” If a round keeps shrinking back while you stretch it, his advice is to let it rest for a few minutes and go back to it; if a whole ball is too elastic, it needs more time. The Pizza Planner’s schedules give a readiness cue for each stage.
What the oven does
Baking ends the stretchiness for good. Modernist Pizza explains that oven spring stops once the dough loses most of its stretch: between about 140 and 176°F (60 and 80°C), starch gelatinizes and proteins unravel and coagulate, setting the soft, solid crumb. Starch gelatinization covers that stage.
Gluten through the process
| Stage | What happens to the gluten | What you want |
|---|---|---|
| Mixing | Proteins hydrate and start to link; mixing organizes them | As much development as your recipe asks for, and no more |
| Salt | Helps the proteins stick together; slows fermentation | Salt at the recipe’s level |
| Fermentation | Enzymes slowly break the network down | A dough that relaxes as it ferments |
| Balling and resting | The shaped ball relaxes over hours | A ball that stretches easily at the end of its rest |
| Baking | Proteins coagulate and starch sets | A crust that springs, then sets |
Sources
- Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1: page xxvi (the artisan dough and the windowpane test), pages 274–275 (flour proteins, gluten formation, protease), pages 277–279 (flour types, protein ranges, the alveograph and W number, bran), page 293 (glutathione from active dry yeast), page 302 (lactic acid bacteria and gluten), page 312 (salt and gluten) and page 362 (the crumb setting in the oven).
- Ken Forkish, The Elements of Pizza (2016): chapter 3 (details 4, 6 and 7: mixing by hand, gluten’s role, autolyse, long second fermentation, mature dough balls), chapter 5 (stretching an elastic dough) and chapter 6 (48- to 72-Hour New York Pizza Dough).
- Herbert Wieser, “Chemistry of gluten proteins,” Food Microbiology 24, no. 2 (2007): 115–119 (the abstract: gliadin and glutenin structure, disulfide and noncovalent bonds).
- European Commission, Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, Annex II: the Pizza Napoletana specification (flour W and P/L).