October 2, 2013 - 4:00pm
Caputo Flour
I am intrigued by what I hear about the Antimo Caputo flour. Can someone explain the differences between the red bag flour and the flour in the blue and white bag?
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I am intrigued by what I hear about the Antimo Caputo flour. Can someone explain the differences between the red bag flour and the flour in the blue and white bag?
There are some sites that sell the caputo flours. They usually will give information on what it's best use is in baking and the gluten percentage. The one I like is a company called Brickovenbaker.com. though I haven't ordered from them. I believe there are two different types of Caputo flours sold in the blue bag both different..one I think is for pizza the other might be just an Italian version of our all purpose flour. There is also different caputo varities in the red bag. Two I get in the red bag is a reinforced and a chefs blend. Check out Brickovenbaker.com for all the caputo's and information on each one.
Correction ... sorry granpa..that's Brickovenbaker.com I corrected above too
Sylvia
but not the one on the Brickovenbaker (Sept 2013) site. The boarder on edges around the bag is dark blue. Shows enough assortment of baked products pictured on the package (cake, yeasted strudel, loaves, rolls, cookies, pizza, pasta) to be an all purpose flour. It is soft wheat, Farina di grano tenero tipo"OO" (with quotes on the O) for 100g: protein 10g
So far, I find it makes great Kaiser rolls, or hard white rolls, thin crisp crackling crust, fluffy moist inside. Very happy with the flavour. (And we are very picky about our Semmeln.) The flour is a very light yellow color.
http://www.molinocaputo.it//index.php?module=ecommerce&modulePage=dettaglio&id=15
More Caputo's : ) It sounds so much like the chefs blend of caputo tipo 00 in the red bag only with less protein. Yet has the same photo of the light blu bag bottom. Could you share a photo of the bag?
These are the blue bags of Captuo flour's on the Brickovenbaker site. The one with dark blue trim is a Pizzeria blend and has a big picture of a pizza on the front.
The other is the lighter blue bag, says it comparable to a US blend of an AP flour and not to be confused with the darker blue bag 'Pizzeria'.
These photos are from the Brickovenbaker web page.
Sylvia
and what a pleasure to work with! I did a poolish (200g water/200g flour/ pinch of yeast) and it stood out about 6hrs and I chilled it for two days. This morning (4am) I combined the cold poolish with one cold egg white (36g) and enough cold water (64g) and stirred well. Added my stirred dry ingredients 300g of this mysterious blue bag flour plus 5g diastatic malt flour, 6g salt, and 1g rapid rise yeast. 66% hydration white wheat dough. It wasn't ready to bake for breakfast but I took a sharp wet spoon and cut out some dough for rustic english style muffins in a med. heated fry pan. The rest of the dough was degassed and rolled into a log and allowed to rise in a small loaf pan under a wet tea towel (22°C.) Just pulled the white loaf out of the oven after baking 200°C for 40 minutes in a bread tin coated with sesame seeds. Wonderful! Aroma galore! Decided to rub butter on the crunchy crust so it is easier to cut later.
Try this flour for your hard rolls!
I also have a yellow bag (more colors) of the Semola Rimacinata flour, 12.5g protein per 100g, and flour is definitely yellow in color. Not as fine in texture (if we are comparing) but not gritty either. This will be interesting...
Mini! Magic hands at work:)
and oops, I caught a correction... Hydration is 60% don't know what I was thinking... but the flour is thirsty, I normally get this recipe shaggy around 50% water. I also added a little olive oil, less than a tablespoon for the loaf for a longer shelf life. I used a Tuscan oil, has a mild fresh taste with light aftertaste of hazelnut... Borgo de' Medici Delizie Toscane. Delicious! Bought it for my salads. Amazing this Ferraro Foods of Trail! I do believe all Italian provinces are represented several times just in oil!
Looks like you have come up with a great connection and a winner of a flour. Caputo's flours are such high quality.
Isn't the smell wonderful!
I went to Caputo's website in Italy and translated to English. My Italian is not that good :) and viewed their flours.
The Semolina is a lovely durum wheat and it says it's the flour they use for the lovely semolina bread of Altamura and also to sprinkle on their pizza paddles.
I thought you might have the Orange bag at first. It has several baked items on the front and is Caputo's 00
Super very elastic mixture of grains of average strength with medium rising times.
Enjoy your fine connection for the very nice Caputo's flours. I hope you are getting a good price break from the baker. It's nice you are getting decent sized bags too.
I'm haven't found a source for the flours you are using. Hopefully someday they will become more available and at a decent price.
Hope to see more of your Caputo bakes. The one above is lovely.
Sylvia
A mixture of the two flours together would make for a lovely Sicilian Semolina bread sprinkled with sesame.
The Scroll shape is nice or even braided. I love this bread and this reminds me it's been a while.
