Coalmont, Tennessee
The dough
We learned this in a masterclass from a family who have run the same pizzeria in Naples for nearly a hundred years. In all that time one thing about their dough has changed: they use an electric mixer now. Everything else is what it was.
We are firm believers that without great dough and great sauce, a pizza can never be great. Toppings cannot rescue bad dough. So we spend an unreasonable amount of time on both, and this page is about the dough.
Four ingredients
Dough is flour, water, yeast and salt. Those same four things, in different proportions and handled differently, will give you a baguette, a ciabatta, a pita, or several different styles of pizza.
Part of it is the ratio. Most of it is the process.
Ours is a high-hydration dough, between 63 and 66 percent water to flour. There is a reason our hydration varies. A brick-and-mortar kitchen holds its room at one temperature and humidity all year; a food truck cannot, so we move the hydration with the season to end up in the same place.
The flour is imported 00. The only thing not on that list of four is a few grams of honey in the poolish, which is there to get the yeast going.
Thirty-eight hours
Start to stretch. Usually longer.
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01
The poolish
12 to 16 hours
Equal weights of flour and water, a little yeast, and a few grams of honey to wake the yeast up. It sits overnight and does nothing you can see for the first few hours. What it is doing is making flavor. The yeast works slowly through the flour and leaves behind a faint sweetness and a light tang, and there is no way to add either of those from a jar.
Overnight, and it has come alive. 
The same poolish, seconds later, going in. -
02
The mix
about 20 minutes
The poolish goes into the mixer with more flour, more water and the salt. It starts as a shaggy mess that looks like a mistake. A spiral mixer works it until the gluten builds, and the same dough comes out smooth, slack and strong enough to stretch thin without tearing.
A few minutes in. 
Same bowl, same dough, gluten built. -
03
Bulk ferment
about 2 hours
The whole batch rests together on the table before it is divided. This is where the dough relaxes and the fermentation from the poolish carries through the rest of it.
One batch, resting before it is divided. -
04
Balled by hand, then room temperature
3 to 6 hours
Every ball is shaped by hand and set in a dough pan. How long they sit out depends on the day. A building holds one temperature all year. A food truck cannot, so the timing moves with the weather and we watch the dough rather than the clock.
Balled by hand, one at a time. -
05
Cold ferment
12 hours, usually much longer
Into the fridge. Cold slows the yeast down and lets the flavor keep developing without the dough overproofing. Our process runs 32 to 38 hours end to end, and we generally leave it longer, because the dough is better at 48 hours than it is at 36.
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06
Warm up, stretch, fire
90 minutes, then 90 seconds
The dough comes out and warms for an hour and a half to two hours. Then it waits for your order. We stretch it by hand, build the pizza, and it goes into the wood-fired oven. What you get when it comes out is soft in the middle, with the perfect amount of chew, and a little crispy crunch on the outside.
Thirty-eight hours, torn open.
The short version
- Flour
- Imported 00
- Hydration
- 63 to 66 percent, by season
- Preferment
- Poolish, 12 to 16 hours
- Total time
- 32 to 38 hours minimum
- Usually
- 48 hours or more
- Shaped
- Balled and stretched by hand
Questions we get
Why does it take two days?
Because flavor takes time and there is no shortcut for it. A dough mixed and used the same day can be perfectly good bread, but it tastes mostly of flour. The long ferment is what gives the crust its faint sweetness and its slight tang.
What is a poolish?
A preferment. Equal weights of flour and water with a little yeast, left to ferment before it becomes part of the final dough. It is a cousin of a sourdough starter, and the difference is worth knowing: a starter usually has no added yeast at all, because it catches its own from the flour and the air, and you keep it and feed it. A poolish gets yeast added, it is made fresh each time, and all of it goes into the batch.
Why is the middle of a Neapolitan pizza soft?
Because it is supposed to be. A high-hydration dough hits a very hot wood-fired oven and some of the water in it turns to steam. The steam expands fast, and that is what blows the big bubbles into the rim and puffs the edge in a minute and a half. The bake is quick enough that the center never dries out. It is not underdone. If you want it firmer, ask us and we will leave it in a little longer.
Is the dough vegan?
No. A few grams of honey go into the poolish to get the yeast started. Everything else is flour, water, yeast and salt.
None of this is visible on a menu. You cannot taste a hydration percentage or see thirty-eight hours. You can taste the difference it makes, which is the only reason any of it is worth doing.
We are out several days a week across Tennessee, from Nashville to Chattanooga and Fayetteville to Crossville. Come and find us.
If you are wondering how a dough this slow works at a wedding for two hundred people, that is written up separately.