This fermented pizza dough is delicious! This will be your new go to pizza dough from now on.

This recipe does take some planning ahead to get the fermentation time. But hey, if you are sitting around watching Thursday night football, now is the perfect time to put together this dough at the beginning of the game to have pizza on Sunday.

What’s in this Article?

• Preparation for Fermentation
• Why Ferment Pizza Dough?
• Improved Texture and Flavor
• Easier to Digest
• The Accidental Experiment
• Results
• Recipe

Preparation for Fermentation

Have the dough ferment for the next three days and you will have individual pizzas to enjoy while you watch the games on Sunday! You will be glad you did!

Since the pizza dough cooks within a few minutes. The most time you will probably spend on cooking on Sunday will be setting up the pellet smoker or grill with a pizza stone and waiting for the coals to get up to temperature.

You can still watch the games in between the steps of getting the grill ready.

Prep the toppings a day ahead. You will be ready pop those pizzas on the grill at halftime AND you will be sitting down to watch the second half with a hot pizza in your hand.

Why Ferment Pizza Dough?

Neapolitan Pizzas may have been one of the first fermented pizza doughs but the fermenting foods goes back thousands of years. Neapolitan style dough is made similar to this recipe but many times the fermentation time is well less than 72 hours.

The ingredients in many pizza doughs are simple just as they are in this recipe. Avoid putting olive oil in this dough, the high heat in the Kamado Joe cooking process can cause the crust to burn before it gets cooked.

Improved Texture and Flavor

Fermented dough provides you with an improved texture and flavor of the crust. The process of fermentation happens when yeast breaks down sugars in the dough which creates gasses (carbon dioxide and alcohol).

Easier to Digest

In turn, this process leaves you with a more flavorful crust. This process provides the finished dough with more air holes, lighter and easier to digest.

Cold fermenting in the refrigerator slows down the process which gives the yeast time to break down the carbohydrates making the necessary gases to provide the flavorful lighter pizza dough.

The fermentation process actually makes the dough easier to stretch.

The Accidental Experiment

When I made the two batches of dough for the video below, I mistakenly grabbed a rapid acting yeast for the first batch of dough. When I realized the mistake, I changed to the regular dry active yeast on the second batch.

Knowing the batches would be different, I figured it would be a good experiment to see how the two yeasts act in this recipe and see how the finished product of the dough compares between the two.

After the first 24 hour fermentation on the kitchen counter, the dry active yeast had risen some but not dramatically. On the other hand, the fast acting yeast had risen to the top of 1/2 gallon container I had used and it was beginning to push the lid off.

I quickly knocked down the fast acting yeast dough back down slightly to be able to close the lid. I placed both doughs in the refrigerator to slow the rise and fermentation. Refrigeration slows the process of a dough rise.

I let both doughs ferment the additional 48 hours in the refrigerator. After the 48 hours, I pulled them out and continued the process of forming the dough balls and then rested the doughs in the refrigerator.

At this point in the video you can see the 4 fast acting yeast dough balls on the sheet pan are visibly bigger than the second batch with the dry active yeast.

Results

When forming the dough into pizza crust, the fast acting yeast pizza dough was more temperamental when stretching as well as baking, one of the doughs I had stretched thinner and got stuck on the stone and tore when moving the pizza.

Those 4 dough balls made into pizzas reacted differently in the cooking process. Some puffed up a lot more than others and some were inconsistent where they raised around the crust.

The dough balls with the dry active yeast were great to work with. They were easy to stretch and gave enough tension to avoid getting too thin. The pizzas cooked consistently and browned evenly.nI recommend to avoid using the fast acting yeast when making this recipe.

The slower acting yeast provided a nice texture to the dough and made it easy to stretch, provided a flavorful, light crust.

Enjoy!

Cold Fermented 48-72 Hour Pizza Dough (V)

No ratings yet

Print Recipe

Course: Dinner, Entree, Lunch, Main, Party

Cuisine: American, Italian

Keyword: Cold, Comfort Food, Dough, Easy, Easy to make, Ferment, Grill, Kamado Joe, Pizza, Pizza Oven, Recipe, Vegetarian

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Fermenting time: 3 days days

Total Time: 3 days days 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 servings

Author: Chef Tony Zentgraf

Making pizza dough at home couldn't be easier!

