Pizza Dough Calculator

Work out the flour, water, salt, yeast and oil for any number of pizzas at any diameter, using baker's percentages. The page scales a dough ball from a 12-inch reference by area, then divides the total dough between the ingredients.

How the Dough Weight Is Derived

The calculator starts from a single reference figure: a 12-inch pizza is assumed to need 280 g of dough. Every other size is scaled by the square of the diameter ratio, so the dough weight tracks the area of the base rather than its width. That total is then split according to baker's percentages, where every ingredient is expressed as a share of the flour weight.

• A 12-inch ball is fixed at 280 g. A 16-inch ball is 280 multiplied by the square of sixteen over twelve, which is about 498 g, because the area of a 16-inch base is roughly 1.78 times that of a 12-inch one rather than 1.33 times.
• Flour is not an input; it is the unknown. The page solves flour equals total dough divided by one plus hydration plus salt plus oil plus yeast, so the flour weight absorbs whatever the percentages add up to.
• Style presets only rewrite the hydration field. Neapolitan sets 60, New York 62, Detroit 75, Sicilian 70 and Roman 80; after that the number is an ordinary editable value.
• Salt, yeast and oil are entered directly as percentages of flour, and the same figures are echoed back in the results table as the baker's percentage column.

Setting Up a Batch

1. Enter how many pizzas you are making and the diameter of each one. The count and the size are independent, so six small pies and two large ones are both valid batches.
2. Pick a style if you want a starting hydration, or type a custom hydration percentage between 40 and 90.
3. Adjust salt, yeast and oil as percentages of the flour weight. Oil is optional and defaults to zero, which is what a Neapolitan dough calls for.
4. Choose a ferment time from the list. It changes the advice shown under the table but leaves every ingredient weight untouched.
5. Read the table for the gram weights and the per-ball weight. The result recalculates as you type, so there is no separate submit step.

The Default Batch, Number by Number

Reloaded with its default inputs, namely two 12-inch Neapolitan pizzas at 60 percent hydration, 2.5 percent salt, 0.5 percent yeast and no oil, the page produces the following.

• Dough ball: 280 g each and 560 g in total, since both pizzas are at the 12-inch reference size.
• Flour: 344 g. This comes from 560 divided by 1.63, the sum of 1 plus 0.60 hydration plus 0.025 salt plus 0.005 yeast.
• Water: 206 g, which is 60 percent of the flour weight.
• Salt reads 8.6 g and yeast reads 1.7 g. Olive oil reads 0.0 g because the default oil percentage is zero.
• Switching the style to Detroit rewrites hydration to 75 and the table becomes 315 g flour and 236 g water for the same two pizzas. Changing ferment time from 24 to 72 hours alters nothing in the table except the note beneath it.

Ways to Size a Batch

Alternative	Notes
Scale by area	This is what the page does. It assumes a fixed dough loading per square inch and multiplies. It is fast and self-consistent, but it treats a thick Detroit pan and a thin Neapolitan round as if the same dough density applied to both.
Start from flour	Bakers often fix the flour first, at a round number like 500 g or 1 kg, and let the number of pizzas fall out of the batch. That approach avoids awkward totals but means you make what the flour allows rather than what you planned.
Dough-ball weight tables	Published style guides give ball weights directly, for example around 250 g for a 12-inch Neapolitan and higher for a pan pizza. A table is more accurate per style but does not scale smoothly to a 15-inch tin.
Pan volume	For rectangular pan pizzas, some bakers calculate dough from the pan's area and a target thickness in grams per square inch. This bypasses the diameter model entirely and suits Detroit and Sicilian trays better than a round-pizza sizing rule.

Where the Numbers Are Produced

The arithmetic runs inside the page in the browser, and no part of the recipe is sent anywhere.

• The ingredient maths is plain JavaScript in the page itself. It executes locally, and the page issues no network request in order to compute a result.
• Once the page has loaded, it will keep working if you lose your connection, because nothing about the calculation depends on a server.
• Your inputs are not uploaded or logged. They exist only in the form fields for as long as the tab stays open.
• The one thing the page does remember between visits is your light or dark theme preference; that is stored in the browser's own local storage, not on a server.
• Because nothing is saved, note down a batch you like before closing the tab. Reloading returns every field to its default.

Pizza Dough Questions

Is flour or total dough the starting point?

Total dough is. The page computes the dough ball by area, multiplies by the number of pizzas, then works backwards to find the flour that the percentages imply. Flour is the largest single weight, but it is derived rather than entered. If you want to start from flour instead, you would have to adjust the pizza count or the size until the flour figure lands where you want it.

Why does changing ferment time not change the recipe?

Because in this implementation it is not wired into the arithmetic. The ferment selection is read when the page builds its output, but the only places it is used are the sentence that names the fermentation length and the note about yeast. Every gram value is identical at 2, 24, 48 and 72 hours. Treat the dropdown as a reminder label rather than as a variable that shapes the dough.

Which hydration should a beginner use?

The lower end of the range. Around 60 percent, the Neapolitan preset, produces a firm dough that is forgiving to shape. As hydration rises towards the 75 to 80 percent of a Detroit or Roman preset, the dough becomes wetter, stickier and harder to handle without practice, even though the crust turns out lighter and more open.

How accurate is the 280 g reference ball?

It is a reasonable round figure rather than a rule. Different flours absorb water differently, and a long cold ferment changes how a dough handles at the same weight. Use the output as a starting point, then adjust by ten or twenty grams a ball after your first bake to suit your flour and your oven.

Last verified: October 3, 2026

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Maintained by Huang Bin · Last updated October 3, 2026