Homemade Pizza Dough Tips (and recipe)

I started making pizza dough at home about 20 years ago. I have made thousands of pizzas over the years (no exaggeration). I played with the dough recipe for ten years, oftentimes cooking a dozen pizzas on a Saturday just to test. I messed up a lot of dough before figuring some things out. Before I share what I learned, I understand that there are many ways to make quality bread. Yours may differ so I am not claiming that this is the pizza Bible. Anyhow, I found some things that allowed me to make great pizza dough in my kitchen using my oven. Hopefully, my failures might help beginners make consistently delicious pizza dough. Here are my findings.

Bread making is considerably different than cooking meats and vegetables. Bread making ingredients make far less difference than technique will. IMHO, time, temperature, and kneading determine the outcome of the dough. Cheap AP flour, instant yeast, and tap water done right will absolutely crush imported Caputo flour, fresh yeast, and spring water done wrong. Simply mix the ingredients, cover it, then walk away. Be patient for 30 minutes or so to allow the flour to hydrate. Then, knead until sufficient gluten develops. The wait (or autolyse as the French call it) will allow the dough to get softer, smoother, and more elastic.

There is no substitute for time when making any bread, pizza dough included. The faster a dough is fermented, the less flavor and texture it will have. If you load up yeast and try to have the dough ready in three hours, you will get a white dough with many small bubbles and little flavor. Cut the yeast, extend the time, and reap the rewards. Properly fermented dough is yellowish and full of irregular bubbles. It is easier to handle and shape without tearing. I much prefer either a 2-day cold fermentation in the refrigerator using 0.5% yeast or a 10 hour room-temp fermentation using very little yeast (as low as 0.07%). Honestly, time and temperature require a book to fully cover. You should test and observe the differences.

The basic formula for home-oven dough is not the same for high-heat oven (700-900F) dough. Conventional oven dough is formulated to cook around 500F on a pizza stone, sheet pan, or cooking steel. If that is the type of oven you have, do not fool with Neapolitan-style doughs and techniques. They will always render doughs that are white and insipid in a home oven. After the third 55lb. bag of Caputo 00 flour yielded the same mediocre result, I finally capitulated. Garden-variety AP or bread flour work better in a home oven. Side note - there are ways to cook Neapolitan-style pizza in a home oven using a broiler and whatnot but are way more work. Also, I don't think it is worth the effort. A gas or wood-burning outdoor pizza oven is another matter entirely but that's for a separate post. Those pizzas can be terrific.

For accuracy and consistency, always portion ingredients by weight not volume. Also, using Baker's Percentages for the recipe makes it easier to scale the quantity up or down. For a basic home-oven dough recipe, I use:
AP or bread flour (I prefer unbleached flour but any will work)
66% hydration
2% salt
0.1% instant yeast (based on an 8-hour room temp fermentation)
4% fat (oil, butter, etc.)

For three New York style thin-crust 13" pizzas (300g dough each):
522g flour
344g water
0.5g instant yeast
11g salt
23g fat

For three thicker-crust 13" pizzas (500g dough each):
869g flour
573g water
0.9g yeast
17g salt
39g fat

From my experience, getting the technique worked out before you start messing with ingredients will yield significantly better results.

After reading my own post, I may have created more questions than answers. If so, fire away and I will share what I have learned. If you have tips for me, I would be grateful if you shared them. I am always looking to eat better pizza.