I hosted a dough hangout last week. No cooking, no agenda. I made one batch of 72-hour dough and spent the rest of the hour answering whatever people threw at me.
The questions were good. Good enough that I wanted them written down.
Here they are, grouped so you can skip to whatever you're stuck on.
But first, a correction.
I got something wrong on the call
I said something on Wednesday that I've been saying for years. Turns out I had the mechanism wrong, so let me fix it here.
I told you that a long ferment breaks down the glutens, and that's why this dough sits easier on people. The observation is right. The explanation isn't.
Here's what's actually going on. Wheat contains fructans, which are a type of carbohydrate, not a protein. They belong to a group called FODMAPs, and they're what a lot of people are genuinely reacting to when they say bread doesn't agree with them. Fermentation consumes fructans, and longer fermentation consumes more of them. That's well documented, and it happens with regular baker's yeast. It isn't a sourdough thing.
Gluten is a protein. Different molecule, different story, and a cold ferment doesn't do much to it.
Why does this matter? Because it finally explains something I've watched for years and couldn't account for. I've had customers tell me they can't handle gluten, then eat this dough with no trouble at all. I always credited the gluten breaking down. What was probably happening is that they were never reacting to gluten in the first place. They were reacting to fructans, and three days in the fridge took care of it.
That's a better answer than the one I gave you.
One thing I want to be completely clear about: none of this makes wheat safe for anyone with celiac disease. That's an autoimmune condition, not a sensitivity, and no amount of fermentation changes it. Please don't read this as anything else.
Want the whole thing?
Here's the full class, uncut. About an hour. I make a batch of dough from scratch in the first fifteen minutes and the rest is questions.
Everything below is the written version if you'd rather scan.
Flour
Which flour should I use?
Organic bread flour. I use Central Milling's high gluten bread flour, around 13.5% protein.
Here's the specific claim, and I'll stand on it. At 500 degrees, in a home oven, on a Baking Steel, with a three day ferment, I don't think there's a better flour made. That's the exact combination I've spent fourteen years dialing in, and I've made this dough thousands of times to get there.
It's an opinion, not a rule. But it's the reason that flour is what's in the 72-Hour Dough Mix. We didn't pick it on price.
High protein handles the long ferment. Organic tastes cleaner. And on a steel that's been preheating for an hour, it does something the other flours I've tried don't.
What about 00 flour?
00 is a great flour. It's finer, and it's milled for high heat, which is why you see it in wood-fired ovens running at 900 degrees.
For a home oven at 500 on a Baking Steel, I prefer bread flour. But there are people who'd take 00 over bread flour every time and they're not wrong. Try both. It's dealer's choice.
I use Caputo 00 at 12% protein. Any issues?
None. It's a good flour and I've used it plenty. At 12% it'll handle two or three days of fermentation just fine.
Where you'd notice a difference is on a longer ferment. More protein means more structure, and more structure means the dough holds up longer before the gluten gives out.
What about high gluten flour, 14.2%?
Even better for a long ferment. More gluten to start means more still standing on day three.
Does the protein percentage actually matter?
Yes, and here's the simplest way to think about it.
All-purpose runs around 10 or 11%. That's cookies and pies. Ferment all-purpose for two or three days and the gluten breaks down so far you can't stretch it without tearing holes.
Bread flour at 13% or high gluten at 14% gives you a stronger network to start with, so it survives the ferment. That's the whole difference.
Can I use fresh milled flour?
You can, but ease into it.
Fresh milled hydrates completely differently than store-bought, and you don't know the grind. So don't swap the whole 500 grams. Start with 50 grams of fresh milled and 450 grams of bread flour. That's 10%.
If it's great, go to 20% next time. Then 30%. You might find out it wants 85% hydration to behave like your usual dough does at 70%. That's worth knowing before you commit a whole batch.
Experimenting is the fun part.
Measuring
How much water?
70% hydration. Water divided by flour.
