Pizza Dough

Poolish

Start the poolish anywhere from 8-10pm. Combine in a 2L glass container:

300g pizza flour

0.6g yeast 

300g filtered water, warmed to 40C

 

Mix well by hand, e.g. with a silicone spatula. Cover and let sit on counter for 10 hours.

Dough

 

Around 6-8am is good for this step. Add 330g pizza flour, 14g kosher salt, and 70g water to the poolish. Mix a little, let sit for 10-60 minutes to hydrate, then knead for 10 minutes until the dough is smooth.

For 12" pizzas, divide the dough into 5 balls, around 200g each. Dust with flour and put into covered containers for another 10 hours at room temperature.

Knocking back

For the sake of discussion, let's call the rising of the dough after adding flour to the poolish the "second rising". The "first rising" being the one where the poolish was created by letting flour, yeast, and water sit overnight.

Depending on timing, it may be desirable to let the second rising be done as one big ball, rather than as five separate balls. If the ball of dough gets too puffy, you can "knock it back" by basically dumping it out and kneading the gas out. Lightly dust the countertop if necessary while doing this. You should end up with a ball of dough that is still elastic. At this point you can divide it into five balls and refrigerate to control the timing. Take the balls out about 4-5 hours before cooking time, to let them warm up and rise further. What I described is essentially 3 risings. Some say that more flavour develops if the dough is allowed to rise longer while refrigerated. You can probably also refrigerate before knocking back is necessary to, again, control timing. It might be beneficial to delay dividing the dough until 4-5 hours before cooking.

Over-proofing

This means the dough has been proofed so much it tastes sour, or off. Give it a gentle poke with your finger: if it springs back, it can be rescued by knocking back, as described above.

References

 

mypizzacorner

 

Nutrition Analysis

630g pizza flour: at 14.5% protein, 91g protein in the entire batch.

14g kosher salt: 5600mg sodium.

If dividing into five 200g balls, each ball contains 18g protein, 1120mg sodium.

For those with protein restrictions, there is not much that can be done. Protein is an essential component of pizza flour. The only answer that comes to mind is portion control. Have half of one of these pizzas, or think of it as a treat that is enjoyed occasionally. ("Bread makes you fat?!" - Scott Pilgrim)

Research into a low sodium version (Nov 2025)

Omitting or reducing the amount of salt in this dough permits more freedom when it comes to toppings. Pepperoni, tomato paste, cheese, and so on. Let us see if it is possible.

Salt is added to the dough for flavour, strength, elasticity, and fermentation control. 

• Flavour: compensate by adding garlic powder, onion powder, and Italian herbs. How these react to the high temperatures of a pizza oven remain to be seen. For example, kosher salt is specifically used instead of table salt because the iodine in table salt develops a bitter flavour when exposed to temperatures higher than 450F (iirc). With so many brands of garlic powder, onion powder, and so on, I'd be surprised if anyone seriously documented what a dough with these additives tastes like after cooking in the high temperatures of real pizza oven. Bet you they burn. Bet you they burn real good. (To borrow a few lines from the comedians of Second City.)
• Strength and elasticity: salt strengthens gluten structure, allowing it to retain gases produced by the yeast. The dough rises better, and when baked, a lighter airier crust is formed.
• Fermentation control: salt slows down yeast activity by dehydrating the yeast through osmosis. The dough ferments slowly over a longer period of time, developing more complex flavours.

According to someone (todo: reference?) pizza dough should contain 2.5% to 3% salt. The higher amount in warm climates, the lower amount in cooler. For 630g of flour, 2.5% salt is 15.75g which is higher even than the 14g used in the above recipe. Sigh.

Options: low sodium toppings like fresh mozzarella, lean low sodium meats, and vegetables. Use minimal amounts of pizza sauce, or find a substitute.

Refrigeration

Fermentation can be controlled by refrigerating the dough. Is it possible to substitute refrigeration for some of the salt?