Plan ahead and get the maximum fermentation and it will deliver a light flavorful crust.

See notes at bottom regarding baking times.

Pin Recipe Share on Facebook

Tried this recipe?Mention @culinaryseasons or tag #culinaryseasons!

Recipe Multiplier

.5x1x2x3x

• ▢ 17 oz Flour (weight) or approx 3 3/4 cups - = 525 grams by weight
• ▢ 1 ⅔ cups Water - = 325 grams by weight
• ▢ ¼ tsp Dry Active Yeast (not fast acting or rapid rise)
• ▢ 1 ½ tsp Kosher Salt
• ▢ 2 tbsp Olive Oil

Instructions

Mixing the Dough

• Weigh out the flour and water separately on a scale to the appropriate weight in Grams.
• In a bowl, add the flour, dry yeast and salt. Mix to incorporate the yeast and salt into the flour.
• Add the water in three parts, mixing the flour with a spatula.
• Once the last amount of water is added, turn out the dough onto a floured surface.
• Kneed for 1-2 minutes to ensure that there are no flour pockets in the dough and the dough comes together.

  **Because the dough will ferment for up to 72 hours total, excessive kneading is not necessary.
• Use olive oil a bowl or container for the dough to ferment in.

Fermenting the Dough

• Place the dough into the oiled container. Cover with plastic wrap or cover for the container.

  Ensure the container is large enough for the dough to possibly double over the next 72 hours.
• For the first 24 hours, leave the pizza dough in the container on the kitchen counter in a warm location.

  The dough will rise some over the first 24 hours.
• The next day, place the container of the dough in the refrigerator for another 48 hours.

  (The dough can be used after only 48 hours of fermentation but an additional 24 hours of fermentation to get to 72 hours is ideal for maximum flavor. It can go as long as 96 hours, this will expand the flavor even further)
• After the dough has rested in the refrigerator for the additional 48 hours. The dough should have risen to double the original size.

Forming the Dough and Dividing

• Flour a cutting board and flour your hands. Remove the dough from the container. The top of the dough will most likely have grayish fermentation spots. Turn the dough over so the drier spotted top is facing down.
• Stretch the dough from the top underneath to form a dough ball. Continue working your way around pulling and pinching the dough underneath.
• Once you have the dough formed into a ball, place on the cutting board and use the pams of your hands to continue to form into a ball. (See Video)
• Divide the dough ball into quarters.
• Repeat the process with each smaller dough ball. Stretching the dough from the top underneath and pinching on the bottom. Working around until it makes a ball.
• Place the dough ball on the floured surface and work it into a ball.
• Place the dough balls on a floured sheet pan and cover.

Resting the Dough

• Let the dough balls rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour but 2-3 would be idea.

  This will allow the dough to relax so it will be easier to stretch the dough when making the pizza.
• 3 hours before you will be making the pizzas remove from the dough from refrigeration.

  Place the dough on the counter, this will allow the dough to come to room temperature and proof as well.

Forming the Crust

• Flour a cutting board.
• With the dough ball in your hands flatten into a disc.
• Once you get the dough flattened and have worked your hands around the crust begin to stretch the dough.

  As you are holding the dough, use the tips of your fingers to pull the dough from the center underneath the dough.

  Turning the dough as you reset to pull from the center again.
  
• When you get the dough stretched into a circle. Place the dough on the floured surface.
• Using the palms of your hands, work the dough by continuing to stretch the dough as you turn the dough on the cutting board to keep the dough round.
• Once you get to a thickness of approximately ¼", the pizza dough is ready to assemble.

  Enjoy!

Video

Notes

• Kamado Joe DoJoe temperature was approximately 650° when cooking the pizzas.
• This dough works well in the DoJoe pizza attachment for Kamado Joe.
• Oven temperature set at 500° in ovens the time will most likely extend the bake time even if cooking on a pizza stone.
• If you are using a pizza stone or tiles in the oven let the oven come to temperature and let the stone heat for 30 minutes before baking pizzas.
• Other pizza setups such as OONI or other pizza ovens, you will have to gage the temperature and time for your setup.