How much yeast for pizza dough?

Less yeast and more time: that's the rule of long-fermented pizza. But how little is "less"? The charts below are for a dough of four 250 g balls at 65% hydration: 596 g of flour, 387 g of water and 16.7 g of salt. The last column gives the yeast per kilo of flour, so you can scale it to your dough.

All at room temperature, 22 °C (72 °F)

All at room temperature, 18 °C (64 °F)

With the fridge (half the hours at 4 °C, the rest at 22 °C)

Reading the charts

• Temperature matters as much as hours. At 18 °C you need about two thirds more yeast than at 22 °C for the same hours. In a 26 °C summer kitchen you need even less.
• The fridge slows almost everything down. Hours in the fridge add little rise: that's why 48 hours, half of them cold, need about as much yeast as 24 hours all at room temperature.
• Dry or fresh. Instant dry yeast is about 40% of the fresh amount. Active dry yeast needs dissolving in water first.
• Less than a gram. With long fermentation the yeast is tiny: weigh it on a 0.01 g scale, or dissolve a larger amount in water and use part of it.

What about sourdough?

With a sourdough starter the amounts are much higher (often 10–20% of the flour) and depend on how lively it is. MasterPIZZA handles it, stiff or liquid: pick the yeast type and the amount is recalculated.

For your own dough

The charts are a starting point. Change the balls, hydration or temperature, or add a biga, and the yeast changes: the app works it out for your exact hours, and the guide tells you when to do each step.

Let MasterPIZZA do the maths

Pick your dough balls, hours and temperature: the app gives you the amounts to the gram and guides you step by step, with alerts. Free for Android.

Get it on Google Play ↗

More guides

• Biga: what it is and how to make it
• Pizza dough hydration