Autolyse Pizza Dough

Interested in trying a new technique to elevate your pizza? Try a French bread technique on our favorite Italian cuisine – Autolyse Pizza Dough!

Wait, what’s autolyse pizza dough? How do I even pronounce it? (Hint: think leasing a car: “auto lease“). And along side Pizza Starters, it’s another method for upping your pizza dough game!

The Magic of Autolyse: Transform Your Pizza Dough!

What is Autolyse?

The term “autolyse” comes from auto (self) and lyse (break), which essentially means the dough is breaking down itself. In a more general biological context, autolysis is “self-digestion”. But this term is also used in fermentation processes, including winemaking and making bread.

In the case of bread, autolyse (which is also often spelled autolysis or autolyze) was popularized (if not invented) by French baking expert, Raymond Calvel. in his book “The Taste of Bread”, which was translated into English in 2001. Autolyse for bread is the process of mixing just the flour and water in a dough recipe and letting it rest before adding other ingredients like yeast and salt. This period of the “hydration rest” allows the flour to fully hydrate, making the dough easier to work with and promoting better gluten development and flavor.

What Happens When I Autolyse Pizza Dough?

According to Wikipedia, wheat flour contains three water-soluble protein groups (albumin, globulin, and proteoses). When the flour is mixed with water, these three proteins dissolve. There are two other protein groups in wheat flour: glutenin and gliadin. These ultimately form networks of strands and that resulting network is gluten. The development of gluten improves when the water-soluble proteins are fully dissolved.

KitchenAid’s article on autolyse also shares that this process allows the flour to fully hydrate which is especially helpful for softening whole wheat flour. As this also helps in gluten development, this is two good reasons to use this process for whole wheat breads (and pizzas).

Delaying the Arrival of Salt and Oil

There are other things that happen too by delaying the arrival of other ingredients. In particular, salt reduces the activity of the enzymes that develop the gluten. If your recipe includes oil, that too can affect how the water interacts with the flour, so adding it later benefits the gluten production.

But what does all that mean when we autolyse dough for pizza?

Three Key Reasons to Autolyse Pizza Dough:

1. Enhanced Flavor: The enzymes in the dough get a head start on breaking down the starches into sugars, leading to a more flavorful crust and more aroma.
2. Improved Texture: Autolysing the dough results in better gluten formation with less kneading – and that gives your pizza crust a lighter, airy structure.
3. Easier Handling and Stretching: As the gluten develops, the dough becomes more pliable and easier to shape, which makes the dough more extensible: meaning easier to stretch without it snapping back. Just be aware that this can go too far rather quickly with pizza dough.

Because the autolyse process gives the amalyse enzyme more time to work on your flour, it can affect it’s structural integrity. Therefore, you might find this best applicable to a dough you don’t work very much like a Detroit, Roman, or Sicilian pizza. I also really like doing it for a focaccia style olive oil pizza.

Why Not Autolyse Pizza Dough?

In fact, there’s a very good reason NOT to do this.

It’s NOT EASY!

Most pizza recipes are not very high hydration. Thus, the problem is that once you’ve mixed your flour and water, you end up with a relatively formed dough – and it can be quite a challenge to incorporate the additional ingredients and get them to mix well after. Adding powdered yeast and granulated salt to a formed ball of dough is a trick and takes time to get it mixed uniformly.

And it generally means washing your mixing bowl twice (or two different ones)! Who wants to do that? 😉

But there are some more technical reasons to reconsider autolyse. Generally these won’t apply too much to pizza, but I’ll list them just in case:

• Autolyse dough made from certain types of flour can significantly reduce the strength of the dough (and that can be bad news for launched pizzas!).
• In particular, you probably should not autolyse pizza dough (or use quite short times) if you are using a high percentage of:
  • Rye flour (naturally has more amylase enzyme to start)
  • Sprouted wheat (again, has lots of enzyme content to start)
  • Spelt whole wheat
  • Einkorn

How Best to Autolyse Dough

The easy part here is mixing the flour and water and letting it rest. Generally for pizza, 30 minutes of autolyse resting should be good for most white flours and an hour for whole wheat. Larger portions of autolyse doughs (big recipes or making bread) might need more time. You can check the consistency of the dough before moving to the next step – you want the dough to have relaxed and become extensible.

That being said, don’t autolyse dough too long – that can result in a dough that’s really sticky and hard to work with (I’ve especially had that problem with Neapolitan dough – more on that in a minute).

Autolyse Dough for Pizza Hack: Two Doughs

Since it’s going to be difficult to mix in your yeast and salt into the dough ball after the autolyse period, my suggestion is to separate out portions of the dough preparation. Instead of making one ball of dough to autolyse then figure out how to add the yeast later, I recommend making two doughs: your autolyse dough and a Poolish (or Biga). Poolish (and Bigas) are starters that incorporate the yeast immediately. By making one of these as well (which is very easy), it allows you to incorporate your yeast into an entirely separate ball of dough. After the autolyse process is finished, then add your starter and knead them together.

