Dough · flour · time
A working school of pizza: Roman crispness, Neapolitan softness, flour strength, direct doughs, poolish, biga and the judgement that only repetition teaches.
A lifetime of pizzas
Pizza changes when flour, water, fermentation, shaping and oven temperature change. That is why this page does not chase one fashionable look. It compares styles and teaches the reasoning behind them, so you can decide whether you want crispness, tenderness, an open crumb, a thin base or a dramatic cornicione.
The film below is dedicated to a Roman-style round pizza with a flatter, more restrained edge. That is different from the very inflated rim associated with contemporary Neapolitan or canotto pizza. Classic Verace Pizza Napoletana is its own standard again.
The films
Two working films from the archive, side by side: the Roman-style dough and bake, followed by another hands-on pizza process from the kitchen.
Film 01
Film 02
Styles
Thin, crisp, restrained
The Roman round is rolled very thin and baked for a dry, audible crunch. The rim stays modest rather than ballooning. A practical reference formula sits around 55 to 58% hydration with a small amount of olive oil.
Roman tray and bakery styles
A different Roman branch: higher hydration, airy crumb, crisp base and a rectangular format that is cut rather than served as an individual round.
Soft, fragrant, fast baked
The AVPN standard uses a direct dough with flour, water, salt and yeast only. The classic cornicione is raised but restrained, with a soft center and a very fast bake.
Large, highly aerated rim
Modern Neapolitan practice often pushes hydration, fermentation and shaping toward a much more inflated cornicione. It is a different target from the Roman pizza in the film on this page.
Flour
“00” and “0” describe refinement and milling classification, not how strong a flour is. Two 00 flours can behave very differently. Protein tells you how much gluten-forming potential is present; W tells you how much work the dough can withstand; P/L describes the balance between resistance and extensibility.
W 180 to 240
Shorter fermentation, crisp and lower-hydration doughs
Useful when you do not need the flour to carry a long fermentation or very high hydration.
W 240 to 300
Classic pizza, direct doughs, medium fermentation
A broad working range for many traditional doughs. One widely used Neapolitan pizzeria flour, for example, is W 260 to 280 with 12.5% protein.
W 300 to 360
Longer fermentation, preferments, higher hydration
More tolerance for poolish, biga and extended cold fermentation when the process demands greater strength.
W 360+
Very strong flour, long schedules and demanding doughs
Not automatically better. Strength must match time, hydration and the texture you want, otherwise the dough can become unnecessarily tenacious.
Protein
Higher protein generally gives more gluten-forming potential. King Arthur, for example, lists 11.7% for its all-purpose flour and 12.7% for its bread flour.
W strength
W is a performance measurement, not the same thing as protein. One widely used pizzeria flour is 12.5% protein at W 260 to 280; a strong American-style flour from the same mill is 14.25% at W 360 to 380.
P/L
P/L describes the relationship between tenacity and extensibility. Many purpose-built pizza flours sit around 0.45 to 0.60, giving useful strength without fighting the pizzaiolo during opening.
Fermentation
Everything goes into one dough. It is the cleanest way to understand flour and fermentation because there is nowhere for technique to hide.
A wet preferment, commonly 100% hydration. It incorporates easily, develops aroma and can shorten the final mix. Ooni notes that poolish often contains 30 to 50% of the total flour.
A stiffer Italian preferment. It ferments more slowly and can bring a nutty aroma, strength and complexity. Stronger flour becomes especially useful as the schedule and hydration increase.
Teaching recipes
These are reference formulas for learning. Fermentation time is never independent of flour, yeast dose and temperature, so use the clock together with the dough itself.
Roman round
Ingredients
Method
Wet preferment
Ingredients
Method
Stiff preferment
Ingredients
Method
Direct dough · AVPN
Ingredients
Method
Paul’s pizza archive
Some of these pizzas are traditional, some playful, some restaurant work and some experiments. Together they show the point of the page: learn the rules, then understand what happens when you deliberately change them.
Chef’s development notebook
Two dough recipes developed over years of testing will live behind the existing DUKAI owner login. They can be refined privately in Studio and only moved into the public teaching library when Chef chooses to release them.
Open the private dough notebookReferences used for this teaching chapter