11 minutes ago, scott123 said:
The specs on stone ground flour can be a little misleading. Basically, wheat has a protein fraction near the hull that doesn't form gluten- but is still counted in the overall protein quantity. So you can have whole wheat flours that, on paper, appear to be high-ish protein, but that have very little gluten forming protein. Add to that the fact that the bran in stone ground flour acts like tiny little knives in the dough and cuts through gluten, stone ground/whole grain flour typically doesn't work well for pizza- at least, not on it's own.
Obviously, there are some famous folks that use stone ground flours for pizza- Richer is one, Scarr is another. