Reference
6 guides tagged Reference
Explainer
Pizza Flour Protein Content: The Published Numbers, and the Two We Could Not Get
King Arthur publishes a protein ladder running from 8 percent for pastry flour to 14.2 percent for high-gluten, and Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies Pizza Napoletana flour at 11 to 12.5 g percent protein. But the Italian system specifies strength, not just protein, which is why an American protein number alone cannot tell you what a flour will do. Below: both specifications in full, Caputo's own figures, and two numbers we went looking for and could not find.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Salt and Yeast Ratios: Both Published Figures, and the Thirtyfold Gap
Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies 50 to 55 g of sea salt and a flat 3 g of brewer's yeast per litre of water. The AVPN's own website recipe specifies 40 to 60 g of salt and 0.1 to 3 g of fresh yeast, which is a thirtyfold range for the yeast inside one document family. Below: both figures converted to baker's percentages with the division shown, what salt is actually doing, and why the yeast range is that wide.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
How Much Dough Per Pizza: The Weight Table, With the Arithmetic Shown
Roughly 1.2 to 1.7 g of dough per square inch of finished pizza, which puts a 12 inch pizza at about 137 to 190 g. That band is our own arithmetic, derived from Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, which specifies dough balls of 180 to 250 g for a pizza of no more than 35 cm. Below: the full table by size with the area column visible so you can check the working, plus the disagreement between the EU regulation and the AVPN's own recipe.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Hydration Explained: The Sourced Numbers, and What Each Band Does
Neapolitan dough runs 55.6 to 62.5 percent hydration, a figure derived from the AVPN's specified ratio of 1 litre of water to 1,600 to 1,800 g of flour, while Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 fixes a single 55.6 percent by specifying 1 litre of water to 1.8 kg of flour. Hydration is nothing more mysterious than water weight divided by flour weight. Below: the division itself, a sourced hydration table by style, and the part that actually helps, which is what each band does to your bake.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
The Pizza Oven Database: 66 Ovens, Every Spec Sourced, Nothing Guessed
One sortable reference table for every pizza oven we can verify, with a provenance marker on every figure so you can tell a certified rating plate from a marketing claim. Includes two numbers nobody else publishes: dollars per square inch of pizza, and burner output per square inch of pizza. Where a spec is genuinely unpublished we print "not published" and leave the arithmetic blank rather than fill the gap with a guess.
Read the guide →16 min
Explainer
Pizza Oven Temperature and Cook Time Chart: The Sourced Reference
The two documents that formally define Neapolitan pizza state the floor and dome temperatures in opposite order. The AVPN puts the cooking surface at 380 to 430°C and the dome at 485°C. The EU regulation puts the floor at 485°C and the dome at 430°C. Below: the full temperature and cook-time chart by style with every figure attributed, plus why your infrared thermometer and your oven's gauge will never agree.
Read the guide →17 min