January 7, 2022 - 7:41am
Tipo 00 characteristics - and why?
My wife's delightful friend just gifted her out of the blue with a ton of flours from Janie's Mill, including an "Italian Style" flour which they describe as getting as close to type 00 as you can with stone millling.
Never used Type 00, and don't know much about it. I understand the "00" denomination has to do with how finely ground the flour is, but other than that - what types of wheat are used, what proteins, what glutens/W/P/L are characteristic? Why is this good for pizza and other flatbreads?
Merci.
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As our famous specialist on Italian baking mwilson keeps reminding us, 00 flour is about ash content (very low, not more than 0.5%), not the fineness of the grind. Regarding your other questions about protein and other characteristics, you'll have to ask the mill! 00 flour can be both strong and weak. Here is a good overview https://www.theartisan.net/Flours_One.htm
The miller misleads you if they say 00 means the fineness of the grind (particle size.)
The official and only true definition is ash %, as per:
http://www.theartisan.net/Flours_One.htm
That being the case, protein%, W and P/L are all over the range, as exhibited by Caputo's various types of 00 flour:
http://www.mulinocaputo.it/en/flourlink broken.Try this:
https://www.mulinocaputo.it/art-of-baking/?lang=en
There are at least halt a dozen kinds of 00 flour on that page. Click on the products to see the spec sheet as to protein%, W, and P/L.
It's only in the US where 00 has colloquially (if that's the right word) come to be associated with small particle size (ie, fine grind) flour.
Most Italian 00 flour does indeed have small particle sizes. But, you could have low ash flour with larger particle sizes, and it would still be called 00 due to the low ash.
You could also have higher ash flour, with the smaller particle sizes, but it would not be 00 due to the high ash.
Once you realize this "verbal pitfall", which AFAIK only exists in the US, you just have to ask for the product's spec-sheet, if there is one. If not, maybe the miller can estimate/calculate the extraction rate by weighing the sifting retentate and comparing it to the raw batch weight.
Without the lab equipment, ash%, protein%, W, and P/L are unknown, and the best you can do is accept the miller's or their customers' verbal descriptions of how the dough behaves and bakes up, which is going to vary widely for different types of wheat (was this alleged-00 red or white, hard or soft, winter or spring, generic commodity, or heirloom (turkey red, red fife, sonora) ?). And vary mildly to moderately field to field, and year to year.
Thanks for the info and the links, Andy. I started to flip through the flours but will go back in to take a closer look. Wish me luck with the Janie's!
Wow. OK, thank you guys, that's great and important information. I got my info from Saveur, peculiar (or perhaps not, if it's a general error in the US):
Much appreciated.
Just came across this in Cook's Info. Astounding to me how wrong some pretty authoritative sources can be:
(1) Presidential decree # 187, 9 February 2001. “La legge italiana stabilisce chiaramente le caratteristiche e le eventuali denominazioni con il Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica n.187 del 9 febbraio 2001” DECRETO DEL PRESIDENTE DELLA REPUBBLICA 9 febbraio 2001, n.187. This law replaced the previous law governing flour from 1967, (law 4.7. 1967. n. 580), modified in 1972.
Just made a pizza dough with Janie's Mill "Organic Italian Style" flour, which they describe as 70% extraction, "about as close to Type 00 as you can get by stone milling." Looking forward to trying it tonight, but it appears very dark relative to any white flours I have. They also use sifting fineness as a measure of comparison to Type 00.
Could you guys tell me your favorite Type 00 flours to work with, and where you source them (this might be for Andy - Ilya, and you're you in the UK?)
Thanks much.
00 should be super white, whiter than AP, and the bread it makes also looks very white. So clearly "about as close to Type 00 as you can get by stone milling." is actually pretty far off... That's not to say that your pizza won't be delicious!
I was in the UK, now I am in Switzerland. No problem buying 00 flour for pizza in a supermarket here, in the UK was less easy and I got it from an Italian deli or online from bakerybits once.
In a city the size of Madison, there should be pizzeria/restaurant suppliers who carry Caputo Pizzeria flour, and possibly Caputo Americana flour.
There's also a chance that they will do "counter sales", where you phone in your order and you pay and pick up at their counter. (give them time to schedule someone to go back into the warehouse and retrieve the item.)
They may also carry General Mills Gold Medal flour types suitable for pizza such as All Trumps and two others.
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/hard-spring-wheat/all-trumps-enriched-malted-50lb
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/hard-spring-wheat/all-trumps-enriched-malted-25lb
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/hard-winter-wheat/gold-medal-neapolitan-50lb
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/premium-pizzeria-flour-27-5-lb
GM does not advertise those as 00 nor as fine particle size. Ash% is in the pdf spec sheets. You'd have to ask about particle size.
That last GM one, in the 27.5 bag, says "00 style" on the bag, but then I'd have to ask, do they mean low ash, or do they mean fine particle size?
Those web pages have forms to look up the GM distributors who carry those flours based on zip code.
