Styles · Neapolitan
Neapolitan pizza dough
Flour, water, salt and yeast. Four ingredients, and the whole difference is in the timing.
Neapolitan pizza dough is flour, water, salt and yeast, at around 58% hydration and with very little yeast. For four 250 g balls you need about 620 g of flour, 360 g of water, 18 g of salt and 0.65 g of fresh yeast, then 12 hours of fermentation at 22 °C: roughly 2 hours in bulk, 10 more once the balls are shaped.
Neapolitan is stingy with ingredients and generous with time. No fat, no sugar, no milk: the right flour, the right amount of water, and enough hours for the yeast to do the work for you. Less yeast, more time — that's where the cornicione comes from, the puffy, blistered rim. When a Neapolitan goes wrong it's almost always the same mistake: too much yeast, and not enough waiting.
The recipe, in short
These quantities make four 250 g balls, the classic size for a 30 cm pizza (12 in) and the top of the 180-250 g the disciplinare allows. We worked them out with our own tool, which doses yeast against hours and temperature (how it works).
- Flour, 00 in the W 250-320 band (W 280 is the sweet spot over 12 hours): 622 g
- Water at room temperature: 360 g (58%)
- Fine salt: 18 g (2.9%)
- Fresh yeast: 0.65 g (or 0.2 g instant dry)
One ball comes to about 530 kcal: that's the dough on its own, before anything goes on top.
The AVPN disciplinare measures salt in grams per litre of water, not as a percentage of flour: 40 to 60 g/L. Our 18 g in 360 g of water works out at exactly 50 g/L, mid-band. The same document forbids fat in the dough: on a verace (the association's own word for a certified-true Neapolitan) the oil goes on top, never inside.
Why hydration sits around 58%
Less water than you'd guess. The disciplinare never names a percentage, in fact: it fixes one litre of water to 1.6-1.8 kg of flour, which works out at 56 to 62% hydration. For a first attempt 58% is the sweet spot, firm enough to handle by hand and wet enough to puff in the oven. Go below 55% and you're baking a cracker. Above 62% it turns sticky and wants a surer hand and a stronger flour.
Hydration is the first lever of flavour; time is the second. You keep them in balance like this: the more water you add, the stronger the flour needs to be and the longer the maturation. There's a full hydration guide if you want the detail.
Yeast: barely any, for a long time
This is where it's won or lost. Two thirds of a gram of fresh yeast for 622 g of flour looks like a typo. It isn't. It's the whole style. With little yeast the dough matures slowly, the enzymes get time to break down starch and gluten, and what comes out is more fragrant, with a softer, more open crumb. Load it with yeast and you get a fast, bloated dough, flat in flavour and smelling of the brewery.
How much yeast depends on two things only: how many hours it ferments, and at what temperature. This table comes from the same calculation our tool uses.
| Temp \ Hours | 4 h | 6 h | 8 h | 12 h | 24 h | 48 h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 °C | 8.5 | 5.2 | 3.7 | 2.3 | 0.99 | 0.43 |
| 18 °C | 6.4 | 3.9 | 2.8 | 1.7 | 0.74 | 0.32 |
| 20 °C | 4.9 | 3.0 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 0.57 | 0.25 |
| 22 °C | 3.8 | 2.4 | 1.7 | 1.0 | 0.45 | 0.20 |
| 24 °C | 3.1 | 1.9 | 1.3 | 0.83 | 0.36 | 0.16 |
| 26 °C | 2.5 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 0.68 | 0.30 | 0.13 |
Computed with our tool’s time-and-temperature model. For instant dry yeast divide by 3; for active dry divide by 2–2.5 (manufacturers do not agree on a single figure).
Read it like this: at 22 °C, with 12 hours ahead of you, about 1 g of fresh yeast per kilo of flour. Stretch to 24 hours and you're down to 0.45 g. Temperature counts as much as the clock: over the same 8 hours you need two and a half times more yeast in an 18 °C kitchen than in a 26 °C one. If you'd rather not do the arithmetic, the calculator does it for you.
The method, step by step
- Dissolve the salt in most of the water. Salt in direct contact with yeast slows it down, so keep them apart at the start: dissolve the yeast separately, in the little water that's left.
- Start the dough: stir about a tenth of the flour into the salted water, add the dissolved yeast, then the rest of the flour a little at a time.
- Knead 10-15 minutes by hand, until the mass is smooth and pulls away from your fingers. Test the windowpane: a stretched piece held to the light turns translucent without tearing.
- Bulk rest (puntata, the rest before the dough is divided): cover the mass and leave it about 2 hours. Twenty minutes isn't a puntata, it's a pre-shape; the AVPN asks for roughly two hours here.
- Ball up: shape the 250 g balls, tight underneath so they hold.
- Final proof (appretto, the proof after balling): let the balls rise covered about 10 hours at 22 °C, until nearly doubled and yielding to the touch. Two hours of puntata plus ten of appretto is your 12.
- Open and bake: stretch by hand from the centre out, pushing the air into the rim instead of out of it. Bake as hot as the oven allows; at home a screaming-hot stone or steel at 250 °C (480 °F) beats any trick.
The most common mistakes
- Too much yeast. Temptation number one. If the pizza tastes of yeast, or collapses the moment it leaves the oven, you overdid it.
- Flour too weak for the hours. Supermarket 00 handles 4-6 hours, not 24. A long maturation wants a stronger flour: see the guide on W.
- A lukewarm oven. Neapolitan wants violent heat. 250 °C on a stone beats 220 °C on a cold tray, every time.
- Badly sealed balls. If they spread flat straight away they won't puff. Seal them underneath and let them rest.
Frequently asked questions
How much yeast for Neapolitan pizza?
Very little. Across the common cases, 8 to 24 hours at 18 to 26 °C, it runs from 0.3 to 2.8 g of fresh yeast per kilo of flour. For 12 hours at 22 °C you want about 1 g/kg, which is the 0.65 g in this recipe. The table above covers the rest.
What flour should I use?
A 00 in the W 250-320 band, which is what the disciplinare asks for; W 280 sits right for 12 hours. Go to 24 hours and you want W 330, at 48 hours W 380. No W on the bag? W 240-280 is roughly 11.5-12.5% protein, so a strong bread flour is close. North American flours drink more water than Italian 00, so expect to add 2-3% more.
Can I cold-ferment in the fridge?
Yes, and it's handy if you work. The fridge slows the yeast almost to a stop while the enzymes keep going, so the same flour gives you more aroma and a softer crumb. Whether that also makes the pizza easier to digest is argued over more than the internet admits; we lay out both sides in the maturation guide. In the calculator you set the room hours and the fridge hours separately.
Why won't my rim puff up?
Usually one of three things: an oven that isn't hot enough, balls that are under- or over-proofed, or a base stretched by flattening the edge. The cornicione puffs when you leave the air in it and bake it fast.
Sources
- Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, disciplinare: salt at 40-60 g per litre of water, no fat in the dough, 12 to 24 hours of fermentation, balls of 180-250 g, flour W 250-320.
- EU Regulation — Traditional Speciality Guaranteed "Pizza Napoletana".
- Yeast and dosage model (time and temperature). See our Sources and Method pages.
- Energy values worked out from the quantities, using the CREA Italian food composition tables: wheat flour type 0/00, 340 kcal per 100 g.