flour

[angel40204]

where can i find an american or canadian flour like manitoban with its own gluten , not enriched , closed to a 00, and with a w strength of 300 to 400.
let me know if you can help as i won’t settle for less quality . thanks
caputo or others italians way expensive
location nevada and arizona.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

I’m not sure just what you are looking for, all flour has its’s own gluten, unless you specifically request a “stuffed” flour with added gluten. Most Canadian and American spring wheat flours are much higher in protein content than Caputo flour. If you are looking for a good match to Caputo flour on the domestic market, look at something like Sperry Organic flour, Imperial Bakers/unbleached, Harvest King/unbleached, or Ben Hur/unbleached. These are all General Mills flours. In the Chicago market area Ceresota is a very popular flour with the Italian bakers and pizzerias.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[angel40204]

thanks for your reply. w is the way of measuring the strength of flour . its gluten not in percentage .
as far as american flours, the reason behind all of that , is that most flours are enriched in gluten and very different than italian flours or any other flour that has is own gluten , not one enriched. that is a huge difference in the taste . also, caputo is an example, pasini is better with a w 0f 320 . but pricey .
so again, i look to one flour that is not enriched and possibly not enhanced with anything else .
canadian like manitoban are also used in italy for their strong gluten value which is measured in w , not in %.
which does not mean much .
this is based on what i know on the process of panification of bread from french ingenieurs in that field. quite an experience in the field of using the proper flour and yeast .
that is why i coming to :
again, thanks for your help , i will look into it. as you guess , i just came back from italy and france where i had my training .

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

There seems to be a little confusion. Straight grade, and patent grade flours are not enriched in gluten/protein content in any way. When a flour indicates that it is enriched, this means that it has had a vitamin and mineral supplement added to the flour to give the flour the same nutritional value (minus the fiber content) of thar flour presented as a whole-wheat flour, said another way, an enriched white flour has essentially the same nutritional value as a whole-wheat flour.
The “W” that you reference is a value from the Alveograph, representing the deformation of energy of the dough. This is all well and fine for soft wheat flours and weak protein flours, but it really isn’t very effective for measuring/determining characteristics of the gluten forming proteins of the U.S. and Canadian hard wheat flours. This is where the Farinograph or the Glutomatic for wet/dry gluten weight come into play.
As far as treatment of the flour goes, you can opt for treated flour, or untreated flour, the same for enriched or non-enriched, but some states will require that all flour used in food manufacturing be sold as enriched flour, so un-enriched flour may not be available everywhere.
I hope this helps.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[angel40204]

this is very interesting . i think i used the wrong word for enriched. what i mean is fortified .
most flours according to fda and other data in the usa and canada are talking about adding gluten to the flour that is too weak to fortify it. they did not specify which type. so according to you there are flours in the usa with their own gluten without any modification of their gluten content . this is already good .
the difference according to the italian flours are in the beginning process . a 00 means the flour is denser , and it is noticeable in volume compare to most flours . also the grinding process , don’t know the specific word in english , is made with stones and so less friction than if made with cylinders , in most industrial production.
what is very opposite now , is the protein and gluten content of the flour, often most italian flour are less rich in protein and gluten than the us flour , but the w is very high 320 to 400 . i know you said this is not helping us flout to measure . but i know also they often have manitoban flour mixed to italian flours.
i hope you don’t think i am trying to dispute what you are saying , but better understand it and i thank you for that.
what i amtrying to understand is this , i tried us and italian flours for pizza before like the pasini brown bag, which is about 320 or more w . what i noticed in your video on making dough is the ease with each you stretch thic dough , it looks like the 55 t frech flour which is the basic for bread making in france . however when you use the pasini , it is very elastic and the shape of the dough comes back to his original shape and is harder , way harder to handle and stretch into a round pizza shape than most pizza dough in the us .
i once broke a kitchen aid at 1st speed handling a 500w flour from a small flour mill in italy.
so there must be other factors involved more important than just gluten and protein .
and i had this one and pasini fermented for 4 days already at 4c to make it more pliable , as you know the more fermentation appearently , the easier to stretch .
anyway, the major factor is the difference in taste , the crust was more chewy , light and crusty close to a baguette than the other ones here in the usa with most common flour brands.
also at last easier to digest and easier on the stomach, i do not exagerate .
so what do you think that is , i am not so sure myself, as we can break down all technical terms , but somehow we missed something important.