350 grams of water into 500 grams of flour equals 70%. Double it and it's 700 into 1000. Same percentage, any size batch.
That's baker's percentage, and it's why you can scale this recipe up or down without guessing.
How much salt?
16 grams per 500 grams of flour. That works out to 3.2%.
Most recipes call for 2 to 2.5%. I run a little higher, and that's from Jim Lahey's no-knead method, which I've never seen a reason to change.
Worth knowing what salt is doing in there. It seasons, obviously. But it also tightens the gluten and it slows the yeast down. That last part is why this dough can go three days and further without blowing out. Take the salt out and it ferments faster than you want and goes slack.
How much yeast?
One gram. Per 500 grams of flour, that's 0.2%.
It's a tiny amount and that's the point. Less yeast, more time.
Do I really need a digital scale?
Yes. Two of them, actually.
A regular kitchen scale for flour and water, and a micro scale for yeast. A standard scale rounds. It'll see 1.2 grams and tell you 2. It'll see half a gram and tell you 1. That's a big miss when you're measuring one gram.
A micro scale reads to a hundredth of a gram and costs about twenty dollars. Mine's ten years old, I've dropped it more than once, and it still works.
Can I convert this to cups and teaspoons?
You can make good dough that way. You'll have a hard time making consistently good dough.
The issue is hydration. You can't dial in 70% by volume, because a cup of flour is a different weight depending on how you scooped it. I could probably eyeball 65 to 75% by feel after enough practice, but I'd never hit a number exactly.
If you're going to do this more than once, get the scale.
Pro tip: the only dough math you need
Add up everything you put in the bowl. That's your total dough weight, and it doesn't change. Nothing evaporates in the fridge — what goes in is what comes out three days later.
500 grams flour
350 grams water
16 grams salt
1 gram yeast
867 grams total
Now divide by the size you want. 867 ÷ 3 gives you three balls at 289 grams, which makes three good 12 to 14 inch pizzas. 867 ÷ 4 gives you four at 217, which is on the small side.
That's it. That's the whole thing. And it works in reverse — if you know you want ten pizzas at 250 grams, that's 2,500 grams of dough, and you scale the recipe until it hits that number.
That reverse math is what our dough calculator does for you. Tell it how many and how big, it gives you the grams.
Mixing and kneading
Can I mix in a KitchenAid?
Absolutely. Just don't overmix.
I've got a floor mixer for big batches and when I'm running 30 doughs at once I set a timer for about 90 seconds. That's it. I'm looking for a shaggy dough with no dry flour left, nothing more.
Your KitchenAid is the same. Short and light.
Is there a proper kneading technique?
For this dough, kneading means pressing.
I turn it out and press it flat with my palm. I'm doing two things: getting rid of any dry clumps, and distributing the water evenly through the flour. Two to three minutes for a 500 gram batch is plenty.
You'll know it's hydrated when the texture changes and it gets genuinely sticky on your hands. That's the tell.
I can't get my dough to pass the window pane test. What am I doing wrong?
Nothing. You're testing at the wrong time.
The window pane test is stretching a piece of dough thin enough to see light through it without tearing. It tells you the gluten has developed. But right after mixing, this dough won't pass, and it isn't supposed to.
We're not building gluten with our hands. We're letting time do it. After 24 hours at room temperature and two days in the fridge, this dough passes that test on its own.
If you want to try it anyway, let the dough rest 30 minutes, fold it, rest again, then test.
Instant yeast or active dry?
I use Fleischmann's active dry. I don't bloom it.
Blooming is a step you don't need when you're fermenting for three days. Dump it straight into the flour and whisk it in.
One thing about the order: whisk the salt into the flour first, then whisk the yeast in separately. You don't want salt sitting directly against yeast.
For substituting one for the other, I'd go one for one. There's a conversion formula out there but at these quantities and this ferment length you won't notice.
Can I use fresh yeast?
I told you on the call I didn't know the conversion, and that was true. I haven't used fresh yeast at home in about ten years.
