Ooni Pizza Dough Recipe Guide: Neapolitan, Frozen & GF (2026)

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Ooni publishes four separate dough formulas rather than one, and the version that fits your pizza night comes down to your timeline: a 3 to 4 hour same-day Classic, a 65% hydration Neapolitan-style dough built for a long cool ferment, a 24 to 72 hour cold-proof batch, and a one-hour Quick dough for nights that were not planned. Dough ball weight and stone temperature then follow the oven you bake in, and the Ooni brand guide maps every current model to the pizza size it can actually fit.

The recipes look like they disagree because they are solving different problems. A heavy yeast load is there to make a one-hour dough rise; put that same quantity into a dough left in the fridge for three days and it over-proofs and collapses. A 65% hydration dough that handles well at 18 hours becomes difficult at 72. Ooni's own pages now split the same-day, long-ferment, frozen and gluten-free cases, and that separation is the point.

The safest approach is to pick the formula that matches the time you have, then use only that recipe's yeast weight and hydration rather than borrowing numbers across formulas. Mixing a one-hour dough's yeast load into a three-day ferment is the most reliable way to end up with flat, sticky dough.

Which Ooni Dough Fits Your Timeline

Ooni Classic Pizza Dough: The Same-Day Baseline

The current hand-mixed Classic is Ooni's entry point: 613 g "00" flour, 368 g lukewarm water, 18 g fine sea salt, and a yeast quantity that depends on what you have in the cupboard. The batch yields four 250 g balls for 12-inch pizzas or three 330 g balls for 16-inch pizzas, and the whole prep and proof window runs 3 to 4 hours.

Mix the ingredients, bulk in a warm place until doubled, roughly two hours, then divide to 250 g or 330 g, ball, and rest. Bake on a stone at 400-450°C / 750-842°F for 1 to 2 minutes.

Ooni's current weights differ from older copies of the same recipe, and this is where a lot of dough confusion starts. Legacy material used 607 g flour, 364 g water, 18 g salt and a much larger yeast load of 9.2 g active dry, 7 g instant or 20 g fresh. The current page uses less than half that yeast on the dry counts. If a calculator or forum post quotes a different "official Ooni" yeast figure, it was captured at a different point in the recipe's history rather than being wrong at the time.

Ooni's mixer-specific version of the same 60% Classic, built around the Halo Pro, keeps the hydration but gives different reference ball weights: 250 g for 12-inch pizzas, 300 g for 14-inch and 350 g for 16-inch. Note that the Halo page's 350 g 16-inch ball is not the hand recipe's 330 g. Ooni publishes both, and they are not interchangeable.

Ooni Neapolitan-Style Dough: The Long, Cool Ferment

The current Ooni Neapolitan-style formula is 65% hydration and is not a multi-day refrigerator dough, which is the most common misconception about it. Its bulk ferment runs 18 to 20 hours at 16-20°C / 60-68°F, a cool room rather than a fridge, followed by a final proof of 5 to 6 hours after balling.

The batch totals about 2,016 g and yields roughly eight 250 g balls for 12-inch pizzas or six 336 g balls for 14-inch pizzas. Ooni's workflow uses cool room-temperature water, chilled for up to two hours in summer if needed, targeting a finished dough temperature of 21-26°C / 70-79°F. Divide and ball 5 to 6 hours before baking, then final proof 5 to 6 hours until doubled, or 2 to 3 hours in a warm room. An overnight fridge hold is allowed if plans change, though the dough may need reballing and tempering afterward. Bake on a stone at 400-450°C / 750-842°F, generally 1 to 2 minutes.

Ooni's broader Neapolitan explainer describes the traditional style as flour, water, yeast and salt only, hand-stretched and cooked around 450-510°C / 850-950°F for 60 to 90 seconds. That is the classic reference; the named recipe above is the version Ooni currently publishes, and the two should not be blended.

Ooni Cold-Proof Dough: The 24 to 72 Hour Window

The cold-proof recipe is Ooni's answer for make-ahead dough, and it is one formula across a 24 to 72 hour window rather than three separate yeast quantities. Ooni does not publish a different yeast weight for 24, 48 and 72 hours.

Yield is four 250 g 12-inch balls or three 330 g 16-inch balls. The workflow cold-ferments the bulk dough, then divides it into balls and finishes with a room-temperature proof. Ooni describes cold proofing generally as a 24 to 96 hour window, recommends 24 to 72 hours for this formula, and notes that about 3 to 5 days is the practical outer limit before overproofing becomes a concern. The reason to cold proof at all is flavor and handling: slower fermentation develops more complexity and structure, and the dough is easier to stretch.

Beyond that, the outcomes people report at the long end are not consistent, and the variables are flour strength, yeast and temperature rather than the number of hours alone. A dough that turns flat, sticky or tear-prone at 48 or 72 hours is usually a formula-and-temperature mismatch, not proof that cold fermentation failed. Caputo Nuvola, for instance, comes with its own manufacturer schedule of about 48 hours refrigerated plus 24 hours at around 22°C. That is a flour-specific recommendation, not a universal 72-hour rule.

Ooni Quick Dough: The One-Hour Formula

The one-hour Quick dough uses bread flour, not 00, and a yeast load roughly ten times the Neapolitan formula's per gram of flour. That is what makes the short timeline work, and it is also why its yeast quantity should never be copied into a cold-proof recipe.

Bloom the active dry yeast for about 5 minutes, knead by hand 8 to 10 minutes, bulk 20 to 30 minutes or until doubled, divide, then a final warm rest of 15 to 20 minutes. The dough is fairly wet and Ooni recommends hand-stretching rather than a rolling pin. Preheat to 450-500°C / 850-950°F and bake 1 to 2 minutes. The published yield is five 250 g balls for 12-inch pizzas or roughly four 16-inch balls; Ooni's own pages carry a 320 g versus 330 g discrepancy for the 16-inch figure, so neither number is the single canonical one.

What the Quick formula gives up is the development that comes with time. Ooni's cold-proof page notes that slower fermentation brings richer flavor, better structure and easier handling. The Quick dough is still a valid high-temperature recipe, it simply trades those gains for speed.

What Actually Changes the Dough

Four formulas with hydration from 60% to nearly 80% look contradictory until you separate the variables. Hydration, flour strength, yeast type and water temperature each do something different, and Ooni's own recipes differ in all four.

Flour Strength: "00" Is Not a Protein Spec

00 describes an Italian milling grade, not a protein level, and treating it as a strength rating is a common mistake. Current examples span a real range on the same label: King Arthur 00 Pizza Flour lists 11.5% protein, Caputo Pizzeria lists 12.5% with a W of 260-280, Caputo Nuvola lists 12.5% with a W of 270-290, and Central Milling Organic Type 00 lists 11.5% with a W of 280-300. King Arthur's own comparison puts its all-purpose flour at 11.7% and its bread flour at 12.7%, higher than its 00, which is the clearest illustration that 00 does not mean strongest.

Flour choice is also tied to the recipe. Ooni's Classic and Neapolitan formulas specify 00; the one-hour Quick formula explicitly calls for bread flour, whose higher protein gives it the strength to develop in a short mix. Moving a favorite long-ferment hydration onto a stronger or weaker flour without adjusting produces dough that is softer, tighter or harder to handle.

Yeast: Use the Weight the Recipe Lists

Yeast conversion is not perfectly proportional, so the safe approach is to use the weight listed for the exact recipe and yeast you have. Ooni's own numbers show why a single conversion factor fails: the Classic lists 8.5 g fresh, 3.5 g active dry and 2.7 g instant; the cold-proof lists 4.1 g fresh, 1.6 g active dry and 1.4 g instant; the Neapolitan lists 2 g fresh, 1 g active dry and 0.7 g instant.

This matters most for the long-ferment formulas. A 0.7 g instant dry yeast dose is smaller than a standard 1 g kitchen scale can reliably resolve, so a high-resolution scale is a functional tool for these recipes rather than a luxury. A basic Etekcity EK6015 or Amazon Basics digital scale handles flour, water and salt fine, but on a whole-gram scale 0.7 g and 1.4 g can read the same, and doubling the yeast in a 25-hour dough changes the fermentation. A dual-platform scale with a fine 0.1 g platform, such as the Ooni Dual Platform Digital Scales, covers both the bulk ingredients and the sub-gram yeast.

Salt, Oil and Sugar

Ooni recommends fine sea salt because it dissolves more readily than coarse or flaked salt, and it uses salt for structure as much as flavor: salt tightens the gluten and regulates yeast activity, and too much slows fermentation. Its Neapolitan guidance sits around 2.5% to 3%, and the current Halo Neapolitan formula is exactly 3% by flour weight.

Oil and sugar do not belong to Ooni's four-ingredient Classic and Neapolitan formulas, but that does not make them wrong everywhere. The Quick formula adds 20 g of olive oil to 750 g of flour, and New York-style doughs are enriched with oil and sugar and baked longer at lower heat. Added fat and sugar change how the dough browns and how it behaves at high temperature, so they belong only where a source recipe calls for them.

