making dough with "grocery store" flour

[TasunkaWitko]

where i live, there isn't much choice for flour. we have all purpose flour and bread flour, bleached or unbleached.

what's your recommendation, short of mail order, to make the best possible dough/crust with what i have?

i am thinking unbleached bread flour with it's hard winter wheat will come closest to what i am trying to achieve, which is crisp outside and tender/chewy inside.

[texassourdough]

Re: making dough with "grocery store" flour

AP flour is typically a better match for traditional Neopolitan doughs. Bread flour makes a stronger dough that can stand up to abuse and heavy toppings bette. A roughly 1/3 bread, 2/3 AP is a nice blend that gives good characteristics. Hydration and kneading are important to getting thecrisp/tender combo.

[dmun]

Re: making dough with "grocery store" flour

Jeff Varasano's page has a lot of information about using different flours. The money quoue:

Flour: There is a lot of emphasis put on using the right type of flour. Personally, I think this focus is misplaced. Of course, it's important to use high quality ingredients. But improving your dough making technique is much, much more important than hunting down the exact right type of flour.

The short take (on a very long page) is that you can use ordinary flour and get good results.

That said, I find non-caputo doughs are a stretchy as rubber bands. I'll roll out pitas with household flour, but pizza is a caputo only event at my house.

[TasunkaWitko]

Re: making dough with "grocery store" flour

guys - thanks for the replies. i'll do some experiemnting and see what i can come up with using an AP/bread flour blend ~ in the meantime, i'll try to explain to Mrs. Tash the importance of investing in a little bit of caputo.

i am picking up a lot of good terms and am understanding most of them, but can someone explain "hydration?"

thanks again -

ron

[papavino]

Re: making dough with "grocery store" flour

Hydration, as in 65 % hydration? Ratio of water by weight to flour by weight. 500 g flour to 325 g water is 65 % hydration. Looking at some of the other threads, 60 - 65 % hydration is preferred for WFO pizzas.