Dough tray – what does it need to handle?
Sealed enough but not airtight, stackable in the fridge, and roomy enough for a growing dough ball. Why an ordinary plastic tub works just as well.
Quick answer: A dough tray needs to be sealed but not hermetically closed, stackable in the fridge, and large enough for a 250 g dough ball to grow without pressing against the lid. Ordinary rectangular plastic tubs with a lid work exactly as well as boxes sold specifically for pizza dough — it’s the shape and size that decide it, not the name on the product.
Why ”sealed but not hermetically closed”
The dough shouldn’t dry out on the surface during fermentation — that gives a tough skin that gets in the way when you stretch it. At the same time, a fermenting dough produces carbon dioxide, and a completely airtight container with a seal that really holds can build up pressure. In practice, most lids solve this without you having to think about it: an ordinary loose-fitting plastic lid lets out the gas that actually forms, while still keeping the surface protected from drying out.
Size and room to grow
A dough ball of 250–280 g nearly doubles in volume during a long cold fermentation. The tray therefore needs to be clearly bigger than the ball from the start — as a rule of thumb, the ball should have at least twice as much headroom above it as its own height, and ideally a little margin sideways too so it isn’t pressed against the walls and loses its round shape. If the tray is too tight, the ball gets squeezed against the lid or its neighbours, which makes stretching more uneven.
Stacking in the fridge
If you’re making several balls at once, stackability is the practical difference between a good and a bad solution. Straight walls and a lid that sits firmly mean the trays can be stacked without risking tipping over or squashing the balls underneath.
Do ordinary plastic tubs work?
Yes. An ordinary rectangular food container with a lid that meets the requirements above — the right size, not fully airtight, stackable — works exactly as well as a box marketed specifically for pizza dough. There’s nothing about the dough’s fermentation that requires a particular brand or material; glass, hard plastic and polypropylene all work.
Read more about room-temperature fermentation and cold fermentation for how long the dough actually needs to sit, and about balling for how to shape the balls before they go in the tray. Work out the right amount of dough and number of balls in the pizza calculator.