also, one last thing i noticed which is one criteria very important in the world championship in italy is the crust toughness, not in the taste , but in the rigidity sense, i am not using the right explanation maybe , but after you bake the crust , they look into the crust and see once you present a slice if it stands straight or falls when you hold it , bend down .
if you know what i mean .
most pizza places i have been to in the us , based on the best pizza places book , i did not noticed that , their crust was not holding straight , but was bending right away .
just curious as why .
again , thanks a lot for your patience and helping understand better the flour type and what to look for here.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

You are absolutely correct in that there is a whole lot more to flour characteristics than extensibility and elasticity. These two characteristice are more genetic than anything else as you can have two different flours with essentially the same assay properties, but yet they perform entirely differently. As for the addition of gluten to flour, like I said, it is a very rare practice, and then it is only done on a customer’s specification. The miller achieves the protein content and gluten quality entirely by wheat variety selection, or as the miller calls it the composition of the grist. As you are well aware, the typical high protein flour isn’t really nercessary to make great quality pizza, those Italian flours aren’t anything even remotely close to 13.5% protein content, truth is, 10% is closer to the norm for the Italian flours. The combination of lower protein content and the genetic difference in the protein (European and Italian flours have a genetically, more extensible protein/gluten than U.S. and Canadian flours. This is due to the wheat breedingf programs having developer wheat varieties that are sought after by the millers to provide the flour characteristics sought after by their largest clients, the wholesale baking industry, which also includes the snack food industry. The wheat varieties grown in Italy have been selected for the main application there, mostly smaller size bakeries. All of the wheats grown in the world today are decendants of Turkey Red (considered to be the Adam and Eve of wheat varieties), its just that in some countries, the characteristics have been genetically changed through aggressive breeding programs to meet specific industry (end user) or export characteristics. Which brings us to Canadian wheat, The main use of their wheat is as an export product, and since wheat is sold and priced on protein content, they work dilligently to achieve high protein content wheat varieties as they have more value on the export market. As a funny note, years ago I was on a U.S. Wheat assignment in Europe, and I was told that there was nothing better than the French flour of a certain designation. Seems this flour hada protein content of over 13%. They wern’r growing any wheat in France or anywhere near by that would mill out to 12% let alone 13% pprotein content, but I did find out that the flour mill providing the flour was importing a lot of HRS wheat (hard red spring). This is the high protein wheat from the U.S. and Canada. All thewy were doing was milling a very high protein U.S. wheat, and maybe blending it with a little locally grown French wheat and reselling it under their name. Yep, French wheats make the best flour, ahhh, lets rethink that for a moment. We do the very same thing here in the U.S. as we import a substancial amount of Canadian wheat for blending with out domestic wheat varieties to make specific types of flour, happens all the time. We even see a lot of Australian wheats being sold to countries where they are blended with local wheat varieties to produce an economical flour in that particular country. As a general rule, it may be said that the more automated the baking industry becomes in a country, the more important flour specifications, and adherance to those specifications become. Also, the more automated bakeries tend to require greater protein levels and strength characteristics. This also accounts for the differences in flour performance and assay characteristics in different countries. So, going back to what I said earlier, take a look at some of the lower protein flours that I identified for you, these are more appropriate for the smaller retail bakeries, and as such, are a lot more like the Italian and some of the European flours. Do not, repeat, do not, go for what is commonly called a “pizza” flour unless you are looking foe a very high protein content flour with a lot of elasticity. If you research some of my articles, you will see that I have, for many years, advocated the use of bread type flours for making pizza rather than using the so called, pizza flours. On the other hand, if you are planning to hold the dough for several days in the cooler, or even freeze it, a high protein content flour will perform much better over the long haul than any lower protein content flour. Every thing must be balanced, the dough formulation, the dough management procedure, the expected finished product characteristics, and the type of pizza being made to the flour being used. Failure to do so may result in product failure or human fustration.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[Dj_pizza]

Hi there!!!