Water Temperature

Ooni's recipes specify water temperature deliberately: lukewarm for the Classic and Quick formulas to wake the yeast, cold for the cold-proof recipe to slow fermentation during the mix, and cool room-temperature water for the Neapolitan dough, chilled in summer if needed to land the finished dough at 21-26°C / 70-79°F. Warm water in a long, cool ferment works against the schedule, and cold water in a one-hour dough slows the rise you are counting on.

Dough Ball Weights by Pizza Size

Ooni specifies dough ball weight by the pizza size the dough is meant to make, and oven capacity does not override the recipe. The safest approach is to use the weight a recipe lists and scale only across sizes Ooni actually publishes.

Two things follow from that table. Ooni's mid-size oven, the Koda 2, sits between the old 12 and 16 inch classes and has its own reference weights, so guides that only map dough to 250 g or 330 g miss it. And Ooni does not publish a dough ball weight for an 18-inch or a 20-inch single pizza, so scaling a 16-inch weight up by diameter is guesswork rather than Ooni guidance. For oven-specific baking detail, the Volt review and the Karu 16 and Karu 2 Pro comparison cover the electric and multi-fuel cases.

How to Freeze and Thaw Homemade Dough Balls

Freezing is a storage step, not a separate formula, and it works with the Classic dough, the app calculator and other standard flour, water, leavening and salt doughs. Ooni's preferred freeze point is after the first proof, not before it and not after a multi-day cold ferment.

1. Make the dough through its first proof, until doubled.
2. Divide into portions.
3. Ball the portions.
4. Lightly oil airtight containers.
5. Freeze the individual balls.

Frozen storage runs up to three months. Ooni lists several thaw options: refrigerate at least 12 hours, then bring the dough out at least 6 hours before cooking and let it rise and temper; or thaw on the counter for roughly 3.5 hours or longer, until thawed and doubled. Faster thaw methods exist, but warmer, rapidly thawed dough becomes softer and stickier and more prone to tearing, which is the opposite of what you want at launch.

King Arthur's general dough-freezing advice differs in two ways worth keeping visible rather than averaging. It allows some overnight refrigeration before freezing, and it recommends using frozen dough within about one month for the best rise. Its thaw is roughly 6 to 10 hours in the refrigerator followed by a 90 minute to 5 hour final room-temperature rise, depending on dough temperature. These are storage and quality recommendations from two sources, not one number to reconcile.

Containers matter more than they look. Cambro 4-quart lidded containers work for small batches because each ball can be pulled out independently and the lid limits surface drying. The Ooni Pizza Dough Boxes are stackable and hold about six 250 g balls per box, which suits a full pizza night better than one or two balls.

Ready-Made Frozen Dough Balls: A Different Job

A store-bought frozen dough ball has already been mixed, fermented and frozen, so the reader's job starts at thawing, not fermentation design. Applying Ooni's homemade freeze instructions to a commercial ball misses the point entirely.

Ooni's current US listing sells ready-made frozen dough balls in 24-count packs of 9 oz balls, portioned for 12-inch pizzas and made with its 00 Pizza and Bread Flour using American-grown wheat. The listed ingredients are wheat flour, water, salt and baker's yeast, and Ooni does not publish the hydration, so it cannot be reverse-engineered from the ball weight. The frozen shelf life is up to 8 months, and the balls should be used within 3 days after defrosting.

Third-party frozen dough brands come with their own thaw guidance rather than Ooni's. Tiseo calls for thawing in the refrigerator for roughly 8 to 10 hours while still packaged, then about 30 minutes at room temperature, or a 4 to 6 hour room-temperature thaw until soft. DeIorio's guidance favors an overnight refrigerated thaw, covered to prevent the surface drying out, with room-temperature thawing as an alternative. Exact hydration is not published for these products either.

Store-bought dough is often described as too elastic or sticky right after thawing, and the variable that matters is whether the center of the ball has fully thawed and tempered, not whether the outside feels soft. A cold center resists stretching and springs back; a fully tempered ball behaves like fresh dough.

Gluten-Free Ooni Dough: Two Protocols, Not One

Gluten-free dough for an Ooni oven is not one recipe with a flour swap. Ooni and King Arthur publish two different formulas that require different flours, different hydration and, critically, different bake protocols, and neither can be substituted into the other gram for gram.

Ooni's Caputo Fioreglut Formula

Yield is four 12-inch or three 16-inch pizzas, prep is about 2 hours 25 minutes, and the bake target is a stone at 450°C / 842°F with the pizza turned every 20 to 25 seconds. Ooni kneads the dough for roughly 10 minutes but notes that gluten-free dough does not develop or stretch like wheat dough and is more delicate; the base is pressed or gently stretched to about 5 mm, and the peel should be shaken before topping to confirm the dough moves freely. The Fioreglut crust can brown visually before it is fully cooked, so it may need a little longer than the color suggests.

