Same-Day Straight Pizza Dough
by Ken Forkish
yield: 5x 340 gram dough balls, or roughly 4x store-sized portions of dough
bulk fermentation: ~6 hours
proof time: at least 90 minutes
ingredients:
1000g white AP or 00 flour
700g water at 90-95 degrees F (32-35 degrees C)
20g fine sea salt
2g yeast
1a. Hydrate the yeast: measure 700g of water at 90-95 degrees into a container. Put 2 grams (1/2 teaspoon) of yeast into a separate, small container. Add about 3 Tbsp of water to the yeast and set aside.
1b. Autolyse: Combine the 1000g of flour and the remaining water in a 12-quart round tub (or other large container with a cover). Mix by hand until just incorporated. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.
2. Mix: Sprinkle the 20g of salt over the top of the dough. Stir the bloomed yeast mixture with your finger, then pour over the dough. Use a small piece of the autolysed flour mixture to wipe the remaining yeast from its container, then throw it back into the tub.
Mix by hand, wetting your working hand lightly before mixing so the dough doesn't stick to you.
Reach underneath the dough and grab about one-quarter of it. Gently stretch this section of dough and fold it over the top to the other side of the dough. Repeat three more times with the remaining dough, until the salt and yeast are enclosed.
Using the pincer method, alternating with folding the dough, to fully integrate the ingredients. Cut and fold, cut and fold. The target dough temperature at the end of the mix is 77-78 degrees F.
3. Fold: This dough needs one fold, best applied 30-60 minutes after mixing. After folding, lightly coat the dough and the bottom of the tub in olive oil to help prevent sticking. Let rise. When the dough is about double its initial volume, roughly six hours after mixing, it is ready to be divided.
4. Divide: Moderately flour a work surface about 2 feet wide. With floured hands, gently ease the dough out of the tub. With your hands still floured, pick up the dough and ease it back down onto the work surface in a somewhat even shape. Dust the the entire top surface of the dough with flour, then cut into 5 (or however many) equal pieces with a dough knife or plastic dough scraper.
5. Shape: Shape each piece of dough into a medium-tight round, working gently and being careful not to de-gas the dough.
6. Refrigerate: Put the dough balls on a lightly floured baking sheet, leaving space between them to allow for expansion. Lightly oil or flour the tops, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for 30-60 minutes. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to make the dough easier to shape. Stored in the refrigerator and tightly covered, the dough will keep up to two days, and will continue to develop flavor over that time.
kvetcha's note: we skipped the refrigeration step when we first made the dough and it turned out just fine. we used half the dough the first day and the rest today, three days later. the leftover batch was a little harder to work (it needed to sit out about 45 minutes to warm up), but tasted great. we cooked on a baking steel preheated at 550 degrees F for an hour, running the broiler for about 10 minutes just before putting in the pizza and then returning the oven to 550, to get the steel up above 600 degrees.
Here's a
playlist of Ken Forkish going over his pizza method if you need some visual assistance.
I recommend his book!
