A four years ago, I sat with a well known producer of flour from Italy. We discussed the various options in making pizza dough, water mixtures and use of yeast, sugar or other extracts.

It was determined by their laboratory that when making pizza dough, the final temperature of the dough before fermentation is usually between 25 and 29 °C. The final temperature is affected by the room temperature (RT), flour temperature (FT), water temperature (WT) and mixing friction (MF).

In order to achieve the desired dough temperature (DDT) the only factor you can control is the water temperature. In order to determine what the water temperature needs to be to achieve the DDT, you can use the following equation:

WT = 3x DDT – (RT + FT + MF)

Let’s assume the actual dough temperature (ADT) is 27 °C, the room temperature (RT) is 25 °C, the flour temperature (FT) is 15 °C and the water temperature (WT) is 15 °F.

The mixing friction depends on your specific mixer and the speeds at which you mix the dough. I use a kitchen aid and on slow speeds. So you will need to make a test batch of dough beforehand and use a probe and thermometer to measure the actual dough temperature (ADT) of the test batch.

Using this equation we calculate the mixing friction.

3 x 27 – (25 + 15 + 15) = 26