Pizza Dough and Oven Calculators
Six free calculators covering the whole process: dough hydration in baker's percentage, dough ball weight by pizza size, proof time at room temperature and cold, bake temperature and time, poolish and biga splits, and oven sizing. Four 250 g balls at 65 percent hydration need 595.9 g flour, 387.4 g water, 14.9 g salt and 1.8 g instant yeast.
Six calculators covering the whole process from flour to plate. All of them work in baker's percentage, where flour is always 100 percent and everything else is a percentage of the flour weight, and all of them are built to be opened mid-bake on a phone with flour on your hands: big buttons, preset chips for the common cases, and results in mono type you can read at arm's length.
- Pizza Bake Time and Temperature CalculatorWork out the right stone floor temperature and bake time for any pizza style, from a 950F Neapolitan bake in 75 seconds to a 550F... Open →
- Pizza Dough Ball Weight Calculator by SizeWork out the exact dough ball weight for any pizza diameter and style. Neapolitan, New York, Detroit and pan, with the area maths... Open →
- Pizza Dough Hydration Calculator (Baker's Percentage)Free pizza dough hydration calculator. Enter your number of dough balls, ball weight and hydration and get exact flour, water, salt... Open →
- Pizza Dough Proof Time Calculator (Room Temp and Cold)Work out how long pizza dough needs to proof at any temperature, room temp or cold ferment, and what yeast percentage hits your... Open →
- Pizza Oven Size Calculator: What Size Do I Need?Work out what size pizza oven you need from the number of people you feed and the pizza size you want, plus realistic pizzas per... Open →
- Poolish and Biga Calculator for Pizza DoughSplit any pizza dough formula into a poolish or biga plus a final mix. Enter your dough weight, hydration and preferment percentage... Open →
What does each calculator do?
| Calculator | You put in | You get out | When you use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dough hydration | Ball count, ball weight, hydration, salt, yeast | Flour, water, salt and yeast to 0.1 g | Before mixing |
| Dough ball weight | Pizza diameter and style | Ball weight and total batch weight | Before the hydration calculator |
| Proof time | Yeast percentage and temperature | Ready time, or the yeast to hit a schedule | While planning the week |
| Poolish and biga | A whole formula plus a preferment share | Stage one and stage two ingredient splits | The night before |
| Bake temp and time | Stone floor temperature and base thickness | Bake time and turning cadence | At the oven, mid-bake |
| Oven size | Cooking surface and number of people | Largest pizza, pizzas per hour, session length | Before buying an oven |
How do the calculators fit together?
In the order you actually make pizza. Start with the size of pizza your oven can cook, which sets the ball weight. Take the ball weight and count to the hydration calculator, which gives you the ingredient weights. Decide the schedule on the proof time calculator, which tells you either when the dough will be ready or how much yeast to use to hit a specific hour. Then at the oven, the bake calculator converts whatever your stone actually reads into a bake time and a turning cadence.
Two of them are optional. The poolish and biga calculator only matters if you are running a preferment, and the oven size calculator is mostly a buying tool, though it is also the fastest way to work out how long you will be standing at the oven feeding a given number of people.
What arithmetic do they all share?
Baker's percentage, and it is worth understanding once rather than trusting blindly. Flour is defined as 100 percent. Every other ingredient is a percentage of the flour weight. The percentages therefore add to more than 100, deliberately.
- Total percentage = 100 + hydration + salt + yeast + any oil or sugar
- Flour = total dough weight divided by (total percentage / 100)
- Every other ingredient = flour multiplied by its own percentage
Worked through: four 250 g balls is 1,000 g of dough. At 65 percent hydration, 2.5 percent salt and 0.3 percent instant dry yeast the percentages sum to 167.8, so flour is 1,000 divided by 1.678, which is 595.9 g. Water is 387.4 g, salt is 14.9 g and yeast is 1.8 g. Those four add back to 1,000 g, and every calculator here shows that check so you can confirm it rather than trust it. The full derivation is in the baker's percentage guide.
Why are the numbers in mono type?
Because they are instrument readings rather than prose. A gram weight, a hydration percentage and a floor temperature are all things you glance at while your hands are busy, and a fixed-width numeral is faster to read at a glance than a proportional one. It is also the reason every input on this site clears 44 pixels in both directions and every common value has a preset button: the calculator that matters most gets opened repeatedly during a single session, with flour on the phone screen.
What each calculator assumes about your setup
Three assumptions run through all of them, and knowing what they are makes the results easier to trust and easier to override.
- You are weighing, not measuring by volume. Every input and output is a weight in grams. Volume measures of flour vary by up to 20 percent depending on how the cup was filled, which is enough to move a dough from 65 percent hydration to 55 percent without any other change, and no calculator can correct for that.
