Pizza Dough Recipe by Weight: 4 Formulas for 4 Styles

Cups and tablespoons are the enemy of consistent pizza dough. A “cup of flour” can weigh anywhere from 120g to 160g depending on how you scoop it. That 40-gram swing in a two-cup recipe means your hydration could be off by 5-8 percentage points — the difference between silky, workable dough and a sticky mess or a dry brick.

Every serious pizza maker works in grams. This article gives you four precise, weighed recipes for four major styles, drawn from Gemignani’s and Forkish’s published formulas. Each recipe is expressed in baker’s percentages (everything relative to flour weight) so you can scale up or down without recalculating ratios. A digital kitchen scale and a precision scale for yeast (0.1g resolution, about $13) are the only equipment prerequisites.

Understanding Baker’s Percentages

In baker’s math, flour is always 100%. Everything else is a percentage of the flour weight.

If a recipe calls for 500g flour and 65% hydration, the water is 500 x 0.65 = 325g. If salt is 2.5%, that’s 500 x 0.025 = 12.5g. To scale for more or fewer pizzas, just change the flour weight and recalculate everything.

This system works because ratios stay constant regardless of batch size. Double the flour, double everything else, and you get the same dough. It’s the reason professional formulas are always expressed this way.

Formula 1: Neapolitan (Home Oven)

Soft, foldable center. Puffy, charred cornicione. The pizza that started it all.

Source: Adapted from Forkish’s 24-48 Hour Cold Retard and Gemignani’s Napoletana Dough.

Baker’s Percentages

Recipe (yields 3 pizzas, ~230g each)

Method

1. Mix: Combine flour and water by hand using the pincer method (thumb-and-forefinger cuts through the dough, alternating with folding) for 2-3 minutes. Let rest 15-20 minutes.
2. Add salt and yeast: Sprinkle salt and yeast over the dough. Mix briefly (30 seconds to 1 minute) until incorporated and the dough forms a smooth, cohesive ball.
3. Bulk ferment: Cover and rest at room temperature for 2 hours.
4. Divide and ball: Cut into three equal pieces (~280g each, yielding ~230g balls after handling loss). Shape into tight balls by folding edges to center, flipping seam-down, and gently tucking with cupped hands.
5. Cold ferment: Place balls on a lightly floured tray, cover tightly, and refrigerate 16-48 hours.
6. Temper: Remove from fridge 1-2 hours before baking. Target 60-65F internal temperature.
7. Bake: Stretch to 10-12 inches. Bake on steel at max oven temp (500-550F) with broiler, 7-8 minutes.

Timing Schedule

Notes

• Forkish’s formula uses 70% hydration to compensate for the 7-minute home oven bake (vs 58% AVPN spec for 60-second wood-fired). Higher water prevents the crust from drying out during the longer bake.
• If using Caputo blue bag (Pizzeria, W260-270), add 0.5-1% diastatic malt for browning at home oven temperatures. Blue bag is designed for 800F+ ovens where Maillard reaction is nearly instant.
• For Gemignani’s Napoletana version: use 00 flour, 62% hydration (280g water), add a poolish starter (90g), and use fresh yeast (7g) or active dry yeast (2.3g) instead of instant. His 36-48 hour cold ferment produces the most complex flavor.

Formula 2: New York

Crisp, foldable. Holds heavy toppings. The slice-shop standard.

Source: Adapted from Forkish’s 48-72 Hour NY Dough and Gemignani’s Master Dough.

Baker’s Percentages

Recipe (yields 3 pizzas, ~280g each)

Method

1. Mix with a stand mixer: NY dough at 64% hydration is too stiff for comfortable hand mixing. Use a stand mixer with dough hook on lowest speed for 90 seconds. Do not over-mix — excessive gluten development creates a chewy, elastic crust that fights stretching.
2. Add oil last: Drizzle olive oil over the mixed dough and incorporate with 15-20 seconds more mixing. Gemignani is emphatic: fat added too early creates a barrier that prevents flour from absorbing water.
3. Rest and knead: Let the dough rest 15-20 minutes on the counter, then knead briefly by hand (30 seconds) until smooth.
4. Divide and ball: Cut into three equal pieces (~280g each). Shape into tight balls.
5. Cold ferment: Refrigerate 48-72 hours. Forkish notes this long cold ferment is essential for NY flavor development.
6. Temper: Remove 1-2 hours before baking.
7. Bake: Stretch to 12-13 inches. Grated pecorino or Parmesan underneath grated low-moisture mozzarella. Bake on steel at 550F, 7-8 minutes.

Timing Schedule

Notes

• Bread flour’s higher protein (13-14%) creates the strong gluten structure that makes NY pizza foldable without flopping. Caputo 00 produces a too-delicate crust for this style.
• Gemignani’s Master Dough with starter adds a Tiga or Poolish (90g) for more complexity. His formula uses 61.8% total hydration with starter water included, and adds 2% diastatic malt as a standard ingredient for browning.
• NY pizza at 64% hydration is stiff enough for tossing. This is the one style where the flashy spinning technique actually matches the dough.
• Gemignani’s two-stone method for NY: bake 6 minutes on the upper steel, rotate 180 degrees, transfer to the bottom steel for 5 more minutes. The second surface hasn’t been cooled by dough contact, so it provides a fresh blast of bottom heat.

