Thursday, June 07, 2012

Best Flour for Pizza

When I first started to make pizza, I always thought flour did not matter.


To me, flour was flour. all purpose was the same as bread flour. And I had never heard of high gluten flour. 

High gluten flour is the type of flour most pizzerias use when they make pizza. It makes for a tastier dough, with more snap and crunch.

 If you can find high gluten flour use it!

While you can certainly get satisfactory results with All-purpose flour, I think that using a high gluten flour will give you a better taste.

So what flour do I recommend. I have found very good results with Caputo Flour.
 It is a flour imported from Italy. I have met the owner of Caputo flour as well as some of his master pizzaiolo.

You can actually go on a video tour of the Caputo flour factory with my friend Sky Dylan Robbins.

Check it out at this link, Caputo Flour from Pizza Therapy.

Another flour that I like is King Arthur Flour. This flour is made in Vermont. King Arthur makes a flour for pizza called Sir Lancelot Flour. This flour is somewhat pricey, however.

According to the King Arthur website:
"Perfect for pizza, bagels, chewy artisan loaves... anytime you want extra "chew" in your bread, or extra rise in your whole-grain (rye, whole wheat, oat) loaves."

I have used King Arthur Unbleached Bread flour for pizza with fantastic results.
I discuss more about my favorite flours on this page: Pizza Therapy recommends flour.
You can also see some great video I shot of Caputo flour. I know you'll like it.






I also found an up and comer great flour from Honeyville farms.

You can find links to some great flour on that page as well.

Here are the links to see the videos. I know you will enjoy them.


And also:
Until next time, may all of your pizzas turn out well. Try experimenting with some different flours, I know you will discover amazing pizza.

pizza on earth,
albert
Pizza Therapy
P.S. For more pizza videos, check pit my Pizza Video Page:



5 comments:

Tscarborough said...

Actually, you need to match your flour to your oven and pizza style. Caputo OO is mediocre for kitchen ovens at 500-500 degrees.

For same day doughs in a kitchen oven, your best bet is regular old All Purpose flour. If you are going to do some extended fermentation times, then the King Arthur bread flours are a good choice. If you can find it, the best all around flour for the kitchen oven is All Trumps bromated.

Save the Caputo's for the 800+ degree ovens where they will shine.

Tscarborough

pizzatherapy said...

Thanks for the insights. I have used both Caputo and King Arthur with good results.

I never realized that one needed to match your flour to the oven.

thanks!

pizza forever!

Unknown said...

Caputo brand flour comes in several forms.I believe they make a flour specifically for pizza, the 00 is a grinding style only and does not necessarrily == higher gluten. King Arthur also produces several varieties of flour, their new pizza select is a combo they make at the plant.

One additional flour question? Is protein % and gluten amount the same. I have never seen a flour pkg list gluten %.

Mark

pizzatherapy said...

Albert Grande said...
I found part of the answer here at the Fresh Loaf:
(the link is below)

"What might be confusing is that Protein is a general term - there are lots of different kinds of proteins in each type of grain. Two of these types of protein are glutenin and gliadin. When these two proteins come into contact with water, they form a network of interlacing strands that is referred to as gluten. In wheats that are used for bread flour, these two forms of protein (glutenin and gliadin) happen to be very prevalent and very nicely balanced. There are other proteins in wheat flour, just as there are other proteins in other flours, such as rye, soy, barley, etc.

This is why a flour might be high in protein, but not high in gluten. Rys, for example, has some gluten forming proteins (so gluten-intolerant people should probably also avoid rye), but more of the non-gluten forming proteins. Soy is usually considered to be a "gluten-free" food, though I don't know if this means that it has neither glutenin nor gliadin, or if it might have some of one, but not the other (recall that you need both glutenin and gliadin, in contact with water, to make gluten)."

Here is the link:

The Fresh Loaf on Gluten vs. Protein

Unknown said...

Albert et al, I found this interesting note re Caputo flour:

"Because Caputo is also construed with Neapolitan style pizza, the other thing that is special in general about Naples is that they have DOC level pizza, which is measured by VPN rules. This requires NO sugar and NO oil when making crust of pizza. It also restricts toppings. As Peter Reinhart, in American Pie mentions in comments outside of his book, we are not "policed" as such. Even in Naples, as Peter mentions, deviations are taken in toppings.

BUT in Naples, very high ovens (at least 800F) can achieve a crispy, light, thin crust with a very unique charred look that is sometimes rolled up due to its softnesss with only the usage of salt, water, flour and yeast. And the pizza is often served same day. Around here, we steer people to A16 in the SF area for something comparable. Since many of us don't have the 800F oven, we need to soften it a bit with oil, and get some color through delayed fermentation in the refrigerator with addition of sugar, dairy whey or other ingredients to accomplish color. Even with the right heat, though, the looks of some Neapolitan pizzas are very unique compared to our wood burning pizzas.

So in essence, being handed Caputo flour is sort of like being handed a leather basketball. Are leather basketballs better than any other ball? Well, they're used in the NBA. Will you feel like a pro? Well, not out-of-the-box when used in outside courts. By the same token, without 800F ovens, we end up playing with something that's different than normal flour, and require deviations often not required in Italy."

This was taken from Pizza Baking .com
Topic: caputo 00 flour

Mark