Entering Flour + Water Pizzeria in San Francisco’s Mission District, your eyes are immediately drawn toward a wall of windows encasing a room designed specifically for the dough-making process.

“The magic of pizza and the foundation for it – the dough – is often hidden behind closed doors, but as a restaurant group, we love to celebrate the craft and the process behind everything we do,” says co-founder and Chef Ryan Pollnow. “It’s why our handcrafted pasta production is on display in our Flour + Water Pasta Shop, as well. Our flagship Pizzeria dough room is at the center of the restaurant, located between our full-service dining room and our quick-service Pizza Shop space. It’s the heartbeat of our flagship and entire pizza program.”

Flour + Water is joined by other pizzerias, large and small, looking to perfect dough making and management. When Pizza Today visited our 2021 Pizzeria of the Year, Razza Pizza Artigianale in Jersey City, New Jersey, owner Dan Richer was in the midst of building out a dedicated dough room.

In Editor In Chief Jeremy White’s December 2021 feature article, Richer said, “We’ll be able to better control variables in that room. We’ve got water lines dialed in to the exact temperature we want, we’ll control the air temperature in there to what we want. It’s going to make such a difference to our consistency and our ability to put out the pizza dough we want to put out.” Four years later, we caught up with Richer for an update.

Rose City Pizza, a ’90s-themed pizza joint in Covina, California, took a different approach and adapted a space previously used for dry storage into a designated dough area. Owner Brian Nittayo was looking to address environmental issues impacting the consistency in his dough-making area, which was by a back door.

The three pizzerias have very different dough room setups, but they share a common drive to make the best pizza dough they can.

What Is a Dough Room?

Typically, a dough room is a self-contained temperature-controlled room or area for dough making. Alastair Hannman (aka The Pizza Buddha), a pizzeria consultant who worked with Nittayo to convert a storage area into a dough room, says, “To me, a dough room is a room that is separated from the hot line. What I mean by that is it is not susceptible to the oven temperature. It’s got a residual humidity under 75 percent to where you are able to maintain it.”

Dough rooms aren’t new. Many pizzerias over the years have incorporated dough rooms into their pizza dough-making process. As techniques changed, operations shifted to using fermentation shelves a.k.a. fermentation containers.

Dough-making environments are constantly shifting, and operators are constantly looking for ways to add consistency to the dough process. Enter dough rooms of today.

Dough Room Features Focus on Tech and Consistency

Razza’s dough room is all business. Richer says, “Our equipment includes a spiral dough mixer and a water meter – something I’ll never build another restaurant without. The water meter has proven to be a huge time-saver for accurately dosing the correct water quantity and temperature. It is also connected to a water chiller, which eliminates the need for ice. While water chillers can be pricey, they are especially beneficial in hot climates. We have a Thermoworks node, which is a thermometer that tracks the temp of the room 24/7, and you can set alerts to be notified if the temp is outside of the range that you set. Ideally, the dough room would have its own dedicated AC unit, but that can be expensive.” Richer commends installing an air filtration system, if possible. The room includes a proofer/retarder, which he says was a mistake because the compressor can affect the room’s temperature.

Flour + Water features include a 70-quart spiral mixer, four proofer retarders, a blast freezer for its upcoming frozen line, dough rounder, scales and a small 6-kilo max capacity spiral mixer. “Other features include wall-mounted filtered water for use in our dough, and a table made from a recycled paper composite material called Richlite. We love Richlite here, as the table doubles as both a prep table and a dining table for guests when the space transforms to a semi-private space for larger parties at night,” says Pollnow. “The surface has natural grip to it which is essential for portioning dough balls, and it can be cleaned easily, so it offers an aesthetically pleasing dining surface for our guests at night.”

In addition to the mixer, Nittayo wanted to automate his dough-making space. “We have the dough divider and the dough rounder,” he says.” Everything flows. We have the water meter. It measures out 24 pounds, exactly into the mixture.” Automation has paid off tenfold for Nittayo as Rose City is able to generate more output and labor efficiency. The dough-making efficiency, along with new conveyor ovens and reducing the menu size, has even sparked him to lower prices.

Fermentation Temperature

When it comes to dough texture and flavor, one of the most significant benefits is the vital element of dough making: temperature. “Those characteristics can be achieved at any temperature, but without temperature control, your results will be inconsistent from day to day. Having a dough room allows us to control the ambient temperature, which is especially important when using preferments of any kind and when bulk fermentation lasts longer than 30 minutes.”

With Flour + Water’s build out, they took advantage of San Francisco’s mild weather. “The room is equipped with air conditioning, but because of the location of the dough room within our space (away from windows and the heat of our Pizza-Master electric deck ovens and kitchen equipment), the space sits between 72 and 74 degrees, year-round – without the use of AC. We’re constantly monitoring the temp and humidity in the room to portion dough at that true room temperature.

Think of the room itself as a clean room. For Flour + Water and Razza, the spaces are enclosed rooms. Razza has floor-to-ceiling tiled walls and floor drains so it is easy to clean. It also features a window to help employees not feel claustrophobic. At Rose City Pizza, Hannman and Nittayo went with a new version of FRP wall panels with the smooth side out to make cleaning easier.

Since Nittayo made use of an existing dry-storage area that had air conditioning duct work, he was able to simplify the conversion and add clear vinyl curtains at the entry to the area, limiting the exposure to other areas of the kitchen and storage.

While costs can vary depending on size of room and features included, Nittayo’s conversion was a few thousand dollars, according to Hannman, not including the addition of the automated equipment.

Dough Rooms Are ‘a Luxury’

Pollnow realizes a dedicated dough room may not be an option for other pizzerias. “We recognize building a dough room is a luxury, but it’s not a necessity for great pizza production. Because our dough room will be acting as a commissary for satellite Pizza Shops and our retail frozen pizza line, we built it to be large. But if you are looking for similar benefits in terms of temperature control, we do recommend investing in a proofer retarder, especially if you are working in a setting that runs hot because of other equipment.”

Richer concurs. “I’ve been making pizza for more than 20 years, but it’s only in the past three years that I’ve had a dedicated dough room. It is possible to achieve consistency if you truly understand your space, can be flexible in the moment, and are able to adapt to daily changes.”

Denise Greer is Executive Editor at Pizza Today.