Pizza Style Profiler

1. Choose Pizza Format. Round, Grandma, Sicilian, or Roman controls which recipe styles and workflow controls are shown.
2. Choose Pizza Style / Profile. The profile supplies the starting formula, style identity, sauce/cheese method, bake approach, fermentation logic, and default dough size.
3. Set Count and Size. Round pies use diameter and ball weight; pan styles use pan size and dough density/loading.
4. Set Target Bake Date & Time. The app works backward from your selected bake time. Weekday labels help you plan across multiple days.
5. Check Schedule / Feasibility Preview. Green means feasible. Orange/red means review the shortfall, missed steps, or required changes.
6. Choose Schedule Conflict Strategy. Preserve quality can move the bake later. Guidance only keeps the formula unchanged. Auto-adjust formula rewrites the active fermentation plan when feasible. Hybrid yeast assist may add commercial yeast only when intentionally selected.
7. Review Formula, Procedure, and Timeline. Choose Novice / Guided or Advanced / Compact procedure display, then confirm preferment/levain builds, final mix additions, proofing workflow, preheat, topping, and bake.
8. Review Audits before baking. PASS means verified, WARNING means review the issue, and FAIL means correct the recipe or schedule before relying on it.
9. Save, print, or export. Printed/saved snapshots should match the live formula, procedure, timeline, and audit output.

1. Core Recipe Setup

Pizza Format is the first decision because it filters the style list and changes the workflow. Round pizzas use diameter, ball weight, dough loading, stretching, and stone/steel bake logic. Pan formats use pan size, dough density, pan transfer/pressing, covered pan proof, and pan bake logic.

Pizza Style / Profile selects the inspired-style formula baseline. Profiles control flour blend, hydration, salt, sugar, oil, ball weight or pan density, sauce and cheese method, fermentation identity, bake temperature, rack position, and default preferment/levain behavior.

Pizza Count, Diameter, Pan Length/Width, Ball Weight, and Dough Density determine the scaled batch size. For round pies, Dough Load / Thickness estimates grams per square inch from ball weight and diameter. For pan pies, dough density/loading estimates practical thickness for the pan.

Dough Mixing Method changes the practical procedure. Hand mix, stand mixer, spiral mixer, and no-knead/stretch-and-fold should produce different instructions, rest/autolyse wording, and development timing.

2. Target Bake Date & Schedule Feasibility

Target Bake Date & Time is the desired bake time. The app works backward from that time to place preferment build, levain build, final mix, balling or pan transfer, cold hold, warm-up, preheat, topping, and bake.

Durations are shown in compact planning format: 3D-9H-44M means 3 days, 9 hours, 44 minutes; 2H-30M means 2 hours, 30 minutes; 45M means 45 minutes.

Schedule / Feasibility Preview compares minimum prep time against the time available before your target bake. If the app shows a shortfall, review the strategy before relying on the recipe.

3. Schedule Conflict Strategy and Auto-Adjust

Preserve quality / move bake later keeps the profile closest to its intended method and moves the bake time later when the selected bake time is not feasible.

Keep bake time / guidance only keeps your selected bake time but does not rewrite the formula. It gives suggestions and warnings only.

Keep bake time / auto-adjust formula keeps your selected bake time and allows the app to rewrite the active fermentation branch when feasible. The report should state what changed.

Keep bake time / hybrid yeast assist is intentional. It may add commercial yeast assist if needed. For pure levain profiles, this changes the recipe identity from pure levain to hybrid, and the report should warn you.

Auto-adjust is style-specific: pure levain may adjust ratio, seed amount, build temperature, timing, and maturity window while keeping commercial yeast at 0 g unless hybrid assist is selected. Poolish, biga, and sponge may adjust preferment timing, storage, yeast allocation, warm-up, and final yeast assist if allowed. Direct dough mostly adjusts final yeast and proof timing. Pan workflows must still respect pan transfer, first press/rest, covered pan proof, final pan-proof checkpoint, and bake sequence.

4. Fermentation Period and Workflow

Fermentation Period can use a profile default, preset hours, or Custom. Custom hours feed schedule, timeline, yeast allocation, fermentation load, procedure, and print/snapshot output. For cold-hold profiles such as CERES, the selected period means the actual refrigerated cold hold after balling by default; pre-cold development and post-fridge warm-up are separate timing segments.

