Dough & Fermentation
Baker’s percentages, fermentation approaches, and preferments — with ranges and explicit assumptions rather than false precision. Flour, room temperature, dough temperature, and yeast activity all shift real outcomes.
Tools
Dough calculator
Ingredient weights from baker's percentages.
Pan & pizza-size dough
Dough weight for any pan or pizza size, from style-specific ranges.
Dough temperature & yeast
Water temperature for a target dough temperature, and yeast conversions.
Dough schedule & session planner
Backwards from serving time: mix, ferment, temper, preheat and bake slots.
Flour
Flour types, strength, and style compatibility.
Explained
- Baker's percentagesEvery ingredient is written as a percentage of the flour weight, with flour fixed at 100%. That makes a formula scale to any batch size and lets you compare doughs at a glance.
- Dough hydrationHydration is the water weight as a percentage of the flour weight. Styles sit in quite different ranges, and a higher number is not automatically better.
- Yeast and fermentation basicsYeast produces the gas that lifts the dough and much of its flavour. The amount of yeast, the time and the temperature trade against each other.
- Dough temperatureDough temperature sets the pace of fermentation. The desired-dough-temperature method uses water temperature to correct for warm or cold flour, room and mixing.
- How gluten developsGluten forms when two wheat proteins meet water. Mixing, folding and time organise it into a network whose stretch and spring decide how a dough opens and holds gas.
- Fermentation and enzymes in pizza doughYeast makes gas, alcohol and some acids, while flour enzymes turn starch into sugars and slowly loosen gluten. Time and temperature set how far each process goes.
- Refrigerating, freezing and thawing pizza doughHow yeast quantity and temperature set a dough ball's useful fridge life, how long to temper cold dough before stretching, and how to freeze and thaw balls with the least damage — with sources' disagreements left visible.
Preferments and fermentation methods
Direct dough method
The simplest dough method, mixing everything in one stage without a separate preferment — fast, but with less flavour depth than prefermented approaches.
Poolish
A loose, 100%-hydration overnight preferment that adds mild flavour complexity and extensibility to the final dough.
Biga
A stiff, low-hydration Italian preferment that builds strength and a nutty depth of flavour, common in Roman-style doughs.
Pâte fermentée
A preferment made from held-back, already-salted dough from a previous batch, carrying flavour forward between bakes.
Sponge method
A quick, active preferment stage used mainly to confirm yeast vigour ahead of a same-day bake, rather than for deep flavour development.
Sourdough starter (natural leavening)
A wild-yeast and bacterial culture that replaces commercial yeast entirely, contributing a distinct tang at the cost of predictable timing.