Guides
Sourdough pizza in a home oven (100% starter)
Crisp, airy, blistered pizza leavened entirely by your starter, baked in a normal oven. No commercial yeast, no thousand-euro pizza oven, no compromise on flavour.
Key takeaways
Build the preferment
Whisk the starter into the warm water, stir in the flour, cover and leave 8 to 12 hours until doubled.
Mix and short bulk
Combine the preferment with the flour, cold water and salt; knead to a smooth dough. Bulk just 1 hour, with one stretch-and-fold at 30 minutes. Pizza dough wants a short bulk, unlike bread.
Ball up
Divide into 6 balls of about 280 g. Round each tightly. No oil or semolina in the box; semolina would soak in and change the hydration.
Proof, then cold rest
Rest the balls 1 hour at room temperature, then refrigerate 12 to 24 hours. Take them out 1 to 2 hours before baking to come up to temperature.
Make the sauce
This sauce rewards time. Briefly sear the tomatoes (cherry tomatoes are great) with a little chopped onion, then deglaze with a splash of wine if you like, and add the olive oil only after that hot sear. Turn the heat right down and let it simmer 1 to 4 hours, adding a little water and stirring now and then so it never catches. Season with Italian herbs, salt and pepper. After 1 to 2 hours the little tomatoes crush easily; purée it if you want it smooth (the onion disappears into it). A final handful of herbs at the end makes it really rich. Oven alternative: roast the tomatoes with herbs, then stir in a little more oil and herbs afterwards.
Stretch and pre-bake
Heat the oven to maximum with a stone or steel in the top third. Dust a ball with semolina, stretch it by hand, and pre-bake the bare base 2 to 3 minutes until the rim sets. Pre-baking keeps the base from going soggy and stops the toppings burning during the longer finish. If you prefer a softer base, spread a thin layer of sauce on before this pre-bake instead.
Top and finish
After the pre-bake, add your sauce (if you didn't already) and toppings and brush the rim with olive oil, then bake another 6 to 9 minutes until blistered and golden. A classic margherita is the mozzarella strips, parmesan and basil. Adjust the time to your toppings, pre-cook watery vegetables like aubergine, and add delicate things like burrata after baking.
Yes, a home oven is enough
You don't need a 450 C wood oven to make excellent pizza. The two things that matter most are a well-fermented dough and a clever bake: pre-bake the bare base so the crust sets, then top it and finish it fast. A baking stone or steel in the top of your oven, cranked to maximum, does the rest. The dough is 100% sourdough, so it's milder and more digestible than yeast pizza, with a slow-fermented flavour.
What you need
Makes 6 pizzas. Use a moderate Tipo 00 flour: chasing the highest-protein flour backfires and makes a rubbery base that shrinks back when you stretch it.
Two details that make it
Cut the mozzarella into roughly 8 mm strips and let it drain so it doesn't flood the pizza; if it's packed in brine, cut it the day before and drain it in a sieve. And put the basil under the cheese so it steams instead of burning. Stretch the dough by hand from the centre outward, pushing the air into the rim, and never roll it with a pin.
A schedule that makes pizza night easy
Pizza dough is a planner's friend because the long stage is hands-off in the fridge. Start from a lively, well-fed starter, build the preferment the evening before, mix and do the short bulk the next morning, ball up, and the dough cold-rests 12 to 24 hours until dinner. It holds for up to three days, so a Wednesday mix is ready any night that week, getting tangier and more flavourful as it goes. Take the balls out one to two hours before baking so they relax and stretch without snapping back.
Make the slow sauce while the oven preheats, and once you log a run in Sourdough Tracker you'll know exactly when your dough hits its peak.
Coaxing char out of a home oven
A home oven tops out around 250 to 300 C, well below a pizzeria's 450 C, so you engineer the char rather than blast it. Preheat the stone or steel for a full hour, not ten minutes, so it's saturated with heat. Bake in the top third where it's hottest, and switch the grill or broiler on for the last minute or two to blister the rim and melt-spot the cheese. A steel beats a stone here because it dumps heat into the base faster, giving you oven spring before the toppings overcook. The pre-bake step does the rest: it sets the crust so the base crisps instead of going soggy under the sauce.
When the dough fights back
If the dough snaps back every time you stretch it, it's either too cold or under-fermented: let it warm the full one to two hours, and next time give the cold rest longer so the gluten relaxes. Tears and thin spots mean you're stretching too hard in one place; work outward from the centre, evenly, and let gravity help by draping it over your knuckles. A soggy base almost always traces to too much wet sauce, skipping the pre-bake, or a hydration thrown off by working in extra flour; a base that won't brown means the stone wasn't hot enough or the rack was too low. None of it needs a fancy oven, just a hot stone and a dough that's properly ripe.
FAQ
Frequently asked
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Written by
Julia Yukovich
Co-Founder + CEO
Julia is one of the Co-Founders. She handles design, development, product direction, and most of the support replies that arrive in the morning.
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