- Temperatures are DOUGH temperature and FLOOR temperature, not air. The proof time calculator wants the temperature of the dough, which after ten minutes in a stand mixer can be 10F above the room through friction alone. The bake calculator wants the stone floor, which a built-in oven gauge does not measure and can be 200F away from.
- Yeast percentages are instant dry yeast. Every calculator treats the number you enter as IDY and converts from there: active dry needs about 1.25 times the weight, fresh yeast about 3 times. Entering a fresh yeast percentage as though it were instant is a threefold error and it is the most common way to over-yeast a dough.
Worked example: a 48 hour dough from start to finish
Six 260 g balls for 12 inch Neapolitan pizzas, cold fermented for two days, baked at 900F. Every number below comes from the calculators on this page.
| Step | What you do | Figure | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Set the ball weight for a 12 in pizza | 249 to 280 g | Ball weight |
| 2 | Total dough for six balls at 260 g | 1,560 g | Ball weight |
| 3 | Flour at 62% hydration, 2.5% salt, 0.10% yeast | 947 g | Hydration |
| 4 | Water | 587 g | Hydration |
| 5 | Salt | 23.7 g | Hydration |
| 6 | Instant dry yeast | 0.95 g | Hydration |
| 7 | Bench time before the fridge | 2 h at 70F | Proof time |
| 8 | Cold ferment at 39F | ~46 h | Proof time |
| 9 | Warm up before stretching | 2 to 4 h | Proof time |
| 10 | Bake at a 900F floor | 75 s, 3 turns | Bake time |
Note the yeast figure. Just under a gram across six balls is why a 0.1 g scale appears on every build on this site rather than being treated as an upgrade. No spoon measures 0.95 g, and doubling it by accident is the difference between a dough that is ready on Friday and one that has collapsed by Thursday morning.
Where the numbers come from, and where they stop
The baker's percentage arithmetic is exact. It is algebra, it is checkable, and every page shows the check line so you can verify it against your own scale. If a calculator here disagrees with your arithmetic, one of us is wrong and you should be able to see which.
The fermentation model is an approximation and we say so on the page. Yeast activity roughly doubles for every 17F rise in dough temperature, which holds well enough between about 40F and 90F to plan a schedule, but flour strength, salt level, final dough temperature after mixing and how tightly the balls were shaped all move the real answer. Use the time to decide when to start checking, and then read the dough. The fermentation chart gives the same relationship as a printable table.
Once the numbers are right, the remaining variables are heat and technique. The reference charts cover hydration, bake temperature, flour protein and launch troubleshooting, the guides cover method, and the complete builds cover the equipment at three budgets.
Frequently asked questions
Which pizza calculator should I use first?
The dough hydration calculator. It turns a number of dough balls and a ball weight into exact flour, water, salt and yeast weights, and every other calculation on this site assumes you have those figures. Once the formula is right, the proof time calculator tells you when the dough will be ready and the bake temperature calculator tells you how to cook it.
Are these calculators accurate?
The arithmetic is exact and checkable: baker’s percentage is simple algebra, and every ingredient weight adds back to the dough weight you asked for. The fermentation model is an approximation, because yeast activity depends on flour, salt, dough temperature and how tightly the balls were shaped as well as on time. Use the time figures to plan and then read the dough rather than the clock.
Do the calculators work on a phone with flour on my hands?
That is exactly what they are built for. Every input clears 44 pixels in both directions, the results render in large mono type readable at arm’s length, and the common cases have preset buttons so you can change a hydration or a ball size with one tap and no typing. Nothing on these pages requires a keyboard unless you want an unusual number.
What is baker’s percentage in one sentence?
Every ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight, and flour is always 100 percent. That is why a 65 percent hydration dough is not 65 percent water: in a 1,000 g batch the water is 387 g, which is 38.7 percent of the finished dough. Working from the flour side is the only way the numbers close correctly.
Can I use these for sourdough pizza?
Yes, with one adjustment. A starter at 100 percent hydration is half flour and half water by weight, so 200 g of starter contributes 100 g of flour and 100 g of water. Subtract both from the calculated flour and water or the dough will land several points wetter than intended. Typical starter quantity for pizza is 10 to 20 percent of the flour weight.
How we choose: we compare published manufacturer specifications, verified owner reviews, and long-established baker's percentage practice. We do not test gear in person. Dough figures are guidance, not a recipe guarantee: flour, water and room conditions all vary, so read your dough as well as the numbers.
Heat safety: a pizza oven at working temperature holds a 700F to 950F floor and a shell hot enough to burn on contact. Use long-handled peels and heat-rated gloves, keep children and pets clear, burn fuel outdoors only with clearance from anything combustible, and never pour water on a hot baking stone. Water flashes to steam instantly and thermal shock cracks stone.
Keeping your own dough and bake numbers? The Dough & Oven Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.