Caputo Blue

[AP]

Man....it is hard to get this stuff to brown.  I lowered the hydration to 52% and my results were MUCH better but I can tell I'm going to need more heat to get this stuff to go.

I did 52% hydration with 1.5% salt...and just a pinch of IDY... 1/8 tsp per 16oz finished dough.  I retarded it in the fridge right out of the mixer for 24 hours...took it out and let it rise for 6 hours with a couple folds in between.  I can definitely see the potential of turning out a good pizza...but not at 525F in my home oven.  (Side note...I found a great website: http://www.traditionaloven.com/ )

I'm going to buy some "pizzeria" from pennmac and give that a try.  Just so I'm not mistaken -- you guys are doing 60% hydration with pizzeria, right?  If I do 60% with caputo blue I get thick pancake batter!  Thus far my BEST results with pizza dough were with KASL.  I also made some really nice bagels with it.

What should I do with my caputo blue?  I found a formula for ladyfingers and was thinking about whipping up some tiramisu.  Is the protein content of this flour too high for this?  I think I might try some baguettes, too.  The KA formula for baguettes calls for AP flour.  I'm assuming that the caputo blue is close to an AP in protein content.

Would adding my bob's red mill VWG to caputo blue be sacrilege?

Anyway...moving on...just thought I would note some of my thoughts here...

[Pete-zza]

AP,

Welcome to the club. You have discovered that a home oven is not the equivalent of a high-temperature wood-fired oven

You won't get a lot of hydration out of the Caputo Extra. I haven't tried the Extra, but it is lower in protein than the other two Caputo 00 flours (the Extra is 9.5% vs. 11.5-12.5% for the Caputo Pizzeria). All else being equal, you will usually get greater hydration as you move up the protein scale. That's why you have been able to get good hydration with the KASL. It has 14.2% protein.

You have to be careful about using too high a hydration with a 00 flour in a standard home oven, even the 60% hydration you mentioned. You can end up with a cracker-like crust. You might also want to add some oil to your dough to soften the crust.

A light crust color is symptomatic of a 00 flour. If you go to the A16 thread, you can read about the many efforts of our members, including me, to find ways of increasing the crust color, including the use of dried dairy whey (if you do a whey search on the forum you should be able to find the relevant posts). The dried dairy whey works, but it also alters the texture of the dough and affects the finished crust. Yet it is possible to make a decent pie. It just won't stack up with a pie made in a high-temperature oven.

I would hold onto the Extra for now, pending input from some one of our members--maybe pietradoro--who also has been using the Extra. Maybe we can also do some research to find out possible alternative uses for the Extra beyond pizza dough. As noted above, the Extra is fairly low in protein--less than that of most all-purpose flours--so it may not be a clear substitute for all-purpose flour in many recipes. I have never supplemented a 00 flour with vital wheat gluten (VWG). But I have done it with cake flour, which is around the same protein level as the Extra, and got good results under the circumstances, better than I expected. Not great, but good.

Peter

[pietradoro]

As Peter indicated, I have been using the Extra Blue for some months now (just ran out), and have not had any problems with browning.  Perhaps this is because I am dedicated to using the two-stone, lower-burner-upper-burner technique, which, in my view, is indispensable to turning out a crust with nicely charred spots, or even blisters (if you're going for a Roman-style ultra-thin crust).  Though I haven't measured hydration percentages, I have gone from tacky to sticky Extra Blue dough (as per Peter Reinhart's suggestion), and, using the upper burner (broiler) quite carefully, always manage to brown the crust edge.  Interesting, I often add a small amount of whole milk (not dairy whey) to the water, at the rate of .25 cups per 1.25 cups of water.  To be honest, aside from more limited long-term fermentation periods I am not yet convinced that the protein differential between the Extra Blue and the Pizzeria is an absolute, critical factor with specific regard to browning the crust or even flavor.  Perhaps others will disagree and have differing experiences than I.  Possibly, the main browning problem you're finding with the Extra Blue may be more related to oven heat, rather than protein, though, as Peter points out, the two are inter-related inasmuch as hydration is concerned.

If you decide to abandon the Extra Blue, why not just mix your Extra blue with high protein KASL, so you won't have to waste it?

[Pete-zza]

AP,

I went to the Molino Caputo website today, at http://www.molinocaputo.it/#, and looked to see what the intended use of the Extra is. If you go to the site and click on the photo for the Extra (Extra Blu), you will see a statement as follows:

Low ash content. The new milling process avoids the damaging of the protein content. It is recommended for direct dough method made dough that requires short handling time. Best suited for light texture bread with white and shiny crumb.

FYI, the "direct dough method" is one that takes place in a single phase, as by combining all the ingredients in a single sequence. That effectively rules out the use of a preferment, like a poolish or biga, which require more than one phase. I believe the term "direct dough method" is synonymous with the term "straight dough method". A low ash flour is one in which a good part of the bran from the grain has been removed. As a result, the finished crust will be whiter in color than when a higher ash flour is used.

So, you can make bread or rolls with the Extra or, as some of our members do, combine it with a high-gluten flour, such as the King Arthur Sir Lancelot flour. This is essentially what Dom DeMarco at DiFara's does, except that he uses the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour and All Trumps high-gluten flour. He uses roughly 75% Caputo Pizzeria flour and 25% All Trumps, by volume. You could go 70 Extra/30 KASL as a starting point to boost the total protein content.