I’m a newbie of this forum, and I’m looking for someone serious who talks about pizza…maybe I’m arrived in the right place :lol:

First of all: sorry for my english, I know it’s terrible, but I trust in you to understand me

For the rest: Have you ever tried Molino Quaglia’s flour? I’ve heard about it (here in Italy), and the people and the pizzaioli says that is great, maybe the best mill here in Italy.

Does it arrive in the U.S.?

Dj

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

DJ;
I’m not familiar with it here in the U.S. The one that we see being imported is the Caputo brand flour. But that doesn’t mean that a small inporter isn’t bringing in a limited quantity for sale at a regional Italian market. Maybe someone in the New York City area has seen this flour?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[Dj_pizza]

Tom Lehmann:

DJ;
I’m not familiar with it here in the U.S. The one that we see being imported is the Caputo brand flour. But that doesn’t mean that a small inporter isn’t bringing in a limited quantity for sale at a regional Italian market. Maybe someone in the New York City area has seen this flour?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Hi tom!
It’s a pleasure to talk with you! A celebrity!
I sent an email to molino Quaglia, just for ask them what you asked me!

But I’m waiting for an answer… I confide you can try the flour soon!

I’m in contact (I’m a baker and a “little pizzaiolo”) with università della pizza, have you ever heard about it?
It’s a project started by Molino Quaglia, maybe it could be interesting for you!

the site is www.universitadellapizza.com

They are updating the site day by day…with some recipes, faqs, pages, infos…Here in Italy no one mill gives this kind of support to the professional pizzaiolo, I’m sure. They has teachers, instructors, marketing experts, believe me, a great support for anyone buy flour of molino Quaglia.

I have noticed Molino Quaglia’s stonemilled Petra Flour because it is able to produce a dry and brown coloured crust with nothing else than flour. I have been trained from Molino Quaglia’s technicians to use the right fermentation time with Petra and sure my pizza has become number one.

They also uses to do every year(for few days) a sort of convention,called pizza up,where the professional pizzaioli talk about pizza and dough, poolish, topping, and all the other things about a good pizza.(forgive me for my strange english…I trust in you!)It’s not for all, but for the best ones, for the ones that uses natural rises, best flours etc.
Last year there were about 15 pizzaioli, with a chef, a sport doctor, a nutritionist.
I’ve read this on “pizza&food” magazine.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

It sounds like Molino Quaglia is a very progressive flour milling company. Our flour mills used to be this way too, but back in the late 1970’s they got away from it due to the expense, as a result, they lost a lot of their brand loyalty, lately though, they are beginning to get back into providing service to their customers again, as evidenced by General Mills. You are very fortunate to have the support of your flour mills there in Italy.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

 

[Dj_pizza]

They also uses to do every year(for few days) a sort of convention,called pizza up,where the professional pizzaioli talk about pizza and dough, poolish, topping, and all the other things about a good pizza.(forgive me for my strange english…I trust in you!)It’s not for all, but for the best ones, for the ones that uses natural rises, best flours etc.
Last year there were about 15 pizzaioli, with a chef, a sport doctor, a nutritionist.

Maybe if they one day the mill invite you at pizza up… 8) you could go there?
I suppose they will be very proud to have you as a foreign expert…who knows?
Here in Italy pizza up is growing up fast, the hype is incredible!
Some of my friends want to partecipate( I don’t care, I have many things to do…and I’m not the best pizzaiolo… ) but cannot enter because the selection is hard…

see you on the forum, Tom!

dj