Hydration is the weight of the water divided by the weight of the flour. Ken Forkish’s own example: 350 g of water in 500 g of flour is 70% hydration. Water that goes in through a poolish or a sourdough levain counts toward the total, and the Pizza Planner counts it the same way. Salt, yeast and oil don’t.
It’s the number that most changes how a dough feels in your hands. Modernist Pizza sums up the trade: more water generally gives a more open crumb and more volume, and the upper limit is set by how much water the flour can absorb and how slack a dough the baker can handle. If you also bake bread, its hydration ranges run higher; JayArr Bread covers hydration in bread dough.
Hydration by style
These are the starting points the Planner uses, with the published recipe each one follows.
| Style | Planner hydration | Published reference | Why that much water |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan-style, outdoor oven | 60% | Forkish: La Notizia in Naples averages about 60%; he suggests 60% for a wood-fired oven. Ooni’s classic dough: 368 g water to 613 g flour | The base has to set in seconds so the pizza can be turned |
| Neapolitan-style, home oven | 70% | Forkish’s home-oven doughs, such as his 24- to 48-hour dough | Stays soft through a 6 to 10 minute bake |
| New York | 64% | Forkish’s 48- to 72-hour New York dough, with high-protein bread flour | A stiffer dough bakes into a crisp slice that doesn’t sag |
| Roman tonda | 60% | DeliVita’s Romana tonda: 300 g water to 500 g flour | Rolled very thin for a light, crisp bite |
| Sicilian-style | 73.5% | King Arthur’s Sicilian-style pizza: 397 g water to 540 g flour | A slack dough spreads in the pan and bakes light |
| Detroit | 75% | King Arthur’s weeknight Detroit pizza: 270 g water to 360 g flour | Same, for a tall, airy pan crust |
For comparison, the current public recipe of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) uses 1 liter of water for 1.6 to 1.8 kg of flour, which works out to about 56 to 63% (1,000 ÷ 1,800 = 55.6%; 1,000 ÷ 1,600 = 62.5%). Forkish’s 2016 book quotes 1.7 to 1.8 kg of flour and puts it at 55 to 58%. That dough is built for about 60 seconds in a 905°F (485°C) wood-fired oven. A portable gas or wood oven with its floor at 750 to 850°F (400 to 450°C) takes 1 to 2 minutes, and the Planner’s outdoor preset uses 60%: the figure Forkish gives for La Notizia and for a wood-fired oven at home, and the hydration of Ooni’s classic dough.
Doughs outside the Planner range further: Forkish’s al taglio dough is 72%, and Modernist Pizza’s master focaccia is 86.87%.
Why the oven changes the number for Neapolitan
Forkish’s first rule for a great crust is to match the dough’s hydration to the oven. A crust loses moisture the whole time it bakes, and 7 or 8 minutes at 550°F (290°C) drives off far more than 60 seconds at 905°F (485°C). Bake the 58% AVPN-style dough he describes in a home oven and, in his words, it comes out “crisp all the way through and a little dry.” Raise it to 70% and the same pizza bakes delicate and only lightly crisp. The reverse fails too: in a 905°F oven a 70% dough hasn’t set when you slide the peel under it to turn it, and it tears.
That’s a rule for one style moving between ovens, not a law for every pizza. New York pizza bakes longer than Neapolitan, yet Forkish takes its water down to 64%, because a crisp, sturdy slice is the point. Pan pizzas bake for 22 to 32 minutes and carry the most water of all, because a thick crust in an oiled pan needs a soft, slack dough to bake light. Forkish draws the line the same way: pan pizzas want softer dough, hearth pizzas slightly stiffer.
The Planner follows that logic. Only the Neapolitan-style preset changes with the oven: 60% outdoors, 70% in a home oven. Every other style keeps its own hydration whichever oven you choose.
Your flour changes the right number
The same percentage can feel quite different with a different flour.
- Protein. Forkish notes that higher-protein flour usually absorbs more water, and that flours of similar type still differ: one of the two flours he tested with was a little more absorbent, so he added a touch more water to it.
- Milling. Starch granules damaged in milling take up more water than intact ones, and hard-wheat flours such as bread flour carry more of that damage, so they absorb more water than soft-wheat flours, according to Modernist Pizza.
