Source for Caputo Pizza Flour in the San Francisco area

[pizzasf]

Hi folks, I am on the San Francisco Peninsula, and am trying to find a store that I can drive to (ie not have to order online from to save shipping charges) to buy Caputo 00 Pizza Flour.

Have read through a bunch of the posts here, and people point to Italfoods in South SF, however they 100% will not sell to you unless you represent a restaurant.

Does ANYONE know of a place within 50 miles of San Mateo that will actually sell me a bag of Caputo directly?

Would appreciate any advice.

[Essen1]

Pizzasf,

I'm also on the Peninsula, Belmont to be exact, and I found the Caputo Farina di grano tenero Tipo "00" actually today at Piazza's in the Laurelwood Shopping Center on West Hillsdale Blvd. ! They also carry an excellent selection of King Arthur flours of almost every variety. I was amazed when I saw that because no other store I've been to has had that vast of a selection.

The Caputo was $3.29 for 1kg (2.2lbs)

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

What you show is the Caputo Extra Blu 00 flour, not the Caputo Pizzeria 00 flour, which does not come in the 1 kilo bag.

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

I know.

But I was surprised to see the Caputo at all in a Supermarket here in the Bay Area. The label shows a protein level of 9.75% per 100 grams, whereas the Caputo Pizza flour has a protein level of 11% - 12%. I ordered two 5lb bags from Pennmac.com a week ago and the shipping was around $11.

I could imagine that you could "stretch" the Caputo Blue with a certain percentage of KA Bread flour to achieve a higher protein content?

Mike

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

I mentioned the difference because a lot of people have purchased the Extra Blu thinking that they bought the Pizzeria 00 flour.

You could use November's Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://tools.foodsim.com/ to calculate the amounts of the two flours you mentioned to use in the final blend to achieve a targeted protein content for the blend (for example, the same protein content as the Caputo Pizzeria 00 flour), however the two flours are made of different wheat grains with different characteristics and will not "convert" the Caputo Extra Blu to the Caputo Pizzeria flour. However, the results may be satisfactory enough to consider blending the Caputo Extra Blu with another flour.

Peter

[Pizza_Not_War]

I contacted ITALfoods in the bay area to see if they would send a bag of Caputo to one of their local clients for me. ITAL had no problem with it, the local store would not help me. Needless to say they have one less customer for the future and no doubt when they belly up to the bankruptcy bar I will be crying no tears for them.

Purchased a big bag of flour online from Chefs Warehouse, paid the freight and am very happy with the best crusts I have ever made. Light crispy outside soft slightly chewy inside.

If my math is correct, the extra freight cost is about $.17 per pizza. Worth every penny of it!

PNW

[Essen1]

Peter,

I've been through almost every imaginable flour I was able to get my hands on, ever since I started my quest for a great homemade pizza. I tried numerous different types of recipes, hydration levels, no oil, with oil, etc. The best crust I have achieved so far was with the "00" from Italbrand, as strange as that may seem, because its protein level is roughly that of the Caputo Blue, although I did use 25% of KA bread flour in the mix.

How about adding a pinch of Vital Wheat Gluten to the Caputo Blue? Wouldn't that increase the protein content without altering the flour too much?

Mike

[Pete-zza]

How about adding a pinch of Vital Wheat Gluten to the Caputo Blue? Wouldn't that increase the protein content without altering the flour too much?

Mike,

Yes, it is possible to add a bit of vital wheat gluten to a 00 flour, as was discussed before at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3559.msg30002.html#msg30002. I don't recall offhand doing this with the Caputo 00 flours, but I have done it with the Bel Aria 00 flour. Usually when I have done it, it was for experimentation purposes and to satisfy my curiosity and hopefully learn something from the exercise. The addition of a small amount of the vital wheat gluten to the Ital 00 flour you are using should increase its protein content and provide a bit more flavor and color to the finished crust. If the leap in protein content is too high, however, you are likely to alter the basic characteristics of the Ital 00 flour.

Peter

[November]

How about adding a pinch of Vital Wheat Gluten to the Caputo Blue?

To achieve a 12% protein flour, a mixture of 96.1832% Caputo Extra Blu 00 and 3.8168% VWG (75% protein) could be used.  That's close to 4% VWG in baker's percentage.

[Pete-zza]

If my math is correct, the extra freight cost is about $.17 per pizza. Worth every penny of it!