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Local grocers specializing in Italian or international cuisine might carry the home kitchen line of Caputo flours in 1 kg bags. My local Italian shop has/had Caputo Chef 00 flour, which is the equivalent of the 25 kg Saccorosso 00 flour of their Professional range. I bought some and it made a nice soft dough. I forget what I made with it.
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If the goal is pizza, there is no "one" pizza flour because there is no "one" pizza style. It depends on the crust style, and on how you want to handle it.
American AP flour can be fine for pan style pizza. Reinhart's American Pie book specifies mostly AP and then Bread flour for some. Marc Vetri specifies King Arthur bread flour for all styles, and just varies the formula and handling. Tony Gemignani covers a range, Caputo Pizzeria, All Trumps, etc.
Just by varying hydration, oil %, milk %, mixing/kneading time, rest/ferment time, you can make the same flour do different things. Or, within limits, make slightly different flours do the same thing. All because it's a multi-variant (multi-variate?) system.
So there's no one "pizza flour" just like there is no one "bread flour."
Ingredients, handling, and procedures all combine to make a system. So there is no "one best". It all depends on the overall system.
Of course I'm preaching to the converted here, because as a pro chef you already know the "system" sermon.
Andy thanks a ton. I'll read through these.
So, I've been talking with a luthier friend who is also a really good baker. He uses the Caputo red 00 with AP at 50:50.
I've been a bit confused from varying descriptions (and Andy, I think this covers what you're saying). Looking at several Italian sites, it's consistent that most of them consider 00 as almost "poison" (one site's words) in the way refined sugar is considered taboo for some. I imagine this must be some general "anti-refined" anything, but I don't know.
But what got me is that everything including their wiki state 00 is too soft for pizza. With W between 180-350 (which encompasses Tipo 0 and Tipo 1), these are the flours I've seen come up again and again.
One site said 00 is OK for short leavened pizza. All said 0 or 1 for long-leavened pizza.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farina
https://www.dolci.it/le-farine/
https://www.ilpanificiodicamillo.it/differenza-farina-0-00-quale-scegliere-pane-pizza-focaccia/
https://www.molinorossetto.com/it/maxi-formato/1786-farina-tipo-0.html
Just one example (I don't speak Italian - google translator). From this last site:
And randomly, another site:
So, am I right in that "short-leavening" is direct doughs, and "long-leavening" is a dough made with some sort of pre-ferment? And if so, it seems many of the Italians prefer 0 and 1 for any pre-leavened doughs? Any thoughts?
Finally, I know nothing about any of this but you've got me very piqued to learn more. Any pizza "bibles" that go into ingredients in a fairly in-depth way, as well as styles, techniques, etc. Any corollary to Jeffrey Hamelman's, in other words, solely on pizza and flatbreads?
First; realize that in EU, what they call "soft wheat" is what we in the US call hard wheat. Because in EU, "hard wheat" is durum, and only durum. So in the EU "soft wheat" just means "not durum."
What we in the US call "soft wheat" the EU calls "pastry wheat".
There's one pitfall.
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People who say "00 is too weak" don't realize that 00 comes in W values from 180/200 to 380/390. W is strength.
Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour is W 260/270. Sometimes called blue bag. It's actually a white bag with all blue trim.
Captto 00 Americana flour is W 360/380. Sometimes called "red bag Pizzeria flour", because it has some red trim.
Caputo 00 Saccorosso is W 300/320. This bag is also red, and in fact has more red on it than the red trim of the Americana bag. But it's not sold much as pizzzeria flour in the US. So an American pizzaiolo, unaware of Saccorosso, is unaware of the confusion. "sacco rosso" literally means "red bag."
So when a pizzaiolo in the US talks about "Caputo 00 red bag" you better ask him to show you the bag. He could be referring to 00-Americana that now comes in a white bag with red (as opposed to blue) trim, or he could mean 00-Saccorosso, which is NOT advertised as pizza flour, but comes in a literal red bag.
It's frustrating, I know.
Lol, it seems much like Italian wines. A world I still don't have a handle on.
So, from their wiki, they recommend from 180-350 W for pizza. I didn't know what the W values were for their 00's. I see this is the two "00", red and blue.
On the long ferment, I'd thought it implied a long-preferment, like a levain or biga or something like that (whether cultured yeast or sourdough), with the final dough made the next day for 12-16 hours total. Would you mind describing what a "long-ferment" v. "short-ferment" means in the context of pizza then, Andy?
Thanks.
Hours vs days. Less flavor vs more flavor.
What pizza cookbooks do you have? Maybe looking at the same recipes might help.
I have American Pie by Reinhart, My Pizza by Lahey, The Pizza Bible by Gemignani, Artisan Pizza by Hertzberg/Francois.
In Kindle, I have Perfect Pan Pizza by PR, Mastering Pizza by Vetri, Elements of Pizza by Forkish.
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"So, from their wiki, they recommend from 180-350 W for pizza. "
Again, that's over-generalized to the point of meaninglessness. W 180 would make one style of pizza, and W 350 would make a different style. W 180 would be like a low protein AP, and W 350 would be like a high protein All Trumps flour.
Wow, OK, gotcha. Never done anything like that long of a ferment. I actually have none of these books because I've never done much pizza dough - I think I use Wolfgang Puck's from years ago. Could use some education, as hand-tossing this weird Janie's Mill stuff seemed promising, but the dough tore really easily. I'm positive it's me, but it would still be nice to get educated on the variables. So among those books (thank you), any you'd recommend as a good foundational book to start with?
Edit: I do have Lahey's book. But because it's his no-knead approach, would you recommend a more "orthodox" book to start learning from?
"So among those books (thank you), any you'd recommend as a good foundational book to start with?"
None match the comprehensiveness of Hamelman's Bread.
But, all of them regularly go on sale for $5 in kindle format. 3 of them are on sale now, as you can see on my latest Kindle page: Perfect Pan Pizza, Mastering Pizza, and Elements of Pizza.
As a starting point, I'd say Elements by Forkish:
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Pizza-Unlocking-Secrets-World-Class-ebook/dp/B012KJYR3O
Forkish covers 3 styles, Neapolitan, Roman, and Al Taglio.
If you can digest that, then in a little while, Gemignani's Pizza Bible will be on sale for $5. List is $15, but usual/frequent price is $10. Hence, wait a couple weeks until it goes down to $10, or wait a bit longer and get it for $5.
Gemignani covers more styles.
If you find any of the physical books I mention, used at under $10, snap them up.
Also, in Elements, Forkish says to forget everything he wrote about pizza in FWSY.
Andy, on Amazon, I'm seeing "pizzeria," "chef's," and "Americana." Di you happen to know the W on the Chef's? They describe it as good for lower temp home ovens. I imagine a low "W," then?
Thanks. They've repackaged colors, it seems - they say the pizzeria "blue" is now also in a red bag, lol.
All Caputo flour can be seen here:
https://www.mulinocaputo.it/art-of-baking/?lang=en
https://www.mulinocaputo.it/linea-cucina/?lang=en
First link is Professional line in 25 kg bags.
2nd link is home kitchen line in 1 kg bags.
Chef, a.k.a. "Cuoco" is in the second link. By matching up the specs, it looks identical to Saccorosso of the Professional line.
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I try to keep my oft-referenced links here, if you want a single bookmark:
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/62101/various-links
OK, fantastic. Thanks Andy. Do you like the Chef/Saccarosso?
I bought some Chef/Cuoco in the 1 kg bag. I forget what all I used it for. At least pancakes. I liked how it was powdery, absorbed water quickly, and made a nice-to-handle pillowy dough. It does produce a lot of dust due to the powdery (small particle) nature.
But it was about $7 for the 2.2 lb bag, too expensive for me. And I don't use that much white flour anyway. It takes me months to use up a 5 pound bag of white flour, so I can't see me buying a 50 to 55 pound bag of flour, unless I sell/give-away all but 5 pounds.
"So, am I right in that "short-leavening" is direct doughs, and "long-leavening" is a dough made with some sort of pre-ferment?"
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No. better translation would be short versus long ferment time. Regardless of whether using commercial yeast or sourdough. And regardless of pre-ferment vs straight dough.
"Stong" flour, that is high W, means you can ferment it longer to build up the flavor.
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Edited to add:
On Caputo's page for Saccorosso:
"Lunga lievitazione. Ideale per impasti che richiedono tempi di riposo lunghi e lievitazioni prolungate in celle di frigo."
They translate on their english version page as: "Long fermentation. Ideal for doughs with long rising lenghten in cold stores."
Whoops, missed this part:
"So, from their wiki, they recommend from 180-350 W for pizza. "
Again, that's over-generalized to the point of meaninglessness. W 180 would make one style of pizza, and W 350 would make a different style. W 180 would be like a low protein AP, and W 350 would be like a high protein All Trumps flour. "
OK, gotcha. I understand, thanks for clearing it up Andy.
What exactly is the aim of your current project?
Is it to find a pizza formula to use up this Janie's Mill 70% extraction flour? And if so, what style of pizza would you like to do first?
Or. is the goal to make a certain style pizza, pick a formula for it, then go buy whatever flour the formula specifies?
I'm reasonably confident that the Janie's "boutique" (and I mean that in a complimentary way) flour is not going to handle like any Caputo 00 flour. Hence, no formula calling for true 00 flour from Caputo is going to result well with Janie's 70% extraction flour.
I'm sure Janie's flour will make fine pizza. Nothing wrong with a little darker flour. Many pizza formulas call for some whole wheat.
But I think you'll have to start by flying by the seat of your pants as far as hydration, yeast% or inocculation %, rise times, etc. Maybe look for a pizza dough recipe (in the style you want) that calls for, guessing, 15% WW, and start with that.
First thank you for the links page. My god, Andy, never came to it. That is a tremendous resource!
And thanks for the guiding questions. Aa far as the Janie's, I will probably use it as a kind of T110, as a guess, for just making bread. Or you've a great idea, just using it as a kind of WW component for a pizza recipe calling for it.
But overall, I'd love to learn traditional pizza (and I have to admit my cluelessness - e.g. regional approaches?), and as is my thing, willing to do a single recipe over and over to learn process well, before starting to mess with variations.