DoughPlan

48 Hour Pizza Dough Recipe (Cold Ferment, With Schedule)

By Josep Mampel Marques, updated

For 4 pizzas of 250 g with a 48 hour cold ferment, use 605 g of flour, 393 g of water (65%), 16.9 g of salt and 0.54 g of instant dry yeast (0.089%). Mix two days before you eat, give it 2 hours at room temperature, ball it, refrigerate it for 48 hours at 4 °C, and take it out 3 hours before baking. These are the numbers the DoughPlan planner gives with its "Neapolitan for a home oven" preset; change the time or temperatures there and the yeast updates.

Ingredients for 4 pizzas

IngredientGramsBaker's %
Flour605 g100%
Water393 g65%
Salt16.9 g2.8%
Instant dry yeast0.54 g0.089%

That makes 1,015 g of dough: four 250 g balls plus 1.5% for what sticks to the bowl. With other yeast types, use 0.71 g of active dry yeast or 1.68 g of fresh yeast instead. These follow the ratios in the yeast table our model is fitted to (active dry 1.3125 times instant, fresh 3.125 times).

The yeast assumes 21 °C in your kitchen and 4 °C in your fridge. If either is different, the amount changes: with a fridge at 6 °C the model gives 0.072% instead. Measure both and enter them in the planner.

Prefer a New York-style dough?

The planner's New York preset (63% water, 3% salt, 4% oil, 2% sugar, 250 g balls) gives, for 4 pizzas and the same 48 hour schedule:

IngredientGrams
Flour590 g
Water372 g
Salt17.7 g
Olive oil23.6 g
Sugar11.8 g
Instant dry yeast0.53 g

The yeast percentage is the same as above because the model uses time and temperature, not the style. The New York guide compares this preset with Ooni's and King Arthur's recipes.

The schedule

To eat on Saturday at 20:00:

WhenWhat to do
Thursday 14:25Mix and knead (20 minutes)
Thursday 14:45Bulk fermentation, covered, at room temperature (2 hours)
Thursday 16:45Divide into 4 balls of 250 g (15 minutes)
Thursday 17:00Into the fridge, covered (48 hours)
Saturday 17:00Out of the fridge, still covered (3 hours)
Saturday 19:00Oven on to preheat
Saturday 20:00Shape, top and bake

Any other dinner time shifts every step by the same amount. The planner works this out for you and can download the schedule as a calendar file, so each step shows up on your phone.

Method

  1. Weigh everything. The yeast is about half a gram, so a scale that reads to 0.01 g helps. If you only have a 1 g scale, dissolve 1 g of yeast in 100 g of the recipe water and use 54 g of that water for 0.54 g of yeast, counting it as part of the 393 g of water.
  2. Mix. Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flour and mix until no dry flour remains. Add the salt and knead until the dough is smooth. The AVPN regulations warn against leaving salt and yeast in direct contact for more than 5 minutes, which is why the salt goes in after the flour.
  3. Bulk ferment. Cover the dough and leave it at room temperature for 2 hours.
  4. Ball. Divide into four 250 g pieces, shape tight balls and place them in lightly oiled containers with lids, or spaced out in a covered box.
  5. Refrigerate for 48 hours, on the shelf where you measured the fridge temperature.
  6. Temper. Take the balls out 3 hours before you eat. Ooni's New York recipe uses the same 3 hours.
  7. Bake. Preheat for an hour, with a stone or steel if you have one. Stretch each ball by hand, top and bake.

Why 48 hours?

It fits a weekend: mix on Thursday afternoon, bake on Saturday evening. It also sits in the middle of the range published recipes use. Ooni's New York dough allows 16 to 52 hours in the fridge, and King Arthur says its New York dough can stay refrigerated for up to 3 days. If 48 hours does not fit your week, the same method works for 1 to 4 days; only the yeast changes. See how long to cold ferment pizza dough for the table.

What can go wrong

More fixes in pizza dough problems.

Sources