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Checklists / Pizza Parlor & Pizzeria / Dough, Proofing & Cold Fermentation

Pizza Parlor & Pizzeria Dough, Proofing & Cold Fermentation Checklist

Dough is the one product a Pizza Parlor & Pizzeria makes from scratch and cannot mark down, bundle or recover - a ball outside its window is 100% loss with a stockout attached. These 9 checks cover mixing to the recipe card, scaling every ball, holding the proof window, and counting what you discard. The numbers come from the AVPN rulebook (8–24 hours at 23°C/73°F, 200 g balls for a 22–24 cm pie) and from lab tests on how dough actually changes hour by hour.

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The checklist · 9 checks

Mix and weigh dough balls to spec

1. Weigh flour, water, salt, and yeast to the recipe card every time you mix dough.Water content between 55–62%, with salt and yeast measured per liter of water, is what makes a good bake happen again and again. Dough you guess at by eye is a different product every day.
2. Weigh every dough ball. Use 200 g for a 22–24 cm pizza, and 280 g for a 28–35 cm pizza.If every dough ball is 10 g too heavy across a thousand pizzas, you give away flour, work time, and oven time for free. If a ball is too light, you get a remade pizza.
3. Label every dough box with the mix time and the time by which you must use it.An unlabeled box means you are guessing when you pick up the dough. Guessing is how good dough gets thrown out, and over-proofed (blown) dough gets baked by mistake.

Proof the dough within its time window

4. Let the dough rise at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours, at about 23°C (73°F).This is the set time window for Neapolitan-style dough. Outside this window, you are baking a different dough than your recipe expects.
5. Write down the dough cooler (retarder) temperature at open and close. Keep it at 2–5°C (36–41°F).If the dough cooler (retarder) temperature drifts overnight, it can push the whole day's dough past its safe window. One failure affects every dough ball.
6. Always pull the oldest dough box first. Nothing skips ahead in line.If you grab the newest box during a rush, the old box sits too long and goes bad. Using the oldest stock first (FIFO) is the only thing that stops a full rack from ending up in the trash.
7. Test the dough by hand before service. If it is past its time window, use it for staff meals or throw it out. Do not put it on the peel.The gluten in dough weakens after the time window passes. The dough gets slack, tears easily, and will not hold a topping load. Over-proofed dough tears, bakes flat, and comes back as a remade order.

Track dough loss as a number

8. Count the dough balls you throw away each shift. Write down why (over-proofed, torn, too old, or dropped).No one publishes a dough waste rate for pizza shops. This log gives you your own number. Dough waste is the cheapest waste to cut.
9. Base tomorrow's dough mix on how much dough you actually used today, not on habit.Prep waste - not spoiled food or plate waste - makes up 45% of food waste in restaurants. Mixing too much dough is where a pizza shop's share of that waste starts.

Frequently asked questions

How long should pizza dough be proofed?

The AVPN rulebook sets the second rise of balled dough at a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 24 hours at 23°C (73°F). In a lab test, Neapolitan dough at 22°C (72°F) and 80% relative humidity showed its firmness (compression work) rise roughly five-fold by 4 hours, while its springiness (relaxation) fell to 79.7%. By 48 hours, firmness had fallen back to 7.65 J and springiness had risen to 85.2% - a sign the gluten (the stretchy protein in dough) had measurably weakened past the window. Dough volume tripled at around 30 hours, and 16-hour dough handled heat the best. That window is a room-temperature rule at 23°C (73°F), and it is about quality, not food safety. For cold fermentation there is no published number at all: no regulator sets a maximum hold time for dough at 2–5°C (36–41°F), and no spoilage data exists for dough held 24–72 hours in a retarder, which this pack records as an open gap in the evidence. Set your own retarder window from your recipe and your own discard log, and label every box with it.

What temperature should a dough retarder be set to?

2–5°C (36–41°F), logged at open and close. That range sits inside the 0–5°C (32–41°F) range for keeping food cold (cold holding) that inspection data punishes most often - 826 of 1,607 pizza places in NYC records have been cited for cold food held above 41°F (5°C). A retarder that drifted overnight does not spoil one box, it ferments the entire next day's dough past its window: one equipment failure, every ball.

How much dough does a typical pizzeria waste?

Nobody knows, and that is a genuine gap. We searched for a published figure on the percentage of dough balls discarded for over-proofing, blowing or aging out of the cold-fermentation window, and found nothing - WRAP and ReFED report sector-level waste but never break out dough. What is measured is the size of the surrounding problem: preparation accounts for 45% of hospitality food waste, and UK restaurants wasted over 20% of the weight of food they purchased. Counting discards by reason each shift gives you your own number within about two weeks.

More Pizza Parlor & Pizzeria checklists

Receiving DeliveriesOpening & Turning On the OvenMaking Pizzas, Portioning & BakingDelivery, Carryout & Keeping Food HotClosing, Waste & Food CostWeekly Checks

One free app has all of them: open the Pizza Parlor & Pizzeria Checklists app - offline, no account, add it to your home screen.

Sources

Every statistic on this page comes from public inspection and food-safety data:

This is the manual version
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