How much dough for your pizzas?

How the dough is worked out

Bakers describe a dough by percentages of the flour weight, the flour being 100%. Water at 63% means 63 grams of water for every 100 grams of flour, salt at 2.2% means 2.2 grams, and so on. That makes it easy to scale a recipe to any number of pizzas: the total dough is the number of pizzas times the weight of each dough ball, and the flour is the total divided by one plus all the other percentages. See the baker's percentage calculator if you want to start from a formula you already have.

Worked example. Two 14-inch pizzas, ½ inch thick, King Arthur formula. Each dough ball is 313 g, so the total is 626 g. The percentages add to 100 + 63 + 2.2 + 6.9 + 1.7 = 173.8%, so the flour is 626 ÷ 1.738 = 360 g (12.7 oz), with 227 g of water, 7.9 g of salt, 24.8 g of oil and 6.1 g of instant yeast. These are the weights in King Arthur's recipe (360, 226.5, 8, 25 and about 6.2 g), which is how we checked the method.

A Neapolitan set: four dough balls of 250 g, from the EU's specification for Pizza Napoletana STG, comes to 630 g of flour, 350 g of water (55.6%), 18.3 g of salt (2.9%) and 1.1 g of fresh yeast (0.167%). The salt and water are our reading of the specification, which says 50 to 55 g of sea salt in each liter of water and 1.8 kg of flour per liter.

What this calculator does not know

Your flour. Hydration depends on the flour. King Arthur advises less water in humid weather and more in dry weather; the EU specification gives the absorption of its flour as 55 to 62%. Start in the middle and add water by feel. Flour strength (the W value in the specification, 220 to 380) matters for long rises.

Rising time. We looked for a verified rule that links the amount of yeast, the temperature and the time to rise, and did not find one. The two schedules given with the formulas are what their sources say, nothing more.

Your oven. The Neapolitan figures describe a wood-fired oven with a floor at about 485 °C that bakes in 60 to 90 seconds. A home oven, which King Arthur sets at 450 °F, bakes for about 8 to 14 minutes depending on the thickness, so the same dough will behave differently.

Cups and spoons. The table lists the water in cups, but flour packs differently every time you scoop it. Weigh the flour. Yeast in teaspoons is a rough measure too; the yeast converter shows the packet, spoon and gram equivalents. For comparing pizza sizes by price, see the pizza size calculator.

Frequently asked questions

How much dough do I need per pizza?

It depends on the diameter and how thick you want the crust. The ingredients of King Arthur's easy pizza recipe weigh about 626 grams (our sum, taking the middle of its water range), and the recipe says it will cover two 14-inch pizzas that are ½ inch thick, two 12-inch pizzas that are ¾ inch thick, or one 14-inch pizza 1 inch thick. Dividing that dough by the area gives about 2.0, 2.8 and 4.1 grams per square inch; that is our own arithmetic, not a number King Arthur publishes, and the size mode uses it. A 14-inch pizza at ½ inch is then 313 g (11.0 oz). For Neapolitan pizza the EU specification for Pizza Napoletana STG sets the dough ball at 180 to 250 g for a pizza up to 35 cm (about 14 inches) across.

What hydration should pizza dough have?

King Arthur's recipe gives a range, not one number: 198 to 255 grams of water for 360 grams of flour, which is 55% to 71%. It says to use the lower amount in summer or humid weather and the higher amount in winter or dry weather, because flour takes up water differently. The flour in the EU Pizza Napoletana specification absorbs 55 to 62% of its weight, and its dough recipe works out to about 56% water (1 liter of water to 1.8 kg of flour, our calculation). Wetter dough is stickier to handle; there is no single right answer, so start in the middle of the range and adjust by feel.

How much yeast should I use?

It depends on how long the dough will rise. King Arthur's recipe uses 2 teaspoons of instant or active dry yeast for 360 grams of flour (about 1.7%) and a rise of 1 to 1.5 hours, or 45 minutes at room temperature then 4 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. The Neapolitan specification uses 3 grams of brewer's yeast for each liter of water, and 1.8 kg of flour (0.17% of the flour), but rises for 2 hours and then 4 to 6 hours at room temperature. We read "brewer's yeast" as fresh yeast; 1 g of fresh yeast equals about 0.4 g of instant, so that is 0.07% instant. At the calculator's defaults 360 g of flour calls for 6.1 g of instant yeast, 2.0 teaspoons (a packet of 7 g is about 2.25 teaspoons).

How long can pizza dough ferment in the refrigerator?

King Arthur says 4 to 24 hours for its recipe after a 45-minute rise at room temperature, and to take the dough out 2 to 3 hours before you shape and bake it. We looked for a published rule linking rising time, temperature and the amount of yeast and did not find one in a source we could verify, so the calculator does not give one: if you want a longer cold fermentation than that, reduce the yeast and watch the dough rather than the clock.

Can I use this for a pan pizza or a thick crust?

Yes. Pick the 1 inch thickness for a thick crust or switch to the dough ball mode and enter the weight you like. King Arthur lists a 13 × 18 inch rectangular pizza ¾ to 1 inch thick as one batch of this dough, about 2.7 grams per square inch, the same as the medium setting. Oil is part of King Arthur's dough (25 g, 6.9% of the flour); the Neapolitan numbers use none.

Sources: King Arthur Baking, "Easy Pizza Crust" recipe (kingarthurbaking.com, read October 28, 2026); Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, annex, Pizza Napoletana TSG specification (copy at legislation.gov.uk, read October 28, 2026). The percentages for each formula, the grams of dough per square inch and the yeast conversions are our calculations from those documents; the fresh-to-dry factor of 2.5 is King Arthur's, as on the yeast converter. How we check our calculators.