Pizza 00 Flour

[Skip]

First attempt at 00 Flour Pizza Crust. Salmon and topping. BGE pizza stone at 500 degrees. Dough had some oil and sugar so I kept the temp down a little. We liked the crust alot. Good browning. Will be trying another Stella Culinary recipe w/o oil and sugar and taking the temp up some more. Thanks everyone that posted these past couple months about pizza and bread. Your advice was appreciated!

[Thunder77]

How does the dough handle compare to other flours?

[RonB]

I've made dough using that flour one time. The dough was a dream to work with. It was very extensible and had great oven spring. Now if I had just looked in the kettle a minute sooner...

[W.A.]

That flour is $$$. Not sure I would ever use it unless I was cooking pies at 700+F. Regular bread or all purpose flour makes great pies at lower temps. i add extra gluten to make it more like a NY pizza from what I remember. Check out pizzamaking.com .

[Breadhead]

You're correct about using 00 flour for just real high temperature cooks only. 800° is better than 700° for that dough. It has VERY LITTLE natural sugar in the flour, intentionally, to allow it to be baked at 800° to 900° without burning. Bread flour and AP flour bakes fine at 500° to 650°.

[Skip]

It was fun to work with. It seems to give a little different profile to the dough. I proofed it for over 24 hours and froze some it. This pie was from the frozen dough. I thawed it and let it rise again. This process worked very well. Has anyone tried the King Arthur Pizza Flour?

[Thunder77]

No, but I just might, though!

[Breadhead]

Skip ... I love King Arthurs Flour. Their bread flour and AP flour is the best IMHO. I've never tried their pizza flour before. No particular reason why really. I've just always been comfortable and pleased with bread flour pizza dough I normally make and then for specially pizza dough I use 00 flour.

If you want to get a more round pizza crust go to StellaCulinary.com and watch Chef Jacob's video on stretching and shaping your pizza dough. That technique works great for any kind of pizza dough.👍

[Meathead]

I have tried 000 and not found it significantly better that King Artur APF.

[Breadhead]

It's my understanding that the only advantage to 00 flour is that it allows Pizzaria's with brick ovens to bake true Neapolitan pizza in 2 minutes or less. For a high volume Pizzaria that puts the pie on the customer's table quickly, increases production and reduces labor costs.

[Breadhead]

I have tried 000 and not found it significantly better that King Artur APF.

The reason I occasionally bake true Neapolitan pizza is because I can. Only because I have a cooker that can be controlled at 800° or over, a Kamado. It's kind of billed as the cats meow of the pizza world so just for drill I felt compelled to do it. Pizza baked with All Purpose or Bread flour, baked at a much lower temperature, 500° to 650°, for a longer time, is just as good.👍

[Skip]

The 00 flour is the same for me. I just wanted to make it work for fun. I agree that Bread flour works real well for me too. The picture I posted above wasn't a nice round pizza like the Stella Culinary shows us how to do. I need to work on that more. After a couple more pizza tries I will need to get at the bread baking!! Hopefully I will have some more time when winter comes.

[Breadhead]

Most new things I cook is just to see if I can.🤔 My ONLY motivation for making my very first loaf of bread was to see if I could. I had no clue that I would discover that the science of bread baking would be so interesting. Some say I might have become a little obsessive about it.😎

[Skip]

One more question. Why do some of you like King Arthur Flour better than other brands?

[RonB]

Skip - KA flours are more consistent than some other brands. The AP and bread flours are unbleached, and their flours are generally a bit higher in protein too. Here's a discussion of flours from another site with more info:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15814/king-arthur-flour-why-use-it

[Skip]

Thank you RonB.

[Breadhead]

Skip ... RonB speaks the truth. Plus he linked you to a really good bread baking website. The Fresh Loaf is to bread what the Pit is to BBQ. Just a bunch of people sharing ideas and helping each other learn. They are light on moderators so it's pretty free flowing bread discussions.

[Breadhead]

One more question. Why do some of you like King Arthur Flour better than other brands?

i can only speak from having baked many, many loaves of bread using many different bread flour brands.

If you label your flour as bread flour it must meet the standards established by those that regulate that industry. It's protein content MUST be a certain amount. From there things get more flexible.

Personally... I trust the KAF brand more than ANY other. General Mills bread flour is my #2. I really think they are comparable products but KAF is employee owned so I give them the benefit of doubt.👍