This is the dough Ken Forkish found most convenient while testing recipes for The Elements of Pizza. He would mix it when he got home in the evening, shape dough balls 2 hours later just before bed, and make pizza the next evening or the one after. He calls it one of the best doughs in the book, with a tender, light crust and an airy rim.
It’s also the simplest way to get good pizza on a weeknight. About 15 minutes of work the night before, and the fridge does the rest. There’s no morning step.
The recipe
Makes 3 dough balls of about 288 g, for three 12-inch pizzas, or 5 smaller balls for thin crusts. Active time about 15 minutes. Elapsed time about 2½ hours on the first evening, then at least 16 hours in the fridge.
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| Water at 90 to 95°F (32 to 35°C) | 350 | 70% |
| Fine sea salt | 13 | 2.6% |
| Instant yeast | 1.5 | 0.3% |
| White flour, preferably 00 | 500 | 100% |
| Dough | 864.5 |
The ingredients are listed in the order they go into the tub. 1.5 g of yeast is about three-quarters of half a teaspoon, so a scale that reads to 0.1 g makes this much easier to repeat.
Method
- Dissolve. Measure 350 g of 90 to 95°F (32 to 35°C) water into a 6-quart dough tub. Stir in the salt until it dissolves. Add the yeast, let it hydrate for a minute, then swirl until it dissolves. Add the flour.
- Mix. Stir with your hand until everything is one shaggy mass. Then use Forkish’s pincer method, cutting through the dough with your thumb and forefinger, alternating with folding it back over itself, for 30 seconds to a minute. Check it with a probe thermometer: Forkish aims for about 80°F (27°C).
- Rest and knead. Leave it for 20 minutes, then knead on a very lightly floured counter for 30 seconds to a minute, until the skin is very smooth. Put it seam side down in the lightly oiled tub and cover.
- First rise, 2 hours. Leave it at room temperature, which Forkish assumes is 70 to 74°F (21 to 23°C).
- Shape. Ease the dough onto a floured counter, flour the top and cut it into 3 equal pieces (5 for thin crusts), weighing them so they match. Shape each into a medium-tight ball, working gently so the surface doesn’t tear. They go into the fridge straight away.
- Refrigerate 16 to 48 hours. Set the balls on one or two lightly floured dinner plates with room to expand, flour the tops, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. The next evening is ideal; the evening after is still good.
- Warm up. Take the balls out 60 to 90 minutes before you make pizza. A ready ball is relaxed and stretches easily. Turn it over and you should see gassy holes underneath; Forkish wants it to feel soft and pliable, delicate and structurally sound at the same time.
Timeline
| When | What | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1, 7:00 p.m. | Mix | 5 minutes |
| 7:25 p.m. | Knead briefly, back in the tub | 2 minutes |
| Until 9:00 p.m. | First rise at room temperature | about 2 hours from mixing |
| 9:00 p.m. | Shape dough balls, refrigerate | 10 minutes |
| Day 2, 5:00 to 5:30 p.m. | Dough balls out of the fridge | 60 to 90 minutes before baking |
| Day 2, about 5:45 p.m. | Preheat the oven with the steel or stone | 45 minutes |
| Day 2, about 6:30 p.m. | Stretch, top and bake | about 7 minutes per pizza |
This follows Forkish’s sample schedule of mixing at 7 and shaping at 9. On Day 3, everything shifts by a day.
Baking it
Forkish bakes all his Neapolitan-style pizzas this way in a home oven:
- Put a baking steel or stone on an upper rack, no more than 8 inches below the broiler, and preheat at the oven’s highest setting, typically 550°F (290°C), for 45 minutes.
- Switch to broil 10 minutes before the first pizza goes in.
- Stretch a ball to about 12 inches and top it. Turn the broiler off, slide the pizza onto the steel, close the door and set the oven back to bake at its maximum.
- Bake about 5 minutes, then finish under the broiler for up to 2 minutes, checking after 1. The whole bake takes about 7 minutes.