Peter

[pietradoro]

The small 1K bags sold by Forno Bravo also say on the package: "Perfetto per Pizza e Dolce," while the larger bag shown on the web site picture does not.  The curious, and perhaps even slightly bizarre comment on this comes (indirectly) from a Caputo representative in Naples, who stated to Forno Bravo (James) that in the US too much is made of the difference between the Pizzeria and Extra Blue -- they are nearly the same.  Key word, I suppose, is "nearly," because 2%+ lower protein and high ash content in the Extra Blue seems more like a significant difference to me.

Perhaps, there is one important advantage to the Extra Blue: it can be purchased in 2.2 lb (kg) Caputo packages (not repacked) and can be shipped at reasonable rates.  Also, and I think Peter has pointed this out elsewhere, is that the Extra Blue sits somewhere between the Pizzeria flour and the Bel Aria 00, probably more toward the Bel Aria, though I've had good experience with two-day cold fermentation with the Extra Blue.

[AP]

Is anyone getting browning/blisters on the caputo pizzeria in the home oven?  Someone I spoke with at KA once mentioned something (via their email-the-chef service) about "brownable sugars" in reference to dough performance at certain temps.  Isn't the protein the brownable sugar?  Still, even at 525F, I can get the KASL to perform quite well.  I guess the question is this: can you experience the elusive magic of caputo pizzeria in the home oven at 525F.

From my experience with the extra, even at 52% water, it doesn't look like my oven can cut the mustard.  The bottom of the crust looks fine...from the pizza stone...but the exposed crust is just pale, sad, and boring    I've realized how much flavor comes from the browning, too.  The inside texture can only get me so far...is this your experience, too?

What about non-diastatic malt used for bagels?  Have you used that in pizza?



 

[Pete-zza]

AP,

There are several sources of browning in a typical pizza crust. One is protein, as you mentioned. During baking, the protein from the flour in the dough reacts with reducing sugars, mainly glucose, lactose and fructose, to produce browning through what is called the Maillard reaction, named after the French scientist who studied the phenomenon. The reducing sugars come mainly from the enzymatic (alpha amylase) breakdown of damaged starch in the flour. The KASL has more protein than the Extra but it also has more damaged starch and it is a malted flour. The malt, either in the form of barley malt or fungal amylase (usually added by the miller at the factory but also sometimes by bakers), increases the enzymatic breakdown of damaged starch into sugar to be available at the time of baking to promote browning.

The Caputo Extra, as well as the other Caputo flours, are less prone to starch damage than our domestic flours and they are unmalted. So they are not the best candidates for producing copious amounts of sugar in a short period of time for browning purposes. They will, however, tolerate fairly long periods of fermentation under the proper temperature/time conditions and produce residual sugar for browning purposes. But even under the influence of high oven temperatures the finished crusts will not be golden brown as we experience with flours like the KASL, as you will see from the photos of authentic Neapolitan pizzas that pizzanapoletana and others have posted. Remember also that it can take but a minute or two to bake a Neapolitan pizza in a wood-fired oven, so you won't get the same type of browning as in a lower temperature oven, such as a home oven. FYI, damaged starch is starch that is damaged either as a result of poor wheat crops or as a result of damage during milling, or both. It may sound like damaged starch is a condition to be avoided but, without sufficient damaged starch, it would take longer to make our pizzas.

It is possible to use both diastatic and non-diastatic malt with a flour. The diastatic malt is used to increase enzymatic performance, and its net effect is to increase the amount of residual sugar in the dough at the time of baking to increase color in the crust. Non-diastatic malt is only a sweetener and, as in the case of the bagels you mentioned, will increase crust browning during baking (mainly through caramelization of sugar) as well as add sweetness to the finished crust. You can also use regular sugar, and you can also use dry powdered milk (in includes lactose) provided it is the right form of milk (a special baker's grade powdered milk). It is also possible to increase the level of damaged starch in the flour, by running the flour through specialized equipment designed for this purpose. I even tried running the Caputo Pizzeria flour through the whirling blade of my food processor to do the same thing.

I have tried all of the above approaches, and they were chronicled in the A16 thread. I thought dairy whey was the most effective way of increasing crust browning of the Caputo flour in a home oven application, although it will have other effects on the dough as I previously mentioned. I also found that simply oiling the unbaked rim of the dough helped with browning. Using the broiler element for about a minute or so to finish baking also helped.

If there is a magic bullet that allows us to make a Neapolitan crust in a home oven like that made in a high-temperature wood-fired oven, I haven't found it.

Peter

[pietradoro]

Great info, Peter.

AP, I really do think your best shot at browning the top edge is either oiling it, using the broiler element, or both.  To start, I would try both.  I have gotten good browned blistering this way.  If you haven't tried using the top element, you will probably be surprised what an effective tool can be.  (One thing I haven't figured out is if it better to top broil first then lower the pizza to the bottom stone or visa versa, but I imagine every oven is different so YMMV.)

As far as malt goes, I have used the Carnation with very good results.  My sense is that at the right quantities it adds a pleasant "baked bread" flavor and aroma rather than the expected malted flavor.  I tend to use it on shorter fermentations and not on the longer ones, because the longer fermentations do not need that "extra flavoring."