Which Caputo flour to use?

[PAK man]

I have access to Caputo Tipo 00 flour in the regular blue bag, the extra blue bag and the red bag and am confused as to which is the best to use. I assume they all have different properties. I usually try to make my pizzas Napoli style but also do other styles as well. The Napoli style is usually cooked outdoors in a GrillDome on a stone at about 500 to 550 degrees and sometimes to 600 degrees.

Can someone out there in pizza land advise on the different flours?

[Pete-zza]

PAK man,

Pretty much all of the Caputo 00 flours for making Neapolitan style pizza dough are intended for, and best suited to, very high temperature ovens--much higher than you have available to you. However, in a home setting, I think you should use the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour, which is the flour that most of our members use and seem to prefer. Next would be the Caputo Extra Blu 00 flour, which has a lower protein content than the Caputo Pizzeria flour. The Caputo Red (Rosso) 00 flour has the highest protein content and is the strongest of the three Caputo flours. That flour is the hardest of the three flours to work with so I would be inclined not to use it. If you are familiar with specs for flours, you can see the specs for the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour and the Caputo Red at Reply 17 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2951.msg25328.html#msg25328. You can also visit the Molino Caputo website at http://www.molinocaputo.it/ where you can read the descriptions for the various flours.

Peter

[AZ-Buckeye]

I'm new to the forum and have very limited experience, but I'll offer my input for what its worth.  I started with Giusto bread flour, then went to King Arthur, then lately Caputo Red (have never used the other Caputo flours).  Once I switched to Caputo, the quality of my crust improved immensely and I found it much easier to work with than the others.  I do use a high hydration (65%) and live at a high altitude (4600 feet) which may have some impact.  Also, I have found that the Caputo performs best at really high temps.  Using a wood-fired oven, the Caputo did not as well perform well at anything below 800 degrees. 

[PAK man]

Thanks for the replies. I can get my GrillDome (ceramic tandoori oven) up to about 850-900 F. I have limited my temperatures when using regular flours because at the higher temps the crusts did not come out too well. They apparently could not withstand the higher temps. I guess by your reply I should try using the regular blue bag flour.

Thanks again

[Pete-zza]

AZ-Buckeye,

Your experience pretty much reflects the collective experience of the members on this forum.

Since you are using the Caputo Red, you should be able to tolerate a higher hydration. Also, if you look at the "W" table in Reply 15 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4986.msg42545/topicseen.html#msg42545, you will also see that the Caputo Red (W = 270-300) tolerates a longer fermentation time (at room temperature) than most flours. If you use a natural starter in small quantities, also at room temperature, you should be able to extend that fermentation time quite substantially.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

I guess by your reply I should try using the regular blue bag flour.

PAK man,

The flour you should be trying is the one shown at the Molino Caputo website at http://www.molinocaputo.it/eng/pizzeria.htm. I don't know where you live, but there are now a few places where you can buy the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour in small bags rather than the 55-lb. bag such as referenced above. For marketing purposes, the Pizzeria flour in the small bags is called The Chef's Flour (for a photo, see http://www.pennmac.com/items/3765). I think you should get good performance out of the Caputo flour at the higher oven temperatures.

Peter

[AZ-Buckeye]

Peter -- Thanks for the info.  I've been reading a lot of your posts (as well as Marco's and Bill from Santa Fe).  I am going to try my first 24 hr room temp rise (around 67F) this weekend.  Do you think that the 10% starter that I use will be too much?

[Pete-zza]

I am going to try my first 24 hr room temp rise (around 67F) this weekend.  Do you think that the 10% starter that I use will be too much?

AZ-Buckeye,

Marco recommends using a natural starter (Crisceto) at up to 5% of the weight of the formula water for a dough that is to be fermented at room temperature (in two stages). In that range, the starter culture acts almost exclusively as a leavening agent. However, that number may change depending on the particular starter culture used, its state of readiness, and the ambient temperature at which the dough is to ferment. For a winter time version, I would use the starter culture at the higher end of the range to compensate for the cooler temperatures. Once you get to higher percents above the abovementioned range, the starter starts to take on attributes of a preferment, which has its own set of effects on the final dough. Have you settled on a recipe to use?