Fioreglut is a gluten-free pizza and bread blend, not a wheat-free flour. It lists approximately 1% protein and includes deglutinated, gluten-free wheat starch among its ingredients, so it suits a gluten-free diet but not someone who must avoid wheat. Ooni also directs gluten-free users to check that their dried yeast is gluten-free and that the kitchen, oven and utensils are free from gluten.

King Arthur's Gluten-Free Ooni Protocol

King Arthur's Ooni-specific gluten-free recipe uses its own King Arthur Gluten-Free Pizza Flour and a very different set of numbers: 233 g flour, 255 g warm water, 13 g olive oil, 1 tbsp granulated sugar, 2 tsp instant yeast and ¾ tsp table salt, mixed for about 5 minutes and given a 1-hour room-temperature rise. The batch yields about two 260 g balls for roughly 10-inch pizzas.

The bake protocol is the part that cannot be generalized. King Arthur calls for a stone near 750°F / ~399°C, turns the flame off for the main bake, manages the pizza through the cooler zones of the oven and relights on low to finish, for a total of roughly 5 to 7 minutes. That is a lower, slower, flame-managed bake than the roughly one-minute Fioreglut target, and it is specific to this flour and formula.

Why You Cannot Swap GF Blends One for One

Ooni states directly that substituting another gluten-free blend can require different amounts of water, yeast or oil plus different proofing times and preparation. The two recipes above illustrate exactly that: one is a 79.6% hydration, one-minute bake; the other is a much wetter dough handled at a lower stone temperature over several minutes.

The trap is a mainstream 1-to-1 gluten-free baking flour. Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 is marketed primarily as a cup-for-cup replacement for wheat flour in non-yeast baking, and its own guidance points yeast breads toward a different gluten-free product system. It is a widely stocked option and a poor fit for an Ooni pizza without a tested formula built around it, and King Arthur's Measure for Measure falls in the same category. For gluten-free Ooni pizza, start from a recipe designed for a specific blend rather than a general-purpose flour.

Troubleshooting: Sticking, Springing Back and Pale Bottoms

Most dough problems come down to timing and temperature rather than a missing ingredient, and the fix depends on which way the dough has drifted.

• Springs back when stretched: it is too cold, usually under-tempered after the fridge. Let it sit at room temperature longer before shaping.
• Puddles, tears or sticks: it is over-proofed or too warm. Handle quickly, use minimal flour and work with a cool peel.
• Sticks to the peel at launch: often the peel is warm or the topped dough has sat too long. Shake the peel to confirm movement before launch, keep topping time short, and dust with semolina or rice flour rather than a heavy bed of ordinary flour, which burns fast on a 400-500°C stone.
• Resists stretching after cold-proofing: reball and temper it, since a long cold ferment leaves the dough tight until it warms.
• Pale or floppy base: not always undercooked, since Neapolitan-style pizza is intentionally softer than American crisp-crust pizza. When the base is underdone against the recipe's target, the usual cause is a stone below temperature. Aim for 400-450°C / 750-842°F on the stone and confirm it with an infrared thermometer rather than the oven's air gauge, as covered in the pizza oven temperature guide.
• Gummy gluten-free center: the Fioreglut crust browns before it is cooked through. Turn every 20 to 25 seconds and give it the extra time its color hides.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Ooni's four current dough formulas are not competing versions of one recipe; they are four different jobs. The hand Classic gets a pizza on the table in 3 to 4 hours, the Neapolitan-style dough trades hydration and a long cool ferment for a traditional result, the cold-proof recipe covers a 24 to 72 hour window from one formula, and the Quick dough handles the night you did not plan ahead. Read the yeast weight for the recipe you are actually making, match the ball weight to the pizza size, and keep the gluten-free protocols with their own flours.

Two handling points carry across all of them: confirm the stone temperature with an infrared thermometer rather than the oven gauge, and use a recipe's own yeast weight rather than converting between yeast types on a fixed ratio. On the equipment side, a fine-resolution scale, a couple of lidded containers and a bench scraper remove most of the friction from the long-ferment formulas.

Where to go next:

• The Ooni brand guide for matching a formula to the oven you own
• The pizza oven temperature guide for stone targets by style
• Best pizza peels for launch and turning tools
• Ooni pizza stone care for keeping the baking surface in shape

If you are still building out the kit, the Ooni Dual Platform Digital Scales are the piece that makes the 0.7 g Neapolitan and 1.4 g cold-proof doses repeatable.