Types of flour ideal for making pizza

What are the flours ideals for making pizza?

We know, pizza is one of the seven wonders of the world. Crunchy, soft, thin, with a high or typically Neapolitan edge… Everyone has their favorite version and, thanks to the ideal flours for making pizza, you can make a perfect dinner! Since the pizzas purchased do not always fully satisfy our desires, it’s time to try to make it at home, don’t you agree? Here’s what you should know about it and where you can find the best ingredients.

The preparation of pizza: within everyone’s reach… or almost!

Until recently, pizza making seemed an impossible task for the less experienced in the field. Today, however, especially thanks to the information available on the web, everything has become easier. With a little time, patience, dexterity and with the right ingredients, you can prepare exceptional pizzas. Therefore, when you do not want to go to the pizzeria, you too can get busy and start kneading.

There are numerous tutorials online. So all you have to do is find the one that’s right for you. Then, before getting to work, you will have to understand which are the ideal flours to make pizza and buy the one you prefer. Only by choosing the best flour and other quality ingredients can you prepare a very good and even gourmet pizza.

The main types of flour ideal for making pizza

Flour is the fundamental component not only for the specific flavor that it attributes to the entire pizza, but also for its strength, its refining, its quality. All important data that, if not known, determine the poor success of our pizza. The most used flours at home and also to make a good pizza are definitely flour 0 and flour 00, but beware of the differences!

The 00 flour, or the most refined, contains a greater quantity of starch and guarantees the possibility of being able to create a very soft dough. Type 0, being slightly less refined and including a lower percentage of starch than proteins, will give the pizza greater elasticity. In other words, it’s all about consistency: which one do you prefer? But that’s not all, because it is possible to obtain excellent crumbly and digestible doughs even by mixing more flours ideal for making pizza.

For example, you can use manitoba, special and naturally gluten-free flours and even a little durum wheat semolina. For a more rustic flavor, we can also use wholemeal flours or type 1 flour. The latter are decidedly less refined than the 00 and ensure an appreciable dose of fiber. They give the pizza a more homemade color and also a more particular texture.

You can therefore use together many flours ideal for making pizza… The important thing will be to consider the right proportions, your tastes and the needs of your diners.

What “strength” does it take to prepare a perfect pizza?

The world is full of different flours that you can test to make pizza. However, to prepare a good one, it is essential to always choose high quality flours. As we said before, the strength of the flour is also relevant, which, on the packages, is identified with the letter W.

This value corresponds to the amount of gluten present, the percentage of which is essential for an excellent success of the pizza. This is because, the higher the dose of gluten and the ability of the flour to absorb liquids, the better the gluten mesh we will get. The latter can make the dough elastic and workable. We must therefore select the ideal flours to make pizza also considering this factor.

Some practical tips

For example, if you wanted to make a pizza with a long leavening, you would need a very strong flour. To recognize it, just pay attention to the number next to the aforementioned letter W.

In general, flours with a lot of gluten, or very strong, are appropriate for large leavened products and for long leavening and are classified between W340 and 400. Precisely for these reasons, Manitoba flour is one of the ideal flours for making pizza as it offers values such as those listed above. The “weakest” flours are those with a strength of W90-130 and are usually used for the preparation of shortcrust pastry and biscuits.

For a homemade pizza, which maybe we do not want or can not let rise for 48 or 72 hours, you can choose a flour with a medium strength: W240-260. In this case, with a leavening of only 6-8 hours, you can ensure an excellent result.