How much will pizza dough rise in the refrigerator?

It needs to be in a warm place to rise.if you didn’t want to use the dough last night you should have made it this morning .

@sandystrachan I disagree, I’ve read all over the place that letting your dough slow rise in the fridge is not only totally doable but also is supposed to taste better because of the way it slows the yeast. It supposed to just take much longer to rise. From what I’ve read, It can be left to rise in the fridge overnight or even up to 36 hours.

I know I didn’t ruin it by putting it in the fridge, if it doesn’t rise then I’d say it’s my yeast or temp of water. I’m just trying to figure out how much I can expect it to rise while in the fridge.

Plus, there’s no way I’m getting up at 6 am to make dough before work.

Yeast is extremely sensitive to temperature. Ten degrees difference in the temperature of the dough profoundly affects the growth rate of yeast.

The temperature where yeast grows best is around 78 degrees. The temperature of the dough is the result of the temperature of the water that you use, the flour temperature, and the temperature in your kitchen. Water that is 110 to 115 degrees mixed with cooler flour is intended to create a dough temperature close to this 78 degrees.
Yeast needs warmth

I’ve always thought that cool temps would kill the yeast and it wouldn’t rise. I always put something I need to rise in a bowl on top of the fridge.

I actually always thought that as well, but the recipe I used clearly states you can let it rise overnight in the fridge. I googled around and it’s actually a method some pizza makers live by.

The recipe I’m using is here: http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2009/03/13/a-guide-to-making-inexpensive-and-delicious-homemade-pizza/

The area of interest is:
“If you’re preparing the crust the night before, instead of letting the dough rise in a bowl, pat some flour on the outside of the dough ball (to keep it from sticking) and wrap the dough in Saran Wrap or a Ziploc bag with air sucked out and put it in the fridge. It will raise very slowly overnight and be perfect in the morning.”

Comment 100 in that post also says “you make up the dough and put it in the fridge for up to 18–10 hours. Yeast rises regardless of where it is. We usually put it in a warm place to make it rise faster.”

These articles also touch on refridgerated rising:
http://josephhall.org/nqb2/index.php/2005/01/10/pizza_dough
http://www.foodreference.com/html/a-pizza-refdo-1020.html

Anyywayy, all of them vary a bit on how much the dough will rise while in the fridge. My recipe says it will be “perfect” in the morning whereas many others suggest giving it 2 hours to warm up and continue to rise.

I was just hoping to find if someone had actually used this method and get a first hand account of how much their dough rose while in the fridge and if it’s hopeless if there’s been very little rising action (or none at all). Thanks

You can absolutely let dough rise in the fridge. Give the dough a little tug today. Are there air pockets where there weren’t last night? The actual volume might not look like it has doubled (It most likely hasn’t) but the yeast might still be active.

Bread will continue to rise in the fridge. Generally, more than you want it to, and it will escape and become like The Blob That Ate Chicago.

Just to update on my experience with this. It did rise in the fridge though I didn’t see this noticeably until I got home for work that day. So overnight, it may not rise that much but will in the coming hours. As @breedmitch said there were little air pockets to indicate the yeast was working away.

It also rose a bit more once I took it out of the fridge and it warmed up. It worked out quite well and I actually refridgerated half of the batch for use the following night and that came out fine as well. Thanks for the help

Hi! I made pizza dough in my bread machine yesterday evening. The recipe said that if I wasn’t going to use it until tomorrow, I could divide the dough in half and place it in ziplock bags. I was surprised to see that it had raised during the night—almost double. Can I still use it today to make my pizza. I made it yesterday to save time today.