Regarding Caputo, I don't buy into the 'Italian' flour concept. You basically have your malted flours and your unmalted flours as well as your high protein (14%) flours and medium high protein (11-12.5%) flours. Unmalted medium high protein flour is going to work one way, while malted high protein flour is going to work another. If Americans had easy access to a domestic unmalted medium high protein flour, it would produce results identical to Caputo.
I also don't really subscribe to any particularly inherent flavor of wheat. I believe that it takes a certain amount of time for a flour to fully hydrate (most likely longer than 8 hours), and, before that time, it can taste starchy and bland, but, once it's fully hydrated, further fermentation doesn't bring out any more wheatiness, just byproducts of yeast activity and enzymes, which for relatively low yeast long ferments, is mostly enzymes. Enzyme activity is predominantly sugar generation. The more enzyme activity, the more residual sugar is generated, the more maillard reactions/browning you get, the 'nuttier' the flavor. I firmly believe that the component with the greatest impact on a bread's final flavor is sugar, by a landslide. Maillard reactions involve protein and sugar, so protein plays a part, but I believe sugar to be the star player.
Malted flour burns too quickly at high temps because of the excess of enzyme generated sugar (and sugar in the malt itself). Unmalted flour is pale and tasteless at lower temps/longer bake times because of the lack of enzymes/sugar. This is the sole reason why unmalted Caputo is better for WFOs and malted American flours are superior for NY style temps.
Sugar deprivation and fast bake times produces char. Instead of sugar based maillard reactions creating golden brown hues, NP crusts go from white to black- leoparding. The predominant flavor that's associated with unmalted doughs cooked at high temps is char. The predominant flavor that's associated with malted doughs is maillard compounds (nutty, toasty, umami, etc.). Humanity, as a whole, is hardwired to enjoy maillard browning. There's umami (glutamates) in mother's milk. Char, on the other hand, is an acquired taste. Expresso, whiskey, and dark chocolate all derive their flavors from char and all generally require an adult palate to appreciate. Charred Neapolitan is the connoisseur's pizza. Golden Brown Delicious (GBD) NY pizza is the pizza for the masses.