I looked it up after. Fresh yeast runs roughly three times instant by weight, and about twice active dry. So for this recipe, somewhere around 2 to 3 grams of fresh in place of 1 gram of active dry.
I haven't tested that myself. If you do, tell me how it goes.
Fermenting
Why 24 hours at room temperature before the fridge?
It gives the ferment a head start before the cold slows everything down.
Room temperature to me means 68 to 72 degrees. And when I say 24 hours I mean anywhere from 18 to 28. It's not precise.
You can also skip it entirely and go straight to the fridge. It'll still ferment, just slower. If I'm leaving town I'll do exactly that.
What if my kitchen is hot?
Cut the room temperature stage short. If it's 80 degrees in there, do 8 to 12 hours on the counter instead of 24, then get it into the fridge.
There's no precise science on humidity that I've tested. Use your judgment. Hotter kitchen, shorter counter time.
My house is cold and drafty in winter. Any tips?
Put it in your oven with the oven off. It's a box, and it's draft-free.
Some ovens have a proof setting, which is even better. And one of the folks on the call suggested turning the oven light on for a little extra warmth, which is a good trick.
You can buy a proofing box, but I wouldn't. The oven is right there.
What if it over-ferments?
Knock it down. Press the air out, re-ball it, and it's as good as new.
How long can I actually ferment this?
I've gone six and seven days with this flour and it was phenomenal.
Last week I made thin crust with two batches side by side, one day and six days. The one-day was good. The six-day was on another level. The flavor that develops over time is not something you can rush.
Seventy-two hours is the sweet spot. But don't be afraid of longer if you've got a strong flour.
Do I have to use it all at once?
No, and here's a habit worth getting into.
I always have dough in my fridge. When I mix a fresh batch and there's still some of the old one left, I fold the old into the new. Then that keeps going. It's a continuous cycle, and it means I'm never more than three hours from pizza.
I call it dough on demand. Once you're in the rhythm you won't go back.
Can I use this same dough for other styles?
This is the one I care most about. Yes.
This dough is the mother. Thin crust, puffy, pan pizza, focaccia, ciabatta, naan, pretzels. Same base recipe covers about 80% of what I make.
You change it by changing one thing at a time.
Want New York style? Add about 20 grams of olive oil after the dough is mixed and knead it in. The oil works its way into the gluten strands and lubricates them, and the texture shifts. Same ingredients otherwise.
Want something wetter and more open? Push the hydration up. Someone on the call mentioned running 80%, which is hard to shape but makes a phenomenal crumb, great for focaccia or ciabatta.
One recipe, a dozen results. That's the whole idea.
Should I use a poolish or biga?
I've done them and I'm not sold.
Here's my thinking. A pre-ferment means making dough two days in a row. You mix a small portion, let it go overnight, then mix a fresh batch and fold it in. Now a fraction of your dough has fermented and the rest hasn't. I wrote a little about poolish here, personally i think it's overrated.
Or you mix one batch, once, and ferment the whole thing for three days. Now all of it is fermented. One mix, one mess, one cleanup.
I can't find the advantage. If you've got experience that says otherwise, tell me, because I'd genuinely like to hear it.
There are world-class pizzaiolos who swear by the poolish method and they know things I don't. But I'm not running a restaurant. I'm not chasing consistency across 300 pizzas a night. I can ferment for days and control my environment. Different problem, different answer.
Storing, freezing, and moving dough
How do I freeze dough?
Ball it first, then freeze immediately after balling. That's the whole trick, and I've tested this a lot.
Mix the dough, give it a day, ball it up, and freeze the balls right away. They hold well for 30 to 45 days.
To use them: fridge overnight to thaw, then three or four hours at room temperature before you bake.
If you know from the start that a batch is headed for the freezer, sneak in a little extra yeast, maybe 2 grams instead of 1. Freezing kills some of it off.
And label it with the date. You'll want to know.
How do I transport dough five hours in a car?
