The grain
Without question, the most important
ingredient in the pizza is the flour.
And the most important fact to remember is that all flours were NOT made
equal. There are a large number of
options and choices to be made, only complicated by the availability of product
online. Different flours are going to be
better suited for different purposes.
Let’s start with the basic and easiest to find.
The majority of flours on your
store’s shelves fall under the category of All Purpose Flours. Besides being easy to acquire, the versatility
makes all purpose flour very useful.
Besides pizza, it can also be used to make bread, pancakes, pie and
other pastry items and so forth. Also,
all purpose flour is the easiest to work with.
If you are interested in making deep dish or stuffed pizza, I would
recommend an all purpose flour because you will get a crust with a more
flavorful crumb. This is the inside of
the bread, in other words, the internal cell structure.
When purchasing all purpose flour, I
think that it is important to look for those that are unbleached and
unbromated. If you can manage organic as
well, that would also be good. King
Arthur brand flours all meet a very high standard of quality. I use it almost exclusively.
The next type of flour is a bit
harder to find. “Bread flour” is
distinguished for having higher gluten content than all purpose flour. Gluten is a rubbery substance that forms in
the dough when proteins in the flour combine with the water. These strands combine to create a complex
internal network. A strong network of
gluten traps gasses that form during fermentation, causing the dough to
rise.
Bread flour is best suited for
making thin crust pizzas that you may want to be crisper. It is ideal for making a New York style thin
pie. One down side is that because of
the more extensive gluten network, the dough can be harder to shape and work
with than all purpose flour.
Even more ideal for your thin crust
pizzas would be high gluten flours. When
you compare protein contents, all purpose flours are generally between 10% and
12%. Bread flour is usually between
12.5% and 13.5%. High gluten flours come
in at around 14% or 15% protein level.
Dough made using high gluten flour is very tough and hard to work so
having a mixer to do the work for you would be ideal. Also, you will likely only be able to find
these flours online; so while the prices may be relatively low, the cost of
shipping will make them considerably
more expensive. King Arthur Sit Lancelot
flour is available via mail order through their website. You can also find it at www.floursack.com. Another option, if available to you, is to
find a mill or distributor near you that is willing to do cash and carry. Of course, if you pursue this option you will
likely have to buy a fifty pound bag.
One simpler solution if you would
like to use high gluten flour would be to add vital wheat gluten to your
flour. Generally, the formula is one
tablespoon per cup of flour. If you
would like to get more scientific about it, there is a conversion tool online
at http://www.unclesalmon.com/tools/food.php. The tool allows you to find a more exact
amount of gluten to add depending on what level of protein content you are
aiming for.
Ultimately, the best answer to this
question is experimentation. Keep a
journal and make notations of your observations of different flours and what
you liked about the pizza. Store your
flour in a cool, dry place. If you are
buying large quantities of flour, you may want to consider freezing it. Storing it in the freezer can help eliminate
or prevent mites or bugs that may be in the flour.
You may also want to invest in a
sifter. Some companies are better than
others at making sure the flour is already sifted but it never hurts to do it
yourself. They are inexpensive and
worth the value of having a consistently textured flour.