Some ovens trip a safety cutout if you switch straight from a long broil to bake. Forkish’s did, so he waits until the door is open to load the pizza before switching back. For each following pizza, he wipes the burned flour off the steel (rack pulled out, with an oven mitt) and broils for a few minutes to reheat it while he shapes the next one.
For a full recipe with the cheese added partway through, see the Neapolitan Margherita for home ovens, which uses this dough.
Why these numbers
70% water. Forkish matches the dough’s hydration to the oven. A pizza loses water as it bakes, and 7 minutes at 550°F dries a crust far more than a minute at 905°F (485°C) in a Naples wood-fired oven. He gives the AVPN’s Neapolitan dough as 55 to 58% water in his 2016 book (the AVPN’s current published recipe works out to about 56 to 63%) and says that dough comes out crisp and a little dry when baked at home. At 70% it stays delicate and soft.
0.3% yeast. Five times the 0.3 g in Forkish’s same-day Saturday dough, because these dough balls do their second rise in the fridge, and colder dough ferments more slowly. The Saturday dough instead spends 6 hours as balls at room temperature.
2.6% salt. Salt slows fermentation. Forkish uses 3% in his room-temperature Saturday dough, matching the AVPN rule, because Naples pizzerias rely on salt rather than refrigeration to stop dough balls blowing out during service. His refrigerated doughs use less: 2.6% here and 2.8% in his New York dough.
Flour. Forkish prefers 00 flour here. Caputo’s blue Pizzeria bag and red Chef’s Flour both work; see the Caputo comparison. Bread flour works too: to convert his doughs to New York style, Forkish switches to high-protein bread flour and uses the water of his New York dough, which for 500 g of flour is 320 g (64%). If your crust stays pale, check the bag: many American bread flours already contain malted barley flour or an enzyme (King Arthur’s retail Bread Flour lists enzyme), and diastatic malt is an optional extra only for flour that has neither.
How it compares with the Pizza Planner
The Pizza Planner’s overnight schedule for Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven is built on this family of dough: 70% water and 0.3% instant yeast, a first rise of about 2 hours (1½ to 3), roughly a day in the fridge, and 1½ to 3 hours to warm up. Two numbers differ:
- Salt. The Planner uses 3%, the figure from Forkish’s Saturday dough, where this recipe uses 2.6%.
- Ball size. The Planner sizes a 12-inch Neapolitan-style pizza at 250 g of dough, a little less than a third of this batch. For three pizzas it asks for 433 g flour, 303 g water, 13 g salt and 1.3 g instant yeast: 750 g of dough instead of 864.5.
For a two-day ferment, the Planner’s long-cold schedule drops the yeast to 0.24%. Its bake window for a home oven with a steel is 6 to 10 minutes after a 45 to 60 minute preheat, which takes in Forkish’s 7.
If plans change
- Dinner moves to tomorrow. Leave the balls in the fridge. Forkish’s window runs to the evening after next, 48 hours of refrigeration.
- You need longer than that. Make his 48- to 72-hour New York dough or biga dough instead, or set the Planner’s long-cold schedule, which uses less yeast for a two-day rest.
- The balls barely rose. In the cold they expand slowly. Judge them after the warm-up by the cues in step 7: relaxed, gassy underneath and easy to stretch. If one fights you, give it more time on the counter.
- The balls look slack and spread. They may have gone too far. Forkish compares too much time to too much to drink: the dough expands too much and loses its integrity. See over-proofed pizza dough for what you can still do.