Fermentation Workflow describes how the dough moves through room-temperature and cold phases. For example, a long cold workflow may include final mix, development, balling, cold hold, refrigerator removal, room-temperature finish, stretch/top, and bake.

Commercial Preferment Duration is separate from final dough fermentation. Example: you can build a biga overnight and then still cold ferment the final dough for 72 hours. Those are separate clocks and should not be accidentally combined.

5. Preferments and Storage

Poolish is wet and active, usually close to 100% hydration. Biga is stiffer and often needs special handling, warm-up, and incorporation instructions. Sponge is a commercial-yeast preferment with variable hydration. Levain is natural sourdough and is controlled by the levain engine.

Preferment Storage / Temperature controls whether a commercial preferment is modeled as room temperature, cool room, warm controlled, refrigerated/cold ripened, room-temp start plus cold hold, or cold hold plus warm-up. This affects maturity, yeast allocation, warnings, and procedure timing.

Commercial Preferment Yeast Strategy controls whether the preferment carries all yeast, whether final-mix yeast assist is allowed, or whether manual final yeast override is used.

6. Levain Build Intelligence

The Levain Build Intelligence section explains the recipe levain rather than assuming your maintenance starter is used directly. It tracks seed starter state, past maintenance feed ratio, time since feeding, typical time to peak, recipe levain ratio, seed amount, target levain hydration, build temperature, predicted maturity window, and refresh/wake-up needs.

Recipe ratios are shown as water:flour:seed, such as 3:3:1. A lower ratio such as 2:2:1 uses more seed relative to new flour/water and usually matures faster. A higher ratio such as 5:5:1 dilutes the seed more and usually takes longer.

Refresh / Wake-Up Build is used when the seed starter is cold, collapsed, overripe, or otherwise not strong enough for the recipe levain. The dependency validator should verify that any refresh produces enough seed for the recipe levain plus any required buffer.

7. Mixing Methods

Hand Knead should use true bench/tub kneading language, not a stretch-and-fold schedule. No-Knead / Stretch & Fold should rely on rest, folds, and time. Slap & Fold should describe the slap/fold bench technique for wetter doughs. Stand Mixer / KitchenAid and Spiral Mixer should use mixer-specific development wording.

When salt, sugar, oil, bassinage, or preferments are delayed until after a rest/autolyse step, the procedure should explicitly tell you when and how they are incorporated.

8. Round vs Pan Workflows

Round pizzas focus on ball weight, dough loading, stretching, rim structure, stone/steel preheat, topping, and fast bake timing.

Pan pizzas focus on pan size, dough density, oiling the pan, transfer to pan, first press/rest, covered pan proof or cold pan hold, final pan-proof checkpoint, topping order, parbake if applicable, and final bake.

Dough Load / Thickness is a planning tool. It helps you understand whether the selected size and dough amount are light, medium, thick, or pan-style heavy.

9. Sauce, Cheese, and Bake Settings

Profiles include sauce style, cheese type, suggested amounts, application method, finishing notes, bake temperature, rack position, stone/steel or pan method, and home-oven adjustments. If you change size or count, sauce and cheese amounts should scale with the recipe.

10. Overrides and Rebase Protection

Overrides let you intentionally change hydration, salt, sugar, oil, yeast, ball weight, sauce, cheese, or other formula variables. Blank override fields mean the app/profile/engine decides. A typed override is intentional.

Suggested values are the app’s recommendation. Effective values are what the formula actually uses. Rebase Protection means manual overrides should not become the new baseline and cause repeated moving-target recommendations.

11. Reading the Report

Recipe Summary shows the main working settings. Baker's Formula Summary gathers the effective percentages using total flour = 100% and separates total preferment weight (flour + water) from prefermented-flour allocation; Final Dough Ingredients shows the corresponding gram weights. Schedule Feasibility tells you whether the target bake time works. Initial Settings / Overrides records what you selected. Formula Override Diagnostics shows suggested versus effective values.

Fermentation Identity explains the profile’s intended fermentation character. Fermentation Diagnostics shows temperature, maturity, yeast scaling, and profile yeast notes. Preferment Build, Commercial Preferment Yeast Allocation, and Levain Build Intelligence explain any preferments. Step-by-Step Procedure and Timeline are the practical instructions to follow.