Peter

[AZ-Buckeye]

Peter -- My current recipe is:

Caputo Red (100%)
filtered water (65%)
salt (2%)
Camaldoli starter (10%) (the starter is only a few weeks old)
I use Verasano's mixing technique (with a 20 min. autolyse).  I do live at a higher altitude (4600 ft).  Pizza is cooked in a wood-fired oven.

I have been doing a 3 day cold rise with decent results (everyone but me thinks the crust is great) -- but far from outstanding.  It just seems to me that the next step in my education and hopeful progression is to try a room temp rise.

Marianne

[Pete-zza]

Marianne,

Is that 10% Camaldoli with respect to the formula flour, formula water or total dough weight? And do you have specific values for the weights of flour, water, starter and salt?

Peter

[November]

Marianne,

You've got such an elegantly simple, high quality dough going for you already, so it would be great to see what you could achieve by reducing the starter amount and trying a room temperature fermentation.

- red.november

[November]

I am going to try my first 24 hr room temp rise (around 67F) this weekend.  Do you think that the 10% starter that I use will be too much?

I would reduce the amount of starter to about 30% of what you were using for the cold fermentation, or about 3% starter.

[AZ-Buckeye]

Peter --

The 10% is percentage of flour.  I usually make enough for 6 doughballs of 310g each (I know this is more than the authentic Neapolitan, but I prefer a little thicker pie in the center).  My formula by weight for 6 doughballs is:

1059g  flour
665 g water
22 g salt
111 g Camaldoli starter
3g (idy)  (but I want to get away from using IDY)

This formula came from the preferment dough calculation tool on this website.  I want to stay with the Caputo Red and the Camaldoli and focus on improving the taste/quality of my dough with those ingredients.  I am thinking of increasing the salt to something under 3%, because I do prefer a slightly saltier crust.


Marianne

[Pete-zza]

Marianne,

I agree with November that if you intend to convert your recipe for a cold fermented dough to a room temperature fermented dough, you will want to reduce the amount of starter. I don't know where to draw the line on the amount of starter to use, in part because of youthfulness of your starter and also the higher elevation where you live. Bill/SFNM is one of our resident experts on making dough at high elevations, and he has commented from time to time on the challenges of making dough at high altitudes.

If you plan to migrate to use of the Camaldoli starter culture, I think I would drop the commercial yeast and rely only on the Camaldoli. You can always decide later whether to work a small amount of commercial yeast back into the dough, as many of our members do.

As for the salt, it is usually reduced for winter time applications, to compensate for the effects of cooler room temperatures to slow down the fermentation process. In the summer time, the salt levels are increased for the opposite reason. I have observed that some members use high salt levels for cold fermented 00 doughs, but I believe that is a misreading of the way that salt is intended to be used in authentic Neapolitan doughs. If you plan to go to 3% salt in any event, I think I would increase the Camaldoli starter a bit from the recalculated value to compensate for the higher salt level.

Peter

[November]

3g (idy)  (but I want to get away from using IDY)

Since you didn't initially state that as a part of your current formula, the 3% starter I recommended doesn't necessarily apply unless your starter grows in strength or you ferment for longer than 24 hours.

[AZ-Buckeye]

Thanks for your responses, Peter and November.  I've read a lot of Bill's posts and will continue to search for his issues on high altitude.  I think that as a starting point I will decrease the Calmaldoli to 5%, eliminate the IDY, keep the salt as is and try a 24 hr. room temp rise.

Happy New Year to both of you.

[Pete-zza]

Marianne,

You should remember to use a two-stage fermentation process. To the best of my knowledge, Marco has never said why the two stages are required, but only that they are. There was a fair amount of speculation on this point, with a lot of potential reasons given, in a series of steps starting at Reply 7 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,7022.msg60428.html#msg60428.

On the matter of the effects of altitude on a dough, I have read conflicting reports on where the crossover altitude is where adjustments have to be made, as I noted in Reply 9 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2795.msg24214/topicseen.html#msg24214. Where Bill/SFNM lives, it is about 7000 feet.

Happy New Year to you also, and please let us know how things turn out.

Peter