Depends what stage it's in.
If it's still in bulk, a sealed dough container is fine. It can get knocked around and it doesn't matter.
If it's already balled, keep it flat. Your car seats are tilted, so put the container on the passenger side floor. That's the flattest surface in the car. We offer a pretty cool dough container, and its what i personally use at home and my studio....
The other option, and I love these: two-cup deli containers. Leak-proof, lidded, and one holds a 250 to 300 gram dough ball perfectly. Oil the sides, the bottom, and the lid, drop the ball in, and go.
Bonus, those same containers are great for prepping toppings before a pizza party. Show up, set your station, done.
Can I proof dough in a bowl?
Sure. I made a batch yesterday in an aluminum bowl covered with plastic wrap and it's perfect.
Plastic wrap works better than a damp towel, which is what I used to do. Towels get linty and stick to the dough.
If you've got a bowl with a lid, even better.
Can I use the dough containers for other food?
Yes. Food-safe plastic, and it won't absorb odors. I use mine for toppings all the time.
Other ovens
I'm getting crispy bottoms on the grill but no rise. What's wrong?
Nothing's wrong. A grill and a home oven are different tools.
A home oven convects. A grill doesn't, not the same way. So you'll get a great bottom and a different top, and you should expect that rather than fight it.
What I do outside is treat it more like flatbread. Stretch the dough, lay it on the oiled steel, let it sear a minute, flip it, then top it right there on the grill and close the lid so the toppings melt gently. It's excellent. It's just not the same pizza.
My grill hits 800 degrees. Why is my pizza burning?
Because it's 800 degrees.
This is probably the most common email I get. People assume hotter is better because wood-fired ovens run hot. But a wood-fired oven convects differently, and stone transfers heat differently than steel.
Steel moves heat into dough faster than anything else. That's the whole point of it. At 800 degrees on a steel, the water gets pulled out of the dough instantly, it sticks, and it burns. I've done it.
Outside, start around 350 to 400 for a traditional style pizza. If something's burning, it's too hot. There's nothing else to it.
Can I use a Baking Steel inside a wood-fired oven?
Yes, and I love it. It means I don't have to get the oven as hot.
My method: put the steel on one side of the oven, launch onto the steel for the first minute to get that bottom sear, then move the pizza onto the stone to finish and launch the next one onto the steel.
We've also made custom steels for professional deck ovens. A pizzeria that was pulling pizzas at 10 minutes on stone gets down to seven or eight on steel. Multiply that by 250 pizzas a day and it changes the whole night.
The recipe
500 grams organic bread flour 350 grams water, room temperature 16 grams fine sea salt 1 gram active dry yeast. Click here for the full write up on the recipe.
Whisk the salt into the flour. Whisk the yeast in separately. Add the water and mix with a scraper until shaggy. Turn it out and press it for two to three minutes until there are no dry clumps and it turns sticky.
Back in the container, lid on. Twenty-four hours at room temperature, then into the fridge.
Three days later you've got dough that's three hours away from pizza any night of the week. I call it dough on demand, and once you're in the habit you won't go back.
One batch gives you three good 12 to 14 inch pizzas at around 289 grams each. I usually double it, which gets me seven balls at 250 grams.
We're doing another one of these in August. If you've got a dough question I didn't cover, email me directly — andris@bakingsteel.com. I read all of them.
About the Author
Andris Lagsdin invented the Baking Steel in 2012 at his family's steel plant in Hanover, Massachusetts, after reading that a slab of steel would outperform what everyone was baking on. He cut the first one himself. It went up on Kickstarter that August, got picked up by Kenji López-Alt at Serious Eats, and fourteen years later every Baking Steel is still made in that same shop and seasoned by hand.
Before that he trained under Todd English and spent fifteen years in the family steel business. He co-wrote Baking with Steel with Jesse Olson Moore, and he's taught thousands of people to make pizza at home through free online classes he still runs himself.
He answers his own email.