Just for fun, I ran a scenario through one of the dough calculating tools to see how many dough balls could be made from a 55-lb. bag of Caputo flour, based on a 250 gram dough ball size and using normal amounts of water, salt and IDY for a Neapolitan style dough. The answer is around 160 dough balls (assuming no flour waste). If you use your actual numbers in the tool and play around with the entry for the number of dough balls, you can come up with a fairly accurate attribution of the shipping costs, and other costs as well, to the dough ball costs. I got the following for my example:

Flour (100%): Water (60%): IDY (0.25%): Salt (2.3%): Total (162.55%): Single Ball:

24607.81 g  |  868 oz | 54.25 lbs 14764.69 g  |  520.8 oz | 32.55 lbs 61.52 g | 2.17 oz | 0.14 lbs | 6.81 tbsp | 0.43 cups 565.98 g | 19.96 oz | 1.25 lbs | 33.8 tbsp | 2.11 cups 40000 g | 1410.93 oz | 88.18 lbs | TF = N/A 250 g | 8.82 oz | 0.55 lbs

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

The idea to mix the Italbrand and the KABF came up when we spoke of the DiFara crust, remember? Since then I have not used the Ital 00. I'm tinkering around right now with the Caputo Pizzeria I ordered from Pennmac and Villa's LBE.

So far, the crusts I made weren't bad. I think it's just about finding the right temp with the LBE to get really good results with the Caputo Pizzeria flour. The LBE gets hot very fast and I found out the hard way, when one of my pies came back as a "burner".

If, like November said, I could increase the gluten of the Caputo Blue, without altering its characteristics, I would be able to avoid shipping charges from Pennmac.

November,

Thanks for the formula!

It is an alternative worth pursuing...or at least to kick around and give it shot.

Mike

[Pete-zza]

Mike,

Yes, I do remember discussing combining the 00 flour with another flour, such as bread flour or high-gluten flour. In my case, I used a combination of the Caputo flour and high-gluten flour mainly because I found that it worked better in my home oven than using just the Caputo 00 flour. In your case, with the LBE, you should be able to handle the 00 flour better than I can in my home oven. When you receive the Caputo Pizzeria flour, you should be able to easily do a comparison between that flour and the Caputo Extra Blu supplemented with vital wheat gluten as November suggested. The results of the comparison test should tell you how to proceed from there.

Peter

[Essen1]

Peter,

I already got the Caputo Pizzeria from PennMac and made two pies with it, in combination with the LBE. Like I said, one turned out nicely, the other was a total bust, due to lack of experience with the high heat the LBE achieved. The first crust was baked at around 650 F, had a nice spring but no leoparding and very few charred spots, and they were only on one side.

The second one, well...at 850 F and me not paying attention to the elapsed baking time, was not such a great one.

I have a fair amount left of the Caputo Pizzeria flour and will definitely do a comparison between the Caputo Blue with VWG and Caputo P., and will report back with my findings.

I'm wondering what the baking time should be at 750 - 800 F, using either type of the "00"?

Mike

[Pizza_Not_War]

Just for fun, I ran a scenario through one of the dough calculating tools to see how many dough balls could be made from a 55-lb. bag of Caputo flour, based on a 250 gram dough ball size and using normal amounts of water, salt and IDY for a Neapolitan style dough. The answer is around 160 dough balls (assuming no flour waste). If you use your actual numbers in the tool and play around with the entry for the number of dough balls, you can come up with a fairly accurate attribution of the shipping costs, and other costs as well, to the dough ball costs. I got the following for my example:

Flour (100%): Water (60%): IDY (0.25%): Salt (2.3%): Total (162.55%): Single Ball:

24607.81 g  |  868 oz | 54.25 lbs 14764.69 g  |  520.8 oz | 32.55 lbs 61.52 g | 2.17 oz | 0.14 lbs | 6.81 tbsp | 0.43 cups 565.98 g | 19.96 oz | 1.25 lbs | 33.8 tbsp | 2.11 cups 40000 g | 1410.93 oz | 88.18 lbs | TF = N/A 250 g | 8.82 oz | 0.55 lbs

Peter

Peter,

Your method is more accurate than my method and you pushed my cost per pie (CPP) to almost $.18

Still a pretty small number!

Thanks

PNW

[Pete-zza]

I'm wondering what the baking time should be at 750 - 800 F, using either type of the "00"?

Mike,

I'm not the best one to answer that question since I don't operate at such high temperatures. Maybe another member who uses the Caputo flours with an LBE, 2stone, or even a modified home oven, will be able to offer you guidance on this point.

Peter

[scott r]

Caputo Pizzeria would take about 1.5 min on a stone at 775 degrees

[Essen1]

Scott,

I tried that with my last pie in the LBE. Temp was around 850 F in the LBE and after 2 mins it still didn't yield the desired result, i.e. nice charring and leoparding. So I left it in the for a tad longer and guess what...it was a burner.

The dough was a 100% "00", no sugar, no oil.

Mike

[scott r]

you are not going to get leoparding at 775 with caputo

[Essen1]

you are not going to get leoparding at 775 with caputo

So what do you suggest I should do? 

[scott r]

Leoparding is only associated with Neapolitan pizzas.  If you want a proper neapolitan pizza you need a neapolitan wood burning oven with a low dome.  That doesn't mean you can't enjoy your caputo flour in your 2 stone, just don't expect the pizza to look like it does in Naples.  Pull it out when it looks like it is not quite done and you should be happy. If you want more browning you may need to switch to an american flour.