12. PASS / WARNING / FAIL Audits

PASS means the app verified the item. WARNING means the recipe may still be usable, but you need to review the issue. FAIL means the formula, schedule, or dependency chain has a conflict that should be corrected before relying on the output.

Procedure Completeness Audit verifies that important practical steps are present. Dependency Chain Validator checks flour/water accounting, preferment or levain dependencies, refresh chain, timing overlap, schedule feasibility, and commercial yeast locks. Print / Snapshot Consistency Audit checks that saved/printed output agrees with the live recipe.

13. Saving, Printing, PDF, and Snapshots

Use saved snapshots or print/PDF output only after reviewing the procedure and audits. A saved version is a locked reference copy. If you change inputs afterward, regenerate or save a new snapshot so the printed formula, timeline, and audit match the current settings.

14. Mobile Use Tips

Tap the Target Bake Date & Time control to edit the bake target. Compact duration tokens such as 3D-9H-44M are used to avoid awkward wrapping on iPhone. Tap an info icon or contextual help chip once to open help; tap it again, tap outside, or scroll to close. Use Quick Controls for Kitchen Recipe, Procedure, Timeline, Library, Glossary, Guide / Help, Print / Export, Expand, Collapse, and Reset.

Core formula

Hydration: Water as a percentage of total flour.

Effective Hydration: The hydration actually used after profile defaults, workflow logic, dynamic recommendations, and overrides.

Salt / Sugar / Oil %: Baker’s percentages based on total flour.

Bassinage / Holdback Water: Water reserved from the initial mix and added later after the dough gains structure.

Dough Loading: Dough amount for round pies, usually shown as grams per square inch from ball weight and diameter.

Dough Density: Pan dough amount in grams per square inch, used to estimate thickness and pan style.

Schedule terms

Target Bake Date & Time: The bake time you want. The app schedules backward from this time.

Minimum Prep Time: The time needed from the earliest required build or mix step to bake.

Available Time: The time between now and the selected target bake time.

Shortfall: How much time is missing when the chosen bake time is too soon.

Suggested Earliest Bake: The earliest bake time that preserves the required steps under the selected strategy.

3D-9H-44M: Compact duration format meaning 3 days, 9 hours, 44 minutes.

Schedule Guard: Logic that prevents impossible schedules from being treated as normal.

Schedule Conflict Strategy: User choice for what to do when the selected bake target is too soon.

Auto-Adjust Formula: Strategy that rewrites the active fermentation branch when feasible so the selected bake time can be kept.

Guidance Only: Strategy that keeps the formula unchanged and gives advice/warnings only.

Hybrid Yeast Assist: Strategy that may add commercial yeast assist by user choice; it can change a pure levain recipe into a hybrid recipe.

Preferments

Poolish: Wet commercial-yeast preferment, often near 100% hydration.

Biga: Stiff commercial-yeast preferment, commonly lower hydration and crumbly/shaggy when mixed.

Sponge: Commercial-yeast preferment with variable hydration, generally between poolish and biga behavior depending on formula.

Levain: Natural sourdough preferment built from seed starter, flour, and water.

Commercial Preferment Duration: The build/use window for poolish, biga, or sponge; separate from final dough fermentation.

Preferment Storage: The temperature/storage workflow used for preferment maturity, such as room temp, cold hold, or room-temp start plus cold hold.

Post-Fridge Warm-Up / De-Chill: A short room-temperature period after refrigeration. For final dough, it removes the harsh chill before shaping or baking; for chilled preferments, it helps them loosen before mixing.

Target Final Dough Temperature: The dough temperature you want immediately after mixing. It helps keep fermentation predictable batch to batch.

Formula-Water Temperature: The water temperature calculated to help hit the target final dough temperature after accounting for flour, room, preferment, and mixing friction.

Mixing Friction Factor: Heat added by mixing. No-knead adds very little heat; hand kneading and slap-and-fold add more; stand mixers usually add the most.

Water Quality: Good-tasting filtered tap water is usually fine. Bottled spring water can improve consistency if tap water tastes or smells chlorinated or varies by season. Avoid distilled water as the default.

Maturity Checkpoint: A practical readiness check before final mix, using expansion, aroma, structure, and timing.

Starter / levain

Maintenance Starter: The starter you keep alive with regular feeding.

Seed Starter: The portion of starter used to build a refresh or recipe levain.

Recipe Levain: Levain built specifically for the dough formula.

Water:Flour:Seed Ratio: Ratio format used by the app, such as 3:3:1.

