🇮🇹 Neapolitan Pizza Calculator

Neapolitan Dough Specs

True Neapolitan pizza (AVPN-certified: Vera Pizza Napoletana) follows tight rules. The dough is four ingredients: Tipo 00 flour, water, salt, and fresh yeast. No oil, no sugar. Hydration sits between 60 and 65%. Salt is 2.5-3% of flour weight. Yeast is tiny — around 0.1% fresh yeast for a 24h cold ferment, less for longer.

Tipo 00 flour has a very fine grind and moderate protein (around 11-12.5%). Caputo Cuoco and Pizzeria are the two standards. Bread flour works as a backup but gives a chewier, less delicate crumb. The distinctive puffy cornicione (rim) comes from the high-temperature bake and the way the W-value flour holds CO2 during the short ferment.

What Makes a Neapolitan Unique

Two things: the leopard-spotted cornicione and the soft centre. You get those from a wood or gas oven above 400°C, which puts char on the crust in under 90 seconds while leaving the middle wet enough to sag in the classic "fold the slice" test. Most home ovens max out at 250-300°C, which is why a pizza steel or dedicated pizza oven (Ooni, Roccbox, Effeuno) makes such a difference for this style.

Toppings stay minimal. Crushed raw San Marzano tomatoes, fior di latte or buffalo mozzarella in hand-torn pieces, a drizzle of olive oil, fresh basil. The goal is balance: too much moisture and the base goes soggy before it sets, too little and the bake dries out the middle.

Cold Ferment Matters Here

The short bake doesn't develop flavour on its own. The 24-72h cold ferment is where Neapolitan pizza gets its taste. Dough balls sit in sealed containers in the fridge at 4°C. Enzymes break down starches into sugars (which feed browning) and proteins into peptides (which feed flavour). After 48h the dough smells nutty. After 72h it smells like beer bread.

Pull the balls out 2-3 hours before baking so they warm up. Cold dough doesn't stretch — it tears. See the cold fermentation guide for the yeast adjustments per time window.

Neapolitan Recipes

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