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[Mikro-Midas]

Hmm, ok. I don't really have much choice when it comes to types of flour. Importing King Arthur or something from across the globe is to expensive for me. As I said, some of the grocery stores sell alimenti Dallari tipo "0", which they call pizza flour, so I'll try that again, but for Whole Wheat I'll need to use the vital wheat gluten (possibly in some combination). Do you know if I need to use more vital wheat gluten when I'm mixing it into whole wheat than into all-purpose? Bread flour have I never seen in any store, so that's out of the question.

About the bake control, I used a regular electric home oven with a stone at the bottom position. The oven was heated for about an hour. It goes up to 300 C (572 F), but I don't know how the stone affect this. I tried to pre-bake the three first pizzas, but I wouldn't say that that made them any more voluminous than the last one, which I didn't pre-heat. The three first was after the pre-bake topped with sauce, meat and cheese and then baked on the pizza mode for 2-3 min and then 2-3 min more with heat from above. The last one was just heated with the pizza mode for about 5 min.

Wouldn't the dough stick just as much to the bowl than to the freezer bag?

When it comes to the hydration level, is the dough supposed to feel firmer, less sticky, when I'm using some other flour than high-gluten? Or do you just mean that I have to adjust the amount of water, because different flours have different absorption levels?

[Pete-zza]

Mikro-Midas,

I am not familiar with the Dallari tipo "0" flour, so you may just have to try some to see if it works. Until you know, you might try making just a single 12" pizza as a test pizza.

I rarely work with whole wheat flour, so you might look under the Specialty-Grain board at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/board,61.0.html to see if you find the answer to the questions on the whole wheat flour or else await possible replies from other members who do work regularly with whole wheat flours. They may also be able to give you insights on whether you can modify Canadave's recipe to use whole wheat flour.

I suggested the use of bowls mainly to reduce the spreading of the dough balls. To prevent or minimize sticking, I oil the bowls before placing the dough balls into the bowls.

Different flours, at least in the U.S., have different absorption values as established by the millers of the flours. For the high-gluten flour as called for in Canadave's recipe, it is around 63%; for bread flour, it is around 62%; for all-purpose flour, it is around 60-61%. These values can vary somewhat from one brand to another. Professionals often use lower values to reduce handling problems. To read more on this subject, see http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4646.msg39204/topicseen.html#msg39204.

Peter