September 8, 2011 - 6:27pm
Italiano Pizza Flour vs Type 00
Giusto's has two products, both of which they claim are perfect for pizza: they have Italiano Pizza Flour and Organic 00, and the latter is twice as expensive. Does anyone know the difference between these two flours? They don't really give any information on the web site and haven't responded to emails.
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I have used the Giusto's 00 organic flour - I can buy it for about $55 for a 50# bag (wholesale). It is close to double the price of the other non-organic Giusto's flours I use, and it's my guess that difference in price is only because it is organic. Pretty much all flours that are marketed for pizza are 00 which refers to the grind...very fine! It absorbs water differently than regular flours, and works best if you are baking the end product in a very high heat oven. If you don't care about having an organic dough then go with the Italiano Pizza flour. The end product will look, feel, and taste the same! If you don't have an oven that will bake at a minimum of 700 degrees or more, then just use a regular flour.
My two-cents....good luck and happy baking!
Hi there,
I've never used either BUT I recently came across a comment by a very experienced professional baker who reckons that there's nothing particularly unique about Type 00 flour that absolutely cannot be replaced with another flour. So my guess would be, you might just as well go for the cheaper option.
"nothing particularly unique about Type 00 flour that absolutely cannot be replaced with another flour. So my guess would be, you might just as well go for the cheaper option."
Well, the cheaper option is to keep using my King Arthur's All Purpose. ;-) Which I may do, if the type 00 doesn't impress me in some way. According to juliette and others, I won't see much of a difference in a regular oven.
P.S. When I first started making pizza I tried every 00 flour available to me, and liked Caputo the best. Happily, it was also the most economical. My only complaint was the bags...thin and prone to tearing too easily. If I am cooking in a wood-fired pizza oven (800+ degrees) I use a mix of Caputo, KAF bread flour, medium or dark Rye, and whole wheat flours (the whole grain flours add strength and flavor). If I am cooking at home in my Wolf range (600 degrees) then I use KAF all-purpose flour instead of the Caputo. Hope this helps!
"and it's my guess that difference in price is only because it is organic."
Great point, juliette. Didn't occur to me because I wouldn't pay extra for organic, but I guess many people would. I actually ordered some Caputo via Amazon, because I found a source with cheap shipping. I hate paying more shipping than the product costs! With Amazon, I ordered 5 bags for the same shipping cost, but as I up the quantity with Giusto's, the shipping goes up proportionately.
I had come across the point you made about type 00 only being helpful in very hot ovens, but thought I'd give it a whirl anyway.
Thanks!
For what it's worth, Daniel Leader in Local Breads says you can make type 00 flour by combining all-purpose unbleached flour with some cake flour. I didn't see proportions, but I would probably start with 4:1 and see how it goes. Whether or not your flour is organic is up to you.
Interesting. Most cake, however, is bleached. Is that what he recommended to use? I do have some unbleached cake flour, but I have to order it from KAF.
Now that I think about it, I have Leader's book. What page?
Thanks
italian flours are generally very weak, thus a 1:1 ratio with cake flour would represent more how they behave. Yet trying to reproduce italian flours for levained good is calling for troubles.
Page 167: "You can blend your own 00 flour." (He's talking specifically about Tuscan salt-free bread.)
Thank you!