Unfortunately, https://homecookingcollective.com/cold-fermented-pizza-dough-recipe/ still uses 2.9% salt, even for up to 72 hours of refrigeration. They do mention it is possible to use 2.5% salt, at the risk of increased yeast activity. Their recipe yields 5 balls, each containing 1560mg sodium. With 2.5% (17g), that's 1360mg sodium.

This recipe https://thepizzaheaven.com/cold-fermented-pizza-dough/ uses 2% salt (10g fine sea salt in 500g pizza flour). It yields 4 balls, so we're looking at about 975g of sodium per pizza, a 13% improvement over the poolish version.

This recipe https://coleycooks.com/neapolitan-pizza-dough/ calls for 12g kosher salt and 590g pizza flour, so 2% salt. Yields 4 balls, each containing 1150mg sodium

Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10239183361342562&set=p.10239183361342562&type=3. The full recipe hasn't been posted, just a screenshot with quantities and perhaps enough directions:

• 640g type 00 flour
• 0.5g instant dry yeast (1/8 tsp)
• 404g water
• 3g salt (presumably kosher salt)
• 13g oil
• mix ingredients
• hand knead 10 minutes
• cover and proof 5 hours at room temperature (77F)
• divide into 4 balls
• cover and allow balls to double in size
• prep and cook

Recipe owner Larry Cariglio says the flavour is on the bland side, but better than no salt at all. Adjust according to dietary restrictions. It's a fast dough, wonder if refrigeration would help develop the flavours. Oil is used to add flavour, he says. Is adding oil bad? Some research says oil helps trap moisture, leading to a softer crust. It is useful in cooler ovens, since the dough needs to cook longer. A wood-fired oven that can reach 800F cooks the pizza in less than 2 minutes, so oil is not needed to keep the crust moist. Some prefer a crispy crust anyway. Perhaps I will try this recipe. With 3g salt in 640g flour, that's 1%. The recipe yields 4 balls, which is 300mg Na per pizza. Not bad. Assuming 14.5% protein flour, that's 23g protein per pizza. Those of us trying to limit protein intake will still need to exercise portion control.

Update: tried it, and liked it well enough. Proofed the dough for 4 to 4.5 hours in the toaster oven, making sure the temperature stayed at or above 77F most of the time. Pulled it out when it looked like it had doubled in volume. Kneaded it for a few minutes to expel some of the gases. Divided it into 4 balls, each weighing about 271g. Let them proof again in covered containers while prepping the toppings, only 30-45 minutes. I wouldn't say they doubled in size, but they had gotten larger.

We usually make small diameter pizzas, so the raw crust was thicker in dimension than our usual. In cooking, there was a lot more puffing upwards. Big bubbles. It was challenging keeping the top from burning too much. There was a request to turn the oven down, so the top wouldn't burn too quickly. A little charring is fine, desirable even, and we managed to keep it at that. Ultimately the crust was very bubbly and fluffy, which was well liked.

It's been awhile since I last made pizza, but I do believe this dough left more residue on the stone. If true, I attribute it to the oil. The residue seemed a bit creosote-y, and burned quite readily. Easy enough to scrape off with the BBQ tool. On the other hand, it could be my mis-remembering, and it's the same residue as before, due only to the semolina-flour mix used to let the pizza slide easily on and off the peel.

In terms of flavour, yes the crust is a little bland, but it doesn't matter once the warm toppings (sauce, olive oil, cheese, veggies, pepperoni) hit your tongue. Then it's all goodness. The outer edges of the crust (pizza bones) are enjoyable enough, tastes like plain bread. Those who insist on something to accompany the bare crust can have those pizza dips that establishments like Dominos offer with your order. Ranch dressing, I think? A bit of cheese or hot sauce on the side?

Next time I might divide the dough into 5 balls. The risk then is the dough gets stretch too thin holes will form. Remember this is low salt with a short proofing time, so the dough will not be as strong and elastic.