DoughPlan

New York Style Pizza Dough: Percentages, Ball Size and Timing

By Josep Mampel Marques, updated

New York-style pizza dough is a bread flour dough with some oil and usually a little sugar, at roughly 57% to 65% hydration. Ooni's recipe uses 65% water, 3% salt, 5% oil and 1% sugar; King Arthur's uses 57% water and 3.3% each of salt, oil and sugar. Both rely on a long rest: Ooni refrigerates the balls for 16 to 52 hours, and King Arthur allows up to 3 days. The DoughPlan planner has a New York preset you can adjust to either recipe.

New York dough percentages compared

Baker's percentages, with flour at 100%. Where the source gives grams, the percentage is our arithmetic.

OoniKing ArthurDoughPlan preset
Flour872 g bread flour360 g bread flourcalculated
Water65% (567 g)57% (206 g)63%
Salt3.0% (26 g)3.3% (12 g)3%
Oil5.0% (44 g olive oil)3.3% (12 g vegetable oil)4%
Sugar1.0% (9 g)3.3% (12 g)2%
Yeast1.25 g instant (0.14%) or 2 g active dry1/4 teaspoon instantfrom the time and temperature
Pizzasfour 380 g balls, 16 inchtwo 13 inch250 g balls, 12 inch

Our preset sits between the two recipes: Ooni's salt, and water, oil and sugar between theirs. It is a starting point, not a copy of either. If you want Ooni's dough, set hydration to 65, salt to 3, oil to 5 and sugar to 1 in the planner. For King Arthur's, set 57, 3.3, 3.3 and 3.3.

Dough ball weight by pizza size

A pizza twice as wide needs about four times the dough, because what matters is the area. Scaling each recipe by area gives these ball weights (the ball weight guide covers other styles and flour for 2 to 8 balls):

Pizza sizeOoni thicknessKing Arthur thickness
10 inch (25 cm)148 g178 g
12 inch (30 cm)214 g257 g
14 inch (35 cm)291 g350 g
16 inch (40 cm)380 g457 g

The Ooni column is based on its 380 g ball for 16 inches. The King Arthur column assumes their dough (about 603 g in total) is split evenly between the two 13 inch pizzas. Our preset uses 250 g for 12 inches, within that range. Lower it toward 215 g for a thinner crust, or raise it if you like more chew.

How much yeast for New York dough

Yeast depends on your schedule, not on the style. Two published examples:

Recipes that use more yeast than our model usually end up with a dough that is further along. That is not wrong; it is a different target. Start with the planner's amount, and if your dough feels underproofed at baking time, raise the yeast or lengthen the final rest next time. The yeast guide has full tables.

A New York dough plan for the weekend

With the planner's New York preset, 4 pizzas and 2 days in a fridge at 4 °C, you get 590 g of flour, 372 g of water, 17.7 g of salt, 23.6 g of olive oil, 11.8 g of sugar and 0.53 g of instant yeast. The planner's cold schedule differs from Ooni's in one respect: it uses 2 hours at room temperature before the fridge instead of about 4.

  1. Open the planner and choose "New York (12 inch pie)".
  2. Adjust the percentages and ball weight if you want to follow Ooni or King Arthur.
  3. Choose "Cold, in the fridge", the number of days and your measured fridge temperature.
  4. Mix at the time shown.
  5. Bulk ferment 2 hours, ball, refrigerate, and take the balls out 3 hours before baking.
  6. Preheat for an hour. King Arthur preheats its home oven to 500 °F with a steel or stone on a lower rack for at least an hour and finishes the pizza under the broiler. Ooni bakes at a stone temperature of about 750 °F (400 °C) for 4 to 5 minutes.

For the timing in detail, see the 48 hour pizza dough recipe, which includes this New York version.

Common New York dough questions

Bread flour or 00?

Both recipes above use bread flour. King Arthur bakes at 500 °F (260 °C) in a home oven and Ooni at a stone temperature of about 400 °C, both well below the roughly 485 °C oven dome the AVPN describes for Neapolitan pizza. We have not compared flours ourselves, so we stick to what the recipes use; protein figures are in best flour for pizza dough.

Can I skip the oil and sugar?

You can, but then you are closer to a Neapolitan formula. Set oil and sugar to zero in the planner and the other ingredients rebalance. Compare with Neapolitan hydration.

How long can New York dough stay in the fridge?

King Arthur says up to 3 days. The planner goes up to 4 and lowers the yeast for longer stays.

Sources