The project
Our method
Verified numbers, sources in plain sight, no magic.
The Pizza Call calculator works in baker's percentages and uses the time-and-temperature yeast model established in Italian pizza practice. We pinned it with a numerical test that fails our build if the numbers move. Our guides are written by the editorial team with AI assistance and human review, and checked against the sources.
How it works out the quantities
Everything starts from baker's percentages: water, salt, oil and yeast are all expressed as a percentage of the flour. It's the language pizzaioli think in, and it makes a recipe scale cleanly to any number of pizzas.
The delicate part is the yeast, because it depends on how many hours the dough ferments and at what temperature. We didn't invent any of this: the model is the one established in Italian practice, where yeast is dosed against hours and temperature. We implemented it carefully and verified it; we did not invent it.
Then we pinned it down. A numerical regression test checks one worked case on every build: a round Roman at 56% hydration, 2.5% salt and 3% oil, three hours at 25 °C, which comes out at 0.4664% fresh yeast on the flour. Move that figure by a decimal and the build fails, so a silent drift in the maths can't reach the site. The weights balance too: flour plus water plus salt plus oil comes out to the gram.
How we write the guides
Guides start from authoritative sources, not hearsay: the standards (AVPN for Neapolitan, Associazione Pizza Romana for the round Roman and the pala, established Roman bakery practice for the teglia), flour technical sheets for strength (W) values, and the literature on fermentation. They're listed on the Sources page.
On AI, plainly. Articles are written by the editorial team with the help of AI tools and human review, and checked against the sources before publishing. We say so because you deserve to know how what you're reading was made. What we don't do: invent authors, pass off stock photos as our own, or publish numbers we haven't checked.
The full rules are in our editorial standards. Every article carries a last-updated date.