- Whole grain. Bran and germ absorb a lot of water and weaken the crumb. The Planner’s formulas are for white flour; a 100% whole-wheat dough needs its own recipe.
- “00” isn’t a strength rating. The Italian grades are set by ash (mineral) content, a measure of how refined the flour is, not by particle size, and Modernist Pizza points out that a 00 can be milled from soft or hard wheat. Read the protein figure or the flour’s stated use instead. The W value guide explains Italian strength numbers.
In practice, if you switch from a 00 flour to a high-protein bread flour at the same percentage, expect a stiffer dough, and the reverse.
Your process changes it too
- Mixing. Forkish mixes his 70% doughs by hand. Once a dough is down to 65% or below, he finds hand mixing hard going: either hold back a quarter of the flour until the rest is fully mixed, then work it in, or use a stand mixer for about 90 seconds on the lowest speed. A stiff dough is more effort by hand, not a mistake.
- Time. Fermentation softens a dough. Forkish gives the New York dough 48 to 72 hours in the fridge partly so its proteins break down just enough to make a more delicate crust.
- Preferments. A poolish is 100% hydration, so it carries water into the final dough. Count it in the total, as the Planner does, or the dough ends up wetter than you meant.
How much a few points matter
Modernist Pizza’s team tested their own master doughs above and below their target hydrations. The results describe those formulas, not every dough, but they show the pattern:
- Neapolitan. At 55% their dough felt like modeling clay and was hard to shape.
- New York. Five percentage points either way worked; ten points gave a dough that was hard to shape and didn’t hold its shape.
- Detroit. Small changes to their Detroit master still made a comparable pizza.
Two lessons follow. A change of 2 or 3 points is a safe experiment for most doughs. And a 10-point swing changes the dough’s character, so don’t make one in a single step.
They also pushed a Neapolitan dough to almost 82% hydration by replacing part of the flour with pregelatinized flour, and it handled like their regular master dough. That’s a specialist technique, not a starting point.
Reading the dough by hand
The percentage gets you close. Your hands decide the rest.
- Too dry: stiff, closer to modeling clay than dough, and hard to stretch thin. In a home oven it bakes crisp and dry all the way through.
- Too wet for your handling: it clings to your hands and the bench and slumps instead of holding a round.
- About right: smooth after a brief knead, and it stretches to size without tearing once it has warmed up and relaxed.
Before you blame the water, check the dough’s temperature and rest. Forkish notes that cold tightens the gluten, so a dough that keeps springing back may simply need more time and warmth. The Planner allows 1½ to 3 hours for refrigerated dough balls to warm before stretching, and the dough that shrinks back guide covers the other causes.
When you do change the water, change it by 2 or 3 points per batch and leave everything else alone. Recipes that sit near a flour’s limit sometimes say so: King Arthur’s Sicilian-style recipe notes that you may not need all 397 g of its water.
Weigh it
A gram of water is a milliliter, so a scale measures water as easily as flour. The difference between 65% and 70% in a 500 g batch is only 25 g of water, which is hard to see in a measuring cup. Water temperature matters too; the water for pizza dough guide and the desired dough temperature formula cover it.
Sources
- Ken Forkish, The Elements of Pizza (2016): chapter 2 (Neapolitan pizza in a home oven), chapter 3 (Detail 1, matching dough hydration to the oven; Detail 4, mixing by hand), chapter 4 (flour and water absorption) and chapter 6 (the 24- to 48-hour, Enzo’s, 48- to 72-hour New York and al taglio doughs; pan pizza dough).
- Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1, pages 274 (starch damage and absorption), 279 (Italian flour grades), 288–289 (hydration and the master-dough hydration experiment), 299 (poolish), 325 (bran and germ) and 326 (handling high-hydration dough).
- Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana: public Neapolitan pizza recipe (water and flour quantities). Checked October 14, 2026.
- Ooni: Classic pizza dough recipe (613 g flour, 368 g water). Checked October 14, 2026.
- King Arthur Baking: Sicilian-style pizza and Weeknight Detroit pizza recipes.
- DeliVita: Romana tonda dough recipe.