USA flours to replace Caputo

[mendozer]

I've always been a fan of Caputo's blue 00. Lately I've been trying to find domestic equivalents.

Grain Craft makes a handful of flour lines formulated for Napoletana pizzas. They list their Blendako (bleached), Upright(unbleached) and new Neopolitan Pizzeria Blend (unbleached). They also have a Special Pizza Blend (bleached) which isn't for Neo pizzas per their website but states its good for pizza. I cannot for the life of me find Upright or NPB anywhere. But I picked up a bag of SPB yesterday from Smart Foodservice. did our Tony G "Saturday Pizza" recipe and it actually cooked very well. I do about 800 on the stone before I toss a pie in the oven and it charred quite well with great spotting. The crust also seemed to be chewier than Caputo, but some areas almost gummy, but still not raw. Caputo is nice and chewy but by the time everything gets cooked, it can sometimes be dried out in parts.

I'm wondering for my next batch to lower cooking temps to 700 or so and allow longer times. The protein levels are a couple % higher in the SPB, perhaps lending to the gumminess as there is more gluten. All in all we liked the texture more, but it lacked the "pizza flavor" we've come to love from italian wheat.

Anyone else found a good USA flour? Also, $15 for 42 lb bag isn't too shabby instead of the $40ish dollars for the Caputo bag when you can find it.

[amolapizza]

An observation, you might need to change hydration slightly when changing flour.

[TXCraig1]

Interestingly, I've only tried one flour that I felt like required a significant change in hydration from my normal 62%. It was 5Stagioni Nepolatana. I thought it required a few extra points.

[ccgus]

You might grab a bag of Shepherd's Grain High Gluten next time you're at Smart Foodservice. I've been using it for years as a replacement for Caputo, and it works great (I use a hydration between 67-70% depending on the bag).

And it's cheap as well.

I've also used Central Milling's reinforced 00 in the past, and it was great- but the shipping charges were getting to be a bit much for me.

[Bikdave]

I found out a couple weeks ago that Smart Foodservice now carries the Grain Craft Neapolitan Pizza Flour. On their website they don’t have grain craft listed in the title so search for Neapolitan. It’s a special order item at my store but I called up and was easily able to get it in a couple days. I haven’t tried it yet though. Thought I’d pass along.

[nestopesto]

While I havent done a side by side, I really like Central Millings 00 Flour.  Also Cairnspring Mills flour is excellent.  Definitely not a neopolitan style because its much more whole wheat, but its delicious.  I've been playing around with a bunch of USA based organic flours and those are my two favorites.

[parallei]

- Gold Medal™ Neapolitan Pizza Flour Hearth Style

- Bay City Milling Contadino Neapolitan Style Pizza Flour

- Gold Medal™ ORGANIC ALL PURPOSE FLOUR (it is not malted)

I've used all of them at high temps and have been happy with the results. The again, I'm not that persnickety!

[corkd]

I’ve used Arrowhead mills AP with success. Organic, and unmalted. It’s been recommended elsewhere on the site. Also Gold Medal NP as already mentioned- just had to work through a large bag, not available in retail 5-10 lb size

[thezaman]

General Mills has a 00 pizza flour. they use the harvest king flour with no additives.i think it is ground a little finer then normal HK. they just renamed it and pack it in a 27.5 pound bag. they did this so saputo flor users would not have to change their dough making methods. each bag is half of the saputo 25 kilo bag.Di Prim Ordine Farina.

[ramsker]

General Mills has a 00 pizza flour. they use the harvest king flour with no additives.i think it is ground a little finer then normal HK. they just renamed it and pack it in a 27.5 pound bag. they did this so saputo flor users would not have to change their dough making methods. each bag is half of the saputo 25 kilo bag.Di Prim Ordine Farina.

Just found a place in Omaha that carries this, and I picked up a bag. This will be my first 00 Flour. I've been using All-Trumps in my Ooni up to this point. Do you have any experience with it? Any tips? Appreciate it.

[TXCraig1]

I haven't tried the GM Di Prim’Ordine, however the GM Neapolitan performs all but identically to Caputo Pizzeria, IMO.