New to the forum, but a long time New York pizza maker. I am about to start dabbling in high gluten flour. Up to now I have always used Gold Medal bread flour with pretty good results. After reading everyone's raves about King Arthur, I got ahold of some KA bread flour expecting to make my masterpiece. What I got was a dough that rose higher (not necessarily a bad thing), felt stickier, and was harder to handle and more fragile when stretching. I prevailed and made my pizza, getting a crust that was more crispy, less chewy, less flavorful, and overall not as good as that made with GM. Is my experience unique? Would I have been happier with the Sir Lancelot? What do you guys think? Look forward to benefitting from everyone's experience and insight.
Each type of flour has it own characteristics, moisture content being a big one.
You say that your dough felt stickier? The King Arthur flour probably had more moisture content than the Gold Medal. I suggest adding a bit more flour to your recipe when using the KA flour.
I know that when I switched from KA Sir Lancelot (high gluten) to General Mills All Trumps high gluten (the same people who make Gold Medal flour), my dough was a mess too! Very sticky, would not hold together properly (i.e., it ripped when stretched), and I thought the flavor was off.
But, since I have a 25# bag of the General Mills flour, I had to make do with what I had. And after adjusting the amount of water that I added, etc., the General Mills flour is pretty good! I still consider the KA Sir Lancelot flour to be the best.
I suggest that you order a bag of KA Sir Lancelot and give it a try. The flour plus shipping is <$10
