When you start making pizza at home for the first time, you will focus on the toppings for your pizza. However, you must also focus on teh dough. The dough is essential for making pizza, and the ratio of water to flour will determine how the dough behave and how the crust of your pizza taste.
This ratio is known as an hydration level of the dough. The hydration level of your dough will determine the type of crust that your pizza will have, will it be thin and snappy, or will it have an airy crust with holes in it? There are four hydration ranges that will determine the type of crust for your pizza.
How Much Water to Use in Pizza Dough
Low hydration dough will result in a crust that is crisp and dense. Medium hydration crusts will be in the middle of the range and result in good texture with appropriate chew and color. High hydration dough will create an open crust with leopard spotting on the edges of the pizza.
Finally, ultra high hydration dough will create a slack dough that cant be kneaded, resulting in a focaccia-type texture. Water is a necessary ingredient for activating the gluten in the flour. However, water also act as a lubricant for the gluten.
By adding more water to the dough, the gluten strands will be able to stretch further before they break. This will result in the formation of larger air pockets in the dough. Conversely, adding less water to your dough will leave the gluten strands tight.
There is no ideal hydration level for dough. The ideal hydration level will depend on the type of crust you want your pizza to have and the amount of time you want to spend managing the dough during the baking process. The type of flour that you use will also impact the hydration level of the dough.
Dough made with bread flour will hold more water than dough made with all-purpose flour. The temperature and humidity of the kitchen also play a role in the hydration level of your dough. Higher humidity will make the dough feel more wet than if it had the same percentage of hydration.
Always use a kitchen scale to measure the ingredients. By weighing your ingredients, you will achieve the most accurate result with your dough. Adding flour will change the hydration level of the dough.
A small amount of dough will change the hydration level of your dough more than you would expect. If you are using dough with a high hydration level, you must change how you knead the dough. You will need to avoid kneading this type of dough.
Instead, use gentle stretch and folds to develop the strength of the gluten in the dough. Another solution to high hydration dough is to use cold fermentation. By leaving your dough in the refrigerator for one or two days, you will allow time for the yeast to slow down and the enzymes to fully develop the flavor of the crust.
Additionally, cold fermentation will firm your dough so it is more easy to shape. The four ingredient that go into making pizza are flour, water, yeast, and salt. Flour provides the structure of your crust, and the type of flour will determine how much water your dough can absorb.
Water will determine the texture of the dough and the rate at which the dough ferment. If you increase the fermentation time of the dough, you should decrease the amount of yeast. Salt will strengthen the gluten in the dough and add flavor to your pizza, but it will slow the activity of the yeast.
If the pizza dough has common problem, such as being too dry or if you have added too much flour to the dough while shaping the pizza, there are a few fixes. Adding flour to the pizza dough to counteract it’s stickiness will change the hydration level of the dough. Any alteration of the hydration level of the dough will move it away from the target hydration level needed to produce the desired dough texture.
If your dough is not easily compatible with your hands, dont add more flour to it. Instead, allow it to rest while you refrigerate the pizza dough or leave it out on the counter for the dough to become easier to handle. With an understanding of the different hydration level, you can adjust the hydration level of the dough up or down to produce the type of pizza crust you want to eat.
