Flour for Pizza: Which One?

How to choose the best flours for pizza.

Flours for pizza. All those who, by profession or simple passion, intend to prepare the classic pizza, will need to know the best pizza flours on the market to use in order to best create their own product.

For those who intend to prepare classic pizza, it is imperative that they use high quality flours. This will ensure that their dough has all its nutritional needs met and won't be too dry or stale when eaten in comparison to other pizzas made with lower quality ingredients
A handful of different types can work well in any bread recipe - although some work better than others depending on the flavor profile you want to achieve! The type of flour impacts not only the taste but also the texture, so keep this information handy.

Through this sort of guide we will list all the best flours that can be used for the dough of the most loved dish in the world: pizza.

Knowing the flours used will be fundamental for the preparation and final success of the product, often the cause of failures and complaints.

Knowing which flour to use for a pizza will be like the difference between baking bread or converting it into naan.
A good first step in pie making is knowing what kind of dough you'll need, and that determines how much liquid goes with that particular recipe. If there is too little protein, then less water needs to be supplemented than if combined more adequately.

Buying the first flour on the shelf of a supermarket is not enough, but the same goes for professional pizza makers.

Each flour has different properties and qualities, as we are also reminded on the Esaustivo.it website. They marry with certain certain ones, to be completely unsuitable for others. To be sure you are purchasing the right flour, you will need to evaluate a whole series of characteristics such as types of grain, strength and protein content.

Let's see which are the best flours for pizza.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FLOURS

Flours for pizza

TYPE 0 FLOUR: type "0" flour is rich in gluten and very suitable for traditional bread dough. It is coarser and less fine than "00" flour. It has a coarser texture than the "00" or heavy spelled typically found in grocery stores; this type of flour will produce a more elastic dough, making it the perfect choice if you want a more airy finished product with a high rising power!

FLOUR TYPE 00: it is the most common flour used in the kitchen, as well as the best-selling. Its fine granulation derives from the processing to which the innermost parts of the soft wheat seeds are subjected. During this manufacturing process, however, a whole series of nutrients are eliminated such as the mineral salts, fibers and vitamins contained in the wheat. The result is a flour that, despite its ease of use, lacks essential nutrients. This means that it is richer in sugars and less digestible than other types of flour.

TYPE 1 FLOUR: this type of flour contains a high concentration of wheat germ and bran, useful for the body. Its consistency goes perfectly with the preparation of pizzas, baked desserts and bread.

TYPE 2 FLOUR: this type of flour makes it a semi-wholemeal product due to coarser grinding, with a high fiber content. Compared to totally wholemeal flour, its consistency allows for easier processing, but the dough will rise much more slowly than traditional type 00 and 0 flour. Type 2 flour is commonly used in the preparation of pizza, bread and baked desserts.

WHEAT FLOUR: the processing of this flour is more difficult than the other types analyzed so far, but its content of essential nutrients remains the highest thanks to the whole grain being milled.Its consistency is grainy to the touch, while its processing requires an expert hand, but it is however possible to purchase the stone-ground product, to allow greater home processing of the dough, also ideal for the preparation of pizzas.

STRENGTH OF FLOURS

Flours are classified according to strength, calculated as "W". The "W" is a unit of measurement indicating the capacity of:

1. absorb liquids during the dough making process
2. retain carbon dioxide useful for leavening. This capacity depends on the presence of gluten in the flour itself.

The different flours are therefore divided into strong and weak, from the strongest up to a value shown on the label of 500 W, to the weakest from 130 W.

WEAK FLOURS: they reach 170 W and absorb approximately 50% of the liquids during the kneading process. They are especially suitable for preparing biscuits.

MEDIUM FLOURS: these types of flours reach 180 W up to 260 W, absorbing 65% of the liquids during kneading, associated with the preparation of sandwiches.

STRONG FLOURS: they reach a capacity between 270 and 350 W, absorbing on average 70% of the liquids during the kneading process. They are therefore ideal for the preparation of pizzas, especially Manitoba flour, which with its liquid absorption capacity of 90% compensates for that of weaker flours.

VERY STRONG FLOURS: these flours exceed 350 W, absorbing 90% of the liquids during the dough making process. They are mainly used in pastry making for desserts such as panettone and pandoro.

MEASUREMENT OF FLOUR ASHES: each flour reports on labels its content of mineral salts intact after the milling process. The ashes represent the unit of measurement of the refining of the flour itself, the lower their contribution, the greater the refining undergone. In the same way, the protein values ​​of the different flours, corresponding to gliadin and glutenin, will also be reported on the label.