Scaling the batch
Forkish’s recipes scale by ratio: he suggests dividing every ingredient by three to make a single ball, with the same process and timing. These batches are calculated from his baker’s percentages, at about 288 g per ball:
| Balls | Flour | Water | Salt | Instant yeast | Dough |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 167 g | 117 g | 4.3 g | 0.5 g | 288 g |
| 2 | 333 g | 233 g | 8.7 g | 1.0 g | 576 g |
| 3 | 500 g | 350 g | 13 g | 1.5 g | 864.5 g |
| 4 | 667 g | 467 g | 17.3 g | 2.0 g | 1,153 g |
| 6 | 1,000 g | 700 g | 26 g | 3.0 g | 1,729 g |
Totals are rounded. A 6-quart tub is what Forkish uses for one batch, so make larger amounts in a bigger container or in two tubs. For a party, with a schedule for staggering the dough balls, see scaling pizza dough for parties.
Variations
- For an outdoor pizza oven. A short, very hot bake dries the crust less, so the dough needs less water. The Planner’s Neapolitan dough for outdoor ovens uses 60%, and Forkish suggests 300 g of water (60%) per 500 g of flour for his Enzo dough if you bake in a wood-fired oven.
- With a preferment. Forkish’s 48- to 72-hour biga dough builds flavor with a stiff starter, and the Planner can add a poolish to any of its doughs. See poolish and biga.
- As a pan pizza. Forkish’s adaptation: raise the water to 375 g (75%), shape the whole batch into one large ball for the fridge, then spread it into an oiled pan 90 minutes before baking, in two or three stretches at least 10 minutes apart.
- Same day. If you decide in the morning, use Forkish’s same-day doughs.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I use bread flour instead of 00?
- Yes. Forkish's own rule for converting his doughs to New York style is to use high-protein bread flour with the water from his New York dough: 320 g (64%) for 500 g of flour. Keep the salt and yeast the same. Many American bread flours already contain malted barley flour or an enzyme, so check the bag before adding diastatic malt.
- Why such warm water? Won't it hurt the yeast?
- Not as Forkish uses it. The 90 to 95°F water is his recipe's temperature, there to bring the mixed dough to about 80°F (27°C), giving the tiny amount of yeast a warm start during the 2-hour rise before the fridge slows it down. The water's temperature isn't the mixed dough's temperature. In a hot kitchen, use cooler water; in a cold one, warmer. If you swap in a different yeast, follow the directions for the yeast you actually use.
- Can I skip the 2-hour rise and refrigerate straight away?
- These timings assume the initial two-hour rise. Skipping it changes the dough's progress, so follow the published sequence rather than assuming the same refrigerator schedule will work. Forkish builds his doughs around a short bulk rise and a longer second fermentation as dough balls, the pattern Neapolitan pizzerias use, and his recipe includes this rise.
- Is 48 hours better than 24?
- Forkish calls the next evening ideal and the evening after still good, so for this recipe, a day is the target and two days the limit. For a longer ferment, use a dough designed for it, such as his 48- to 72-hour New York dough, or the Planner's long-cold schedule with less yeast.
- How long do the dough balls need out of the fridge?
- Forkish takes them out 60 to 90 minutes before making pizza; the Planner allows 1½ to 3 hours as its planning window. Go by the dough: it's ready when it feels soft and relaxed, shows gassy holes underneath and stretches without springing back.
Sources
- Ken Forkish, The Elements of Pizza (2016), EPUB edition: chapter 3 (details 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8: hydration and the oven, time and temperature, the AVPN dough, mature dough balls and salt), chapter 4 (Caputo’s flours), chapter 5 (the home-oven bake and broiler) and chapter 6 (the chapter introduction, the 24- to 48-Hour Pizza Dough, the Saturday Pizza Dough, Enzo’s Pizza Dough, the 48- to 72-Hour New York Pizza Dough and its conversion note, and adapting doughs for pan pizza).
- Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana: public Neapolitan pizza recipe (water and flour quantities). Checked October 14, 2026.
- King Arthur Baking: Bread Flour ingredient list. Checked October 14, 2026.
- Pizza Planner (jayarr.pizza): the Neapolitan-style overnight and long-cold schedules, and the outdoor-oven hydration. The scaled batches and the Planner comparison quantities are calculated.