Tip: Water For Pizza

Per King Arthur Baking, the ideal water for bread (and therefore pizza) is of medium hardness and with little or no chlorine. Why? The mineral content of the water affects the activity of the yeast and the production of gluten. The sweet spot is between 100 to 150 parts per million.

Most times, tap water is going to be fine. Conventionally filtered water (like using a Brita or Pur) is a step up because it should remove particulates and should allow the chlorine to dissipate.

However, reverse osmosis filtration will soften your water, so if you already have soft water, using RO filtered water is going to work against you. If your tap water is generally hard, then RO filtered water is going to be a good choice.

Bottled drinking water generally has minerals added for improved taste (such as Dasani) and therefore will also work well. The trace amounts of salt added in most US brands should not affect the fermentation.

And Now The Salt and Oil

If your dough includes oil in the recipe, add the salt to the oil and mix both into the dough together. If not, you’ll need to wet the salt a bit and knead it into the dough. The grains will dissolve but you need to distribute it through the dough.

What Pizza Dough Recipes Can I Autolyse?

Technically, you could autolyse any pizza dough. That being said, dough recipes can be a bit particular and you may find some unintended consequences!

As mentioned above, I think Detroit, Roman, or Sicilian pizzas are the best options.

Autolyse Neapolitan Pizza Dough? Maybe Not

In particular, you may not want to autolyse an AVPN Neapolitan pizza dough since that recipe is very specific and (surprisingly) adds the salt first. I find that particular recipe to have the least tolerance for change, so I would suggest you’ll find a bit of trial and a lot of possible errors in autolysing Neapolitan dough (I haven’t gotten it right yet). Specifically for Neapolitan, I instead recommend you should experiment with a starter, which will give you many of the same benefits (example, our Sourdough Neapolitan Pizza).

Autolyse done Easy Peasy

On the other hand, our Easy Peasy Pizza dough would be a great option for this technique. As would any pizza where there is oil added, especially a pan pizza such as Sicilian or Roman.

Autolyse dough for Whole Wheat Pizza

This is probably the one style of flour that has the most to gain from the autolyse process as it can help soften the tough bran of whole wheat flour.

If your whole wheat pizza is not 100% whole wheat flour (which is a common choice), you can autolyse only the whole wheat flour and then to treat it like a starter for the rest of the flour, salt, water, and yeast.

Steps to Autolyse Pizza Dough

(If you choose to go with the Poolish Starter hack, you’ll want to get that ready first).

Step 1: Autolyse the Flour

1. Combine the Flour and Water: In a large mixing bowl, add the flour in your recipe. Separate out 2 tablespoons of your water for later (Step 2). Gradually pour in the water while mixing to combine. Make sure all the flour is hydrated. Do not add the yeast, salt, or oil.
2. Rest: Cover the bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 and no more than 60 minutes.

Step 2: Finish Your Dough Mix (Option 1: Adding Yeast)

3. Activate the Yeast: In a small bowl, mix the active dry yeast with the two tablespoons of water you separated in step 1. Let it sit for 5 minutes until frothy. Uncover the autolysed dough. Add the wet yeast to the dough and knead (typically best by hand) for about 3 minutes until incorporated into the dough.
4. Starter Alternative: as discussed above, an alternative to activating the yeast is to make a poolish starter and add it to the autolyse dough ball now.
5. Add the Salt (and oil, if any): If the recipe includes oil, add the salt to the oil and add both to the dough. If there’s no oil, then add the salt directly to the dough a pinch at a time spreading it out over the dough.
6. Knead the Dough: Knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic and the additional salt, water, and oil have been absorbed. This will take around 8–10 minutes by hand or 5–7 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook.

Step 3: Second Fermentation

6. Second Fermentation: Your dough recipe will have a second fermentation step. Whatever your dough’s recipe describes as the time to allow the dough to proof, follow those instructions.

Step 4: Shaping and Final Proof

7. Shape: Shape the dough into a ball (or multiple balls for multiple pizzas).
8. Final Proof: Cover the dough ball(s) to rest for another 30 minutes.

Step 5: Baking

9. Preheat Oven: Preheat your oven to the temperature specified for your dough recipe. If your recipe uses a pizza stone or steel, place it in the oven while it preheats.
10. Shape and Top: Shape the dough into the desired shape (circular unless you’re using a pan), then add your favorite sauce and toppings.
11. Bake: Depending on the recipe, you’ll likely bake 12-14 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbly and slightly browned. Autolysing pizza dough may reduce the cooking time of your pizza by a small margin.
12. Rest, Cut, and Serve: Let the pizza rest for at least 2 minutes to allow the cheese to set. Cut and serve immediately.

Time to enjoy your delicious homemade pizza with an incredibly airy and flavorful crust, all thanks to the magic of autolyse!

August 17, 2024