Formula 3: Sicilian / Pan Pizza

Thick, airy, focaccia-like crumb. Baked in an oiled pan. The forgiving style.

Source: Adapted from Gemignani’s Sicilian Dough and Forkish’s Saturday Pan Pizza.

Baker’s Percentages

Recipe (yields 1 pan pizza, 12x18” sheet pan)

Method

1. Mix by stretch-and-fold: At 70% hydration, this dough is too sticky to knead conventionally. Combine flour, malt, and water. Let rest 20 minutes. Add salt and yeast, then olive oil. Use the stretch-and-fold technique: grab one edge, stretch upward, fold over to the opposite side. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat. Four stretches = one set. Do 3-4 sets over the first hour, resting 15 minutes between sets.
2. Bulk ferment: Cover and rest 1 hour at room temperature.
3. Cold ferment (optional but recommended): Refrigerate 24 hours for more flavor.
4. Push-out: Generously oil a 12x18” sheet pan with pure olive oil (not EVOO — lower smoke point burns during the prolonged pan bake). Turn the dough onto the pan. Push outward gently with fingertips. If it resists, wait 30 minutes and push again. Repeat until the dough fills the pan corners.
5. Pan proof: Let rise in the pan for 1.5-2 hours at room temperature until about 1 inch thick. Do not touch the dough after it has risen — it’s ready.
6. Parbake (Gemignani method): Bake the dough empty at 450F for 14 minutes. Remove and rest at least 30 minutes (up to 10 hours — great for scaling up for parties).
7. Top and finish: Add sauce, cheese, and toppings. Bake 13 more minutes at 450F.

Timing Schedule

Notes

• The parbake method is what makes Sicilian pizza manageable at home. The first bake sets the crust structure, and the parbaked base holds for up to 10 hours at room temperature. For party service, parbake all your crusts in the afternoon, then top and finish as guests arrive.
• Gemignani uses pure olive oil in the pan, not EVOO, because EVOO’s lower smoke point can produce bitter flavors during the longer pan bake.
• For a Grandma-style variant: use 28oz of dough (not the full recipe), skip the parbake, put sauce ON TOP of the cheese, and bake at 500F for one continuous bake. Thinner, crispier, sauce-on-top.
• Forkish’s Saturday Pan Pizza is quicker (same-day, 4.5 hours total) with higher hydration (75%) and a simpler approach — no parbake. Good for a faster version.

Formula 4: Roman al Taglio

Thin, crispy, airy. Cut-to-order bakery pizza. The most underrated home style.

Source: Adapted from Gemignani’s Romana Dough and Forkish’s Al Taglio Dough.

Baker’s Percentages

Recipe (yields 1 sheet pan, ~740g)

Method

1. Split water temperature (Gemignani method): Use 237g ice water and 70g warm water (80-85F). Activate yeast in the warm portion. The ice water keeps dough temperature low for a slow, controlled ferment.
2. Mix with stand mixer: Combine flour and malt. Add ice water, then yeast-water. Mix on lowest speed for 1 minute. Scrape down. Add salt. Mix 1-2 more minutes. Knead on unfloured surface 2-3 minutes until smooth.
3. Cold ferment: Ball the dough, wrap tightly, and refrigerate 24-48 hours.
4. Shape: Remove from fridge. Shape into a football/oval. Pat to approximately 8x4 inches on a lightly oiled half sheet pan.
5. Room temperature rise: Cover with a damp towel and let rise for 8 hours at room temperature. Re-dampen the towel if it dries out. The dough should expand to fill most of the pan.
6. Top lightly: Roman al taglio toppings are minimal — olive oil and sea salt for pizza bianca, or thin tomato sauce for pizza rossa. Light cheese if desired.
7. Bake: 550F for 7-8 minutes on a sheet pan. For extra crisp bottom, slide the pizza off the pan directly onto a baking steel for the last 2 minutes.

Timing Schedule

Notes

• This is the highest-salt formula (3.1%) with the lowest yeast (0.15%) — designed for an extremely long, slow fermentation that develops complex flavor without over-proofing. The high salt also strengthens gluten for the thin, crispy texture.
• Gemignani specifies high-protein flour (13-14%) for al taglio because the thin crust must support toppings without collapsing. Caputo Pizza A Metro (W310-330) is purpose-built for this style.
• Forkish’s simpler al taglio formula uses 72% hydration, less salt (2.8%), and an overnight bulk ferment (12-14 hours). It’s faster and more beginner-friendly, but with less complexity.
• Roman al taglio gets brushstrokes of finishing oil AFTER baking. Some versions add freshly grated cheese (pecorino, caciocavallo) right as the pizza exits the oven, so it melts from residual heat.
• This style is the most forgiving for home bakers: no peel, no launch, no stretching anxiety. Push dough into a pan. Top. Bake. Cut with scissors.

The Baker’s Percentages Quick Reference

All four formulas side by side for easy comparison:

The pattern: stiffer dough (lower hydration) for styles that need structure and foldability. Wetter dough for styles baked in pans. More yeast for faster styles, less for longer ferments. Higher salt correlates with longer room-temperature proofing.

Every formula here will produce excellent pizza on your first attempt if you weigh your ingredients, control your water temperature, and give the dough the time it asks for. The scale isn’t optional equipment — it’s the most important tool in your kitchen.