Nothing is more disappointing than taking a bite out of a beautifully looking pizza, and finding out that the crust is way too hard. After the disappointment fades away, you naturally start asking yourself why this happened. And, here is the answer.
A pizza can become too hard if it’s cooked for too long at an improper temperature, or if you used too little water or the wrong type of flour. Other common causes are excessive kneading and improper stretching.
So there are quite a few things that can make a pizza too hard. And in most cases, there is usually a combination of factors, not just one. But, despite how complicated this might all seem, all of those problems can be solved quite easily. So let’s take a closer look at each one of them.
1. Baking Temperature and Baking Time
In most cases, you want to get your oven as hot as possible when making a pizza. Pizzas should be cooked at a very high temperature for a short amount of time.
So, one possible reason why your pizza is hard can be that you keep it in the oven for too long, at an unsuitable temperature.
A pizza should be cooked at a temperature between 450 and 500°F (230 and 260°C), for 10 to 15 minutes. Ideally, you would go for 500°F, which is the maximum temperature of most hot ovens, but over time ovens deteriorate and won’t be able to reach that temperature, but they shouldn’t drop under 450°F.
Cooking a pizza at those temperatures will ensure that your pizza will be crisp on the exterior, and soft and fluffy on the interior.
If you were to cook the pizza at a lower temperature, the exterior of the pizza will need more time to cook, and during this time the interior will overcook, resulting in a hard pizza.
You should also make sure that you give your oven enough time to heat up. On average an oven needs about 45 minutes to reach its maximum temperature.
2. Hydration Level
The hydration level of a pizza refers to how much water is in the dough, compared to the amount of flour.
If you were to use 1000 grams of flour and 420 grams of water, you would have a hydration level of 42%. If you were to use 1000 grams of flour and 900 grams of water you would have 90%.
When making pizza dough you can work with a wide variety of hydration levels. But you should never have a hydration level lower than 60%. If you go lower than 60%, there is a very high chance that your pizza will be too hard.
My advice is to try to make your next pizza with a hydration level of 65%. This means that for every 100 grams of flour, you should add 65 grams of water. In order to know the exact amount of water that you need to use, simply multiply the quantity of flour that you are using by 0.65, and you will get the exact amount of water that you should use.
If your pizza is getting softer, but still not as soft as you’d like you can try to increase the hydration level a little more. Just be careful not to go overboard with the water, as too much of it can be as bad as too little.
And try to be as exact as possible when measuring, even if 10, or 20 grams of water doesn’t seem as much, they will make a big difference for the dough.
3. Extra Flour and Flour Type
Theoretically, you can’t be using too much flour if you have a proper hydration level. But practically, you can. And this is because different flour types need different hydration levels.
Flour is separated into different categories using a rating system. One problem with the rating system is that it’s not uniform worldwide, a lot of countries have their own, including the US, and Italy, as well as France and Germany. Here is the rating system, with the different names each country has for the flour types, and what that actually means.
| Ash Content | Protein | US | Italian | French | German |
| 0.4% | 9% | Pastry Flour | 00 | 45 | 405 |
| 0.5% | 11% | All-Purpose Flour | 0 | 55 | 550 |
| 0.8% | 14% | High Gluten Flour | 1 | 80 | 812 |
| 1% | 15% | First Clear Flour | 2 | 110 | 1050 |
| 1.5% | 13% | Whole Wheat Flour | Faina Integrale | 150 | 1700 |
In the US you will most likely see the US grading system, but it’s not uncommon to see flour that is marketed towards pizza makers labeled as 00 instead of pastry flour. And keep in mind that if a recipe tells you to use 00 flour, you can use Pastry Flour, as it’s the same thing.
But regardless of what system you are using to rate the flour, you have to know that there are differences between a flour rated 00 and another rated 0. The biggest one is how fine the flour is 00 being the finest one of them all.
How fine the flour is ground will have a huge effect on how much water it can absorb and what texture the pizza will have.
