Poolish for Pizza Dough Explained: Make Better Pizza
Some say baking is an art, others say it’s a science. I say it’s 100% both and making poolish for your favorite bread loaf or pizza is no exception. Poolish for Pizza dough is an easy way to upgrade your pizza making from good to great! Let’s find out what poolish is and how to use it effectively.
How I Discovered Poolish
I discovered the use of Poolish for pizza dough in my quest to make better pizza. Vito Iacopelli quickly became my pizza sensei after watching a few of his YouTube videos where he explains the how and the why behind pizza dough. He laid out exactly how to make restaurant-quality pizza at home in my own oven. Thanks to him, whenever we order pizza at a restaurant, my kids tell me, “It’s good, but yours is way better!”
Here is the secret: the foundation for excellent home pizza starts the night before with Poolish.
What is Poolish?
Poolish is a pre-fermented dough base used primarily in French baking. It is made ahead of time with water, flour, yeast, and sugar and it is left to ferment for 12-18 hours before use. This creates a light and airy bread with great flavor. Poolish is especially popular in French breads such as baguettes or pain de mie, but it can also be used in pizza or flatbread dough.
How Do I Use Poolish?
Poolish can be used for a wide variety of applications. It can be used as a starter for French bread, sourdough, pizza dough, flatbread, or even pancakes! In addition to providing great flavor and texture, it helps with fermentation and gives the dough a better rise. Poolish is especially popular in French baking, but it can also be used to make other types of baked goods such as focaccia and brioche.
How poolish is used varies by recipe, but a good rule of thumb is to use poolish instead of 1/3 of the flour and water a recipe calls. Because the poolish has yeast and has had time to proof, you shouldn’t need to add any more yeast to your recipe.
Poolish For Pizza Dough Ingredients
Poolish is made from equal parts water and flour by weight, with the addition of yeast and a sweetener to feed the yeast. Given time, poolish ferments and the yeast multiplies giving the final dough a delicious flavor and plenty of rise.
The quantity of poolish that you make depends on the recipe you are making. As a general rule, you want the flour in the poolish to be 1/3 of the total flour used in the recipe.
An example poolish for pizza dough recipe that I use to make three 12″ pizzas:
- 162g all-purpose flour
- 162ml water
- 3g instant yeast
- 3g honey
How do I calculate the volume of the Poolish ingredients?
Get ready for some baking theory, if you prefer to just look at a reference scroll down to the image that says “Make Better Pizza”. We can calculate the volume of each ingredient during each phase of making the dough based on the following principles:
- 1/3 of the total flour used goes in the poolish
- Poolish is 100% hydration dough (it is made of equal parts water and flour)
- Each pizza gets 3 grams of salt
- Yeast and Honey are both added to the poolish at .6% of the recipe’s total flour weight.
- A 12″ Pizza uses a dough ball that weighs 270g
- Final dough hydration should be 60-70%, I try for 65%.
The 6 Poolish principles explained
For those who really appreciate the “why”, let’s dig a little deeper into these 6 guiding principles for making poolish for pizza dough.
1. 1/3 of the Total Flour Used Goes in the Poolish
The poolish contains yeast, water, flour, and something sweet (I use Honey). The honey and flour feed the yeast allowing it to bloom and multiply. As the yeast eats the sugars and breaks down some of the flour, it produces some byproducts we call fermentation. This process is what gives the dough flavor and structure. It’s also what gives the pizza crust its fluffy texture.
The poolish, rich in fermented byproduct and yeast culture, becomes your yeast for the final dough recipe. No other yeast or leavening agent is required. Using the 1/3 principle helps to ensure that enough fermented starter and yeast will be present in the final dough to give it rise, rich flavor, and awesome texture.
2. Poolish is 100% Hydration Dough
By using equal parts water and flour, you are creating the optimal environment for the yeast to multiply and cause the beautiful fermentation we talked about in Principle 1.
3. Each Pizza Gets 3 Grams of Salt
Salt amplifies flavor when used correctly, but using it correctly may be different for different people or applications. Depending on the toppings you plan to use or the application for the dough, you can adjust this principle to your liking. I would suggest staying between 2 and 4 grams of salt per pizza dough ball.
I made 2 types of pizza last night and in that batch of pizza dough, I used 4 grams of salt per pizza. One type of pizza had pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, and pineapple. The other one had pizza sauce and was topped with fresh vegetables. Without the cheese and pepperoni, the 4 grams of salt was the right amount of salt in the dough. However, the pepperoni and pineapple pizza would have been better with 2 grams per pizza because of how much salt the cheese and pepperoni added to the final product.
4. Yeast and Honey are Both Added to the Poolish at .6% of the Recipe’s Total Flour Weight
The honey feeds the yeast, and the yeast ferments the poolish to give us the flavor and texture we want. For fermentation of 12-18 hours, using .6% of the total flour weight as our measurement for yeast and honey makes our poolish optimal for the final dough.
