February 8, 2017 - 8:59am
Experienced pizzamakers: What's the best flour for SD pizza in conventional oven.
I've got all the books. I know how to make Tartine bread. I learned how to make SD pizza in a wood-fired oven (we used Caputo Blue 00).
At home I have an electric oven (pizza stone) that goes up to 550. I am currently reading Ken Forkish's book "The Elements of PIzza" in which he calls for High-Protein Bread Flour in his "Overnight Levain Pizza Dough".
He suggests substituting AP or 00. What have you all discovered about the type of flour used for a pizza in a conventional oven?
Thanks!
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I strongly suggest you visit pizzamaking.com. You'll find lots of discussion there covering various flours and their use in ovens of various temperatures. I would say -- as a brief summation and huge generalization of the opinion you will find there -- that using 00 flour for a pizza requires higher temps than 550 F to get a satisfactory result, and if you're limited to 550 F then high-protein flour is your best choice. But do your own research at that site. It's populated by really knowledgable and highly experienced amateur and pro pizza makers.
jaywillie
jaywillie hit it on the nose. I use a good ND all purpose flour for everything. Indoors, I would make a drier crust that's meant for the lower temp. At that point, using 00 would be basically a waste (from what I understand; I've only used 25 kg of 00 in my life so I don't know much).
Hmm. I wonder why Forkish recommends Caputo 00 flour in his book. His book is for people with conventional ovens.
8 bucks for a bag of KA high-protein seems spendy. I will take your advice and root around pizzamaking.com and see if there are any alternatives.
I like the Forkish book, and I live in Portland so I get to eat Ken's pizza, which is great. But I sort of have to admit that at times he seems a little out of touch with his readers -- those of us who don't have his resources. (For instance, in his bread book his recommendations of building a sourdough starter involves throwing away massive amounts with each feeding. Completely unnecessary!) So I try to balance what he writes with some common sense and input from other sources. I have not been into his pizza book lately, so I don't know about his flour recommendations.
You don't need to go all the way to KA's high-protein flour (used to be called Sir Lancelot, and is still called that in packaging for pros), which is expensive and only available on their website. Their bread flour (in the blue package) is available at most supermarkets and nowhere near as expensive as the HP flour. Their HP flour is 14% protein; the bread flour is 12.7%.
jaywillie
KABF is the way for me, then. I bake bread every other day so its good to just have one flour. When I build my oven outside in the spring...that's when I will check out 00. I'll try the high-protein stuff for special occasions.
So why would Ken recommend AP or BF?
King Arthur AP or Bread flower makes excellent pizza at 550F. All Trumps works well if you are going for NY style.
50/50 for pizza. You get the toughness of high gluten elasticity so it doesn't tear when stretched out paper thin you can see through and the AP gives it extensibility when it rests - the best of both worlds. I also like a bit of sugar and EVOO in there to - not more than 10 g each in a 250 g pizza dough. This allows for better browning of the crust in a not so hot 550 F oven in the short time the pizza is in there - 8 minutes. I also use a top and bottom stone and make sure the oven has been at 550 F for 20 minutes before loading the first pizza with 5 minutes between pizzas. The crust has to be very thin so that it can't be folded or bent under topping load.
Happy pizza baking