Another big important difference is the protein content. The table that I showed you contains the average, a flour marked 00 can have up to 15% protein. When making pizza you want to use flour with at least 13% protein. The amount of protein a four will greatly influence how much water the flour can absorb.
And one final thing to keep in mind about flour is that not all flour brands are the same, even if they are both marked as 00. Different companies have different sources for their wheat, so the final product will be different. So make sure to check the nutritional table on the flour, and not pick the first one that is marked as 00, or as Pastry Flour.
If you are not sure which flour to pick, I would suggest you try Caputo, which can be found in most stores, and you can also order it on Amazon. This type of flour will work great with a 60% hydration level.
4. Excessive Kneading
When you knead the dough, you are helping the gluten network inside the dough develop. The gluten network is responsible for the elasticity of the dough.
If you don’t knead the dough enough, you won’t be able to stretch it properly, and the dough will need more time to rise.
If you knead the dough too much, it will become too hard. This will make it very difficult to stretch, even after you manage to stretch the dough and place it in the oven, the pizza will come out hard.
On average a pizza should be kneaded for at least 15 minutes, in order to develop a good and strong gluten network.
But, as you can imagine, everybody has a different kneading method, some apply more pressure, while others are gentler, some move fast while others take their time. SO using a timer is not the best method. This is why I would recommend you do the windowpane test when kneading the dough.
This is a very simple test that will tell you if you’ve kneaded your dough enough..
Take a small piece of dough and gently start stretching it out, and see if you can obtain a slightly transparent layer in the middle. If you can then you’ve kneaded the dough perfectly.
If the dough breaks too easily it means that you have to knead it a little more.
If the dough is too hard to stretch, and when you finally manage to stretch it breaks, it means that you’ve over kneaded and you need to start all over.
And here is a video showing how you can do this test:
5. Improper Stretching
The last thing that could be making your pizza hard is improper stretching.
The biggest mistake people make when stretching pizza is using a rolling pin. Pizza should be stretched by hand.
The problem with the rolling pin is that it squeezes all the air (CO2, to be more exact) out of the pizza. Without that air, the pizza will be flat, dense, and hard.
Here are two great Youtube videos showing you how you can stretch pizza:
Another big mistake that people make when stretching their pizza is using too much flour. While in most cases you need to sprinkle some flour in order to stretch the pizza, it’s very easy to go overboard, and this will greatly affect the hydration level.
While you might not think that an extra 20 or 30 extra grams of flour could hurt the dough that much, it actually can, especially in this late stage. When you are done kneading, the flour and water are not perfectly mixed together, despite what it looks like. While the dough is resting (rising), the flour is still absorbing water. If you were to add flour later, that flour won’t get the chance to fully hydrate, and as a result, the pizza will be harder.
Final Thoughts
Those are the 5 reasons why your pizza is hard. As you can see, each step in the making of the dough can have a great impact on the texture of the pizza.
In a lot of cases, there isn’t only a single reason why the pizza is hard, it’s usually a combination of multiple things. So my advice is to apply everything that I’ve mentioned in this article, this way you won’t have to try and pinpoint the exact problem, and you will have a much tastier pizza, with a great texture.
And in the end here is a quick recap:
- Cook your pizza at a temperature between 450 and 500°F (230 and 260°C), for 10 to 15 minutes. Ideally, a pizza should be cooked at the highest temperature possible, for the shortest amount of time.
- Aim for a hydration level of 65%, which means that for every 100 grams of flour you are using 65 grams of water.
- Use Pastry Flour (00 flour), this type of flour has a different amount of protein and is finer than all-purpose flour
- Don’t over knead the dough, this will make the pizza hard. Use the windowpane test to see if you’ve kneaded the dough enough
- Don’t use a rolling pin to stretch the dough, use your hands instead. The rolling pin will remove all the gas that built up while the dough was rising.
- Use as little extra flour as possible when stretching the dough. The extra flour will make the pizza harder since it can’t properly hydrate.