best flour for pizza made in canada or in the usa

[angel40204]

i am coming back to the usa from europe . having worked with the best , i was used to use italian flours.
now coming back to the usa to open a retail pizza store and seeing expensive price for caputo, pasini etc…
i wanted to know if you could suggest, whether it is from canada or here in the usa, where i can find the best flours for pizza. or similar to italian flours .
with a oo and a high 300 w or more .
thanks

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Just to set the record straight, the “best” pizza flour is the one that works best for you, with YOUR dough formula, dough management procedure, and finished crust expectations. In this regard, quality and beauty have a lot of similarities. As for a flour that will come close to a Caputo, or “00” Italian flour, take a look at Ceresota brand, or King Wheat, Imperial Bakers, or Progressive Baker Bread Flour. Any of these should work well for you. As for specification, you will be looking for a flour in the 10.5 to 11.2% protein range, made from hard red winter wheat, unbromated, and with a Falling Number of about 230. There are some H&R flours that fall into this specification, but since there is no real industry standard on H&R flour, it can change widely from one manufacturer to another.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[pizzanerd]

angel40404,

I don’t know about pricing relative to the Caputo flours, but you might look into the San Felice 00 flour that is imported from the Naples area. I believe that there is a distributor in the NY/NJ area, but the importer is Manzo Food Sales, Inc., in Miami. Its website, where you can see the specs for the San Felice flour, is http://www.manzofood.com/. If you are ever in NY, you might try Luzzo’s, a popular and highly regarded pizzeria that uses the San Felice 00 flour. You should ask for Michael, who runs the show at Luzzo’s. Luzzo’s website is http://www.luzzomania.com/index.html (you may have to copy this URL into your address bar).

If you go around the corner from Luzzo’s, for comparison purposes you can try the Neapolitan pizza at Una Pizza Napoletana. UPN uses the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. You won’t miss Anthony Mangieri, who makes all of the pizzas. He is the fellow with all the tattoos shown at his website at http://www.unapizza.com/. I believe Anthony is using some form of a natural starter (I was told that it is a local one, not one of the Italian starters like Ischia or Camaldoli) and possibly an old dough technique.

Unless you plan to set up shop around Luzzo’s or UPN, you will find Michael and Anthony quite generous in sharing their knowledge with you. If you visit Luzzo’s or UPN, you will want to pay close attention to the ovens. Anthony replaced his old oven at the end of last year with an authentic Neapolitan wood-fired oven (see http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/39299/).

Good luck.