Question about Basic Vera Pizza Napoletana Recipe

[frankiebones]

I download the recipe at the Forno Bravo website for the basic vera pizza napoletana dough recipe and had a question about the amount of salt the recipe calls for. I used the Molino Caputo Tipo "00" flour for this dough.

The recipe calls for:

4 cups "00" flour
1 1/2 cups, plus 2-3 Tbs water
4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry active yeast.

The dough came out great and the pizza was amazing but does anyone else think that 4 teaspoons of salt was way too much. I thought the dough was very salty and then if you add sausage or any ingredients that are high in sodium you end up with a really salty pizza.

Is the amount of salt something that is purely personal taste. I was thinking of making the dough again with maybe 1 or 1.5 teaspoons of salt. Does anyone have any thoughts on this. I can't imagine it will affect the consistency of the dough, just the taste.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Besides being a little salty I cooked my pizza on a 550 degree pizza oven for 9 minutes it was cooked perfectly.

Thanks,

[texassourdough]

Re: Question about Basic Vera Pizza Napoletana Recipe

The normal logic is that salt should be about 2 percent of the flour weight. Four cups of flour is about 480 grams so you need about 9.6 or so grams of salt - about 2 tsp of regular table salt. The recipe amount is about 18 grams and is too high for table salt but would be only a little high if Kosher salt. (Morton's Kosher Salt is about 65% as dense as regular table salt so 4 tsp weigh about 12 grams. Diamond Crystal Kosher salt is about half way between).

[dmun]

Re: Question about Basic Vera Pizza Napoletana Recipe

The recipe amount is about 18 grams and is too high for table salt but would be only a little high if Kosher salt.

This sounds like the old riddle about whether it's better to get paid a bucket of quarters or a bucket of dimes. In any event, I think the quoted recipe is too salty by far, try cutting the amount in half.

And if you give in to weighed baking ingredients, then a given weight of salt is the same regardless of grain size.

[Tscarborough]

Re: Question about Basic Vera Pizza Napoletana Recipe

The weight may be the same but the surface area, and hence it's ability to absorb and dissolve varies greatly. As an example that I am familiar with, the surface area of some mortar dyes is amazingly high, and can seriously affect the amount of water needed to hydrate the mix for a workable mortar.

Edit-I want a bucket of mixed dimes, quarters, and fifty-cent pieces, as that will provide the most efficient utilization of a given volume. This concept is the basis for quality concrete.

[frankiebones]

Re: Question about Basic Vera Pizza Napoletana Recipe

I made this pizza recipe dough again last night and reduced the salt from 4tsp down to 2 tsp and was much happier with the final result. It seemed like 2 tsp was just the right balance for me and then when my sausage & pepperoni we're added it was just perfect.

Thx.