5. A 12″ Pizza Uses a Dough Ball That Weighs 270g
Like the salt, this is a metric that can come down to preference. My home oven, pizza peel, and pizza stone are all factors that dictate the size of the pizzas I can make. For me, 12-14 inches is a perfect pizza size. It can be cut on a conventional large cutting board, it fits in my oven, peel, and stone, and when you cut the pizza into 8 slices, a standard dinner plate can hold 2 slices and still have room for a salad.
Turns out that a 200g dough ball can also make a 12-inch pizza, be it with a much thinner crust. This is where the preference comes into play. How much dough you use per pizza will change the outcome, how crispy, how robust the crust is, how long it takes to cook, and the experience you get eating it. If you prefer a very thin-crust pizza, feel free to play with the recipe to make smaller dough balls.
270 grams of dough makes a classic Neapolitan-style 12″ pizza with a crust you can hold and a thin center that cooks through but still supports the toppings.
6. Final Dough Hydration Should be 60-70%, I Try For 65%
By creating the dough with a hydration of 65%, you will accomplish two things. The dough will be easy to work on a floured work surface. It won’t be sticky and it will be elastic allowing you to easily work the dough into the perfect pizza shape. The other thing it provides is a crust that’s light and fluffy on the inside, and crispy on the outside.
Let’s look at an example of making 5 pizzas:
To make 5 pizzas that are 12 inches, I need a total dough volume of 5 pizzas x 270g or 1350g.
Total Weight of Dough Minus the Salt
For the sake of accuracy, subtracting the salt allows your calculation to be more precise. We can’t calculate the weight of the yeast or honey yet because they are based on the weight of flour which requires hydration calculations. So let’s just subtract the salt and call it good.
1350g dough – 4g of salt per pizza (20g) = 1330g. This number represents the weight of flour and water in our recipe. How much flour and water is based on the hydration you desire for your dough.
Calculate the volume of flour and water for 65% hydration
While the algebra behind calculating the volume of each ingredient is complex, there is a simple hack I have been using for calculating flour and water volumes in my dough. If you divide your total dough volume by 1.65 you get the amount of water needed in milliliters to achieve 65% hydration.
Continuing from our example: 1330g of total dough weight divided by 1.65 = 806ml water.
Which means 1330g (dough) – 806ml water = 524g of flour. Now we know exactly how much flour and water we need, but how much of that goes in the poolish?
Calculate the Poolish Flour
Poolish for pizza dough uses 1/3 of the total flour in the recipe and it is 100% hydration. You can easily calculate how much flour and water go into the poolish and how much is reserved for later with this information. This is how:
524g x 1/3 = 175g of flour in the poolish which leaves 349g of flour to be added later.
Calculate the Yeast and Honey
.6% x 524g(total flour) = 3.1g yeast and 3.1g Honey
Dough ingredients for five pizzas:
Poolish: 175g flour, 175ml water, 3.1g yeast, 3.1g honey.
Dough: 631ml water, 349g flour, 20g salt
Download This Reference For An Easier Calculation
There are a handful of people who enjoyed nerding out on the maths of poolish for pizza dough, but for the rest of you who are like me, I have created a reference table. This table covers 1-15 Pizzas, 12″ in size at 65% hydration. It breaks down the ingredients by step giving you a clear path to pizza nirvana.
A Humble Tutorial: Poolish for Pizza Dough
Ingredients
Poolish Ingredients
- 54 ml water divided
- 54 g all purpose flour divided
- 1 g yeast
- 1 g honey
Dough Ingredients
- 3 g salt
- 51 ml water
- 108 g flour
Instructions
Make the Poolish
- Add all of the poolish ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk until combined. Cover and leave at room temperature for 1 hour.
- After 1 hour at room temperature, put the poolish into the refrigerator for 12-24 hours.
Make the Dough
- Take the poolish out of the refrigerator and add the water from the dough ingredients. Mix until thuroughly combined.
- Add half of the flour from the dough ingredients, stir until combined.
- Add the salt and the rest of the flour and continue stirring until a shaggy dough has formed.
- Turn out the bowl on a clean work surface and continue kneading the dough until a sticky ball has formed. Cover with the bowl and rest for 15 minutes.
- With olive oil on your hands, knead and work the dough for a minute or 2. Your goal is to finish with a smooth dough ball. Rest the dough for 30 minutes in an oiled bowl.
Divide the Dough
- If you are making more then 1 pizza, divide the dough into 270g dough balls and place them on a floured cookie sheet. Cover them with plastic wrap and rest them for 2 hours. Leave plenty of space for them rise. They could duble in size.
- Use these dough balls for making pizza or flatbread in your pizza oven or home oven with the toppings of your choice.
