Caputo Flour (red bag)
I finally managed to find some caputo flour in New York. It took nearly 4 months to find a distributor and had to drive to the Bronx to pick it up from a warehouse. I'm not sure why it was so difficult to find in a pizza haven, I must have missed something. Anyways...
I'm writing to review the flour.
Being that it is 00 it is clearly finer thatn KABF. I usually use sir gallahad. It barely coats your finger tips and absorbs moisture really well. So well that I had to drop my usual hydration percentage from 72 percent to 58 percent. I made several boules around 63-65 percent. The dough was super lax. It shaped really well and held the boule for the first hour during a cold ferment. After that first hour it turned to mush. Shaping was difficult. The dough was super stretchy and wanted to tear. It really needs hydration below 60 percent. I'm going to make another batch tomorrow and let it cold ferment till wednesday.
As far as the flavor, it was really incredible. I made the dough in the morning. Had a six hour cold ferment and baked it for dinner. I baekd it around 625F with my stone on the top shelf of the oven. The flavor was better than any KABF pie I've made, including the ones with preferments. The crust was chewy but not overly so. Really great flour. Play with the hydration.
Hello, I'm also a fan of the 'red bag' 00 caputo flour..I love it too! I just blogged about it recently on the WFO baking and the recipe for the pizza dough that worked up nicely for me. I'm thinking maybe you are not getting a good enough gluten formation before shaping your pizza balls. I didn't have a problem with dough tearing and have posted on my blog about the dough mixer method I used for kneading..hope it helps some. You might like to check out 'Taylor's Italian Market' on Amazon.com for ordering the flour..just to see if it's a good enough deal for you.
Sylvia
I checked all the amazon distributors. I get 10 2.2k bags for 16 bucks and no shipping since I picked it up at the warehouse. Tough to beat. I'm thinking of maybe repackaging and distributing if I can get such a good deal.
When I say tearing I dont mean in the sense that the dough had no extensibility. Quite the opposite. The dough was sooooo stretchy that it would fall under its own weight until it would tear apart. The gluten in this dough developed so well and very quickly. I did a 30 minute autolyse and it only took 4 minutes of total mixing outside the autolyse. Really great.
You are very fortunate you be able to access it at such a fantastic price. It seems your location is great getting the flour. I will have to check with some Italian pizza resturant owners about maybe a better source for me.
I did think you meant shaping the pizza.
Autolyse is the way to go.
Enjoy your Pizza's :)
Sylvia