Sylvia
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12167/sicilian-semolina-bread
Silvia, I've been going down memory lane in your blog! What a delight to page backwards! We shall see, and yes, it has been a while, I didn't realize how quickly time has breezed by. :)
Mini
It has been a while. I didn't post Dan Dimuzio's formula since his book was just out.
Time certainly has breezed by and now I have my own sourdough version. Thanks to the many talented
bakers on TFL and wonder books like Dan's bread baking An Artisan's Perspective.
Now if I could just remember to add on the sesame seeds. They make for such a delicious addition to a
semolina bread. Oh well, at least I remember the olive oil 'lol'.
Sylvia
I tried that yellow bag after a friend complained it was a complete and utter disaster in 100% SD. It was a complete and utter disaster in my hands as well. I should probably go out and buy another bag, see if it's better suited to yeasted recipes.
Durum flour works very nicely as a sourdough if given some strength I use the KABF in the loaf refered to. Also there have been some nice 100% Altumura loaves made by other bakers here.
I have no problem with durum flour in general. I've had a problem with this particular bag in a reliable 100% semolina SD recipe - I have not got enough hubris to call it Altamura.
I can't supply a photo because all my info comes from the Amazon site.
The blue bag is the Type 00 pizza flour, which is made from soft wheat, at about 11% protein, but with very elastic gluten, For a comparison of the Caputo and Pivetti pizza flours, see my post on The NYBaker's Bench.
Caputo sells two red bag flours, the 00 pizza flour in 1 kg. bags, and also their Type 00 Rinforzato (reinforced) flour, which is a blend of soft and hard wheats, with protein of about 12% to 12.5%. The Rinforzato is basically a bread flour and works best for traditional Italian loaves (for focaccia, an Italian baker friend of mine recommends the pizza flour, which will produce a more open crumb).
Hope this answers your question.
Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com
Stan, not to be picky, but you are wrong on one point: 00 is defined in terms of ashes, not at all on granule size.
There's a very precise law that defines 00 as a soft wheat flour with no more than 0.55% ashes. Not a single word on granule size, so much that there are coarser flours (sold as no-lumps flour, with larger granules) that are sold as 00 because they comply with the limit on ashes.
I tried pizza using 1 kilo red bags. I loved how it handled, but universal response was - go back to KABF.
the KAAP flour too.
Sylvia
I won't. Of all the KA's flours I buy KABF. The rest, in my opinion, can not compete against better and cheaper flours.
Caputo 00 flour produces a wonderful pizza crust at very high temperatures (think wood fire oven temperatures of 800 F +), crispy outside and very tender inside. I've never tried it at home oven temperatures, but from what I have heard it doesn't compare.
is incredibly absorbent. Start with 65% hydration and go upwards.
I made the same recipe as above using the blue Caputo and needed 65% hydration with the red to compare to the 60% hydration blue. That in turn compares to 50% to 52% hydration with average AP wheat flour.
there are several pizza flours. One is for ovens over 800 degrees and one for less Than 800 degrees or home use.
I use the reinforzato bread flour for bread and the 1 kilo red bag chefs flour for my pizza and pie crusts. The flour is extraordinary and blows away american flours like KAF.
i went to KAF's baking education center and took courses on a holiday. One was pie crusts for like a blueberry or chicken pot pies etc. KAF dough was hard to work with when chilled. It was dense and non pliable. It cracked when rolling out. Caputo chefs flour worked like a dream. It was pliable even when chilled and rolled out easy without cracking. I got an extraordinary flaky, crunchy and crispy pie crust! The pizza dough you make is incredible as you can make it real thin and it works Easy. I buy 55 pound bags of the reinforzato from brickovenbaker.com i buy 10 kilo packs of the red bag chefs flour. I will never buy anything but caputo flours now. There IS a big difference between caputo and american flours in results. Amazing. I have used their semolina which unlike anybody elses semolina is finely ground for bread making...or pizza dough making. Viva Caputo!
if you didn't know it Caputo supplies 85 percent of the pizzarias in Italy! The quality speaks for itself.
I discovered I can order Caputo chef's Flour from Walmart.com for $3.34 a kilo bag and pick it up at my local store(which doesn't carry it on their shelf). No Shipping charge. I am sure I am not at the skill level of some of the bakers on this forum, but I do love to eat what comes from my own oven and I'm anxious to try anything that adds to that. I make a no knead dough with 2 cups of water, 24 oz of AP flour, 2 tsp salt, 1 Tbl sugar, 2 Tbl. evoo, and 1/2tsp yeast. I let it ferment on my kitchen counter about 4 hours then overnight in the fridge. It makes terrific pita bread baked stove top on a cast iron pan. This dough makes great pizza too. It will be the first recipe I try with the Caputo.