Levain Build Inoculation: Flour contained in the seed starter ÷ total flour contained in the finished levain × 100. This is different from total levain weight %, levain flour allocation, and commercial yeast %.

Peak: Strong readiness stage: expanded, aerated, aromatic, and still structured.

Collapsed / Overripe: Too late or past peak: sinking, sharp alcohol smell, slack texture, or separation.

Refresh / Wake-Up Build: Pre-build used when seed starter is old, cold, collapsed, or weak.

Mixing and dough handling

Autolyse / Rest: Rest after flour and water are mixed so flour hydrates and gluten begins forming.

Hand Knead / Bench Kneading: Push the dough away with the heel of your hand, fold it back over itself, rotate slightly, and repeat until it becomes smoother, cohesive, and elastic.

Stretch-and-Fold: Lift one side of the dough, stretch without tearing, fold over the center, rotate the bowl/tub, and repeat on all sides. Rest between sets.

Slap & Fold: Lift wetter dough, slap the front edge onto the bench, fold it over itself, and repeat until it tightens and smooths.

Pinch/Fold: Method for incorporating salt, sugar, oil, or reserved water after a rest.

Balling: Dividing and forming dough into smooth balls with surface tension.

Pan Transfer / First Press: Moving dough into the pan and gently pressing it partway before it relaxes.

Final Pan Proof Checkpoint: Final readiness check before baking a pan pizza.

Covering, storage, and proofing

Covered Dough Container / Dough Tray: A covered dough box, tray, or individual container prevents drying and gives dough room to expand.

Lightly Oiled Container: A thin oil film helps dough release after fermentation. Do not flood the container unless the style specifically calls for oil.

Prevent Skinning: Dry air can form a tough surface skin. Keep bulk dough, dough balls, and pan dough covered while fermenting.

Seam-Side Down: Place dough balls with the gathered seam underneath so the top remains smooth and tensioned.

Bench Flour vs Storage Flour: Flour or semolina is mainly for opening/shaping. Storage usually relies on covered containers, light oil, or an oiled pan.

Covered Room-Temperature Proof: A warm proof should stay covered and should be judged by dough feel, relaxation, aroma, and expansion as well as the clock.

Room-Temp Bulk / Development: Time after final mix before balling or pan transfer. It can include rest, folding, and early strength building.

Balled Proof: Final proof after dividing and balling. Dough should become relaxed and extensible before shaping.

Pan handling and bake cues

Pan Oil: Oil in a pan pizza helps release the dough and fry/crisp the bottom and edges.

Oiled Fingers: Lightly oiled fingertips help press and dimple pan dough without sticking or drying the surface.

Covered Pan Hold / Pan Proof: Covered fermentation after dough is transferred to an oiled pan. In a cold workflow, the covered pan may go into the refrigerator.

Cheese First / Sauce Over Cheese: Grandma-style construction often places cheese on the dough before sauce to protect the dough and create the proper cheese-under-sauce structure.

Parbake: Partial bake before final topping or finishing; use only when the selected profile calls for it.

Visual Doneness: Final bake decision based on crisp bottom, set top, browned edges, and style-appropriate color, not the timer alone.

Wet Center / Gum Line: A wet or dense center can come from too much sauce, wet cheese, underheated stone/steel, high hydration, underproofing, or underbaking.

Sauce Moisture Control: Use restrained, well-drained sauce when the profile warns about moisture, large pies, or home-oven limitations.

Engines and audits

Fermentation Basis: Defines whether the selected fermentation time means total mix-to-bake time, true refrigerated cold hold after balling, pan cold hold, or same-day room-temperature workflow.

Fermentation Load: Combined pressure from time, temperature, yeast, preferments, levain, and workflow.

Dynamic Hydration Intelligence: Recommendation system for adjusting hydration based on formula/workflow factors.

Rebase Protection: Keeps recommendations anchored to profile/base values instead of chasing manual overrides.

Procedure Completeness Audit: Verifies that essential practical steps are generated.

Dependency Chain Validator: Checks that intermediate builds, flour/water accounting, timing, and yeast locks are coherent.

Print / Snapshot Consistency Audit: Printed verification that formula, procedure, timeline, and source-of-truth engines agree.

PASS / WARNING / FAIL: PASS means verified; WARNING means review; FAIL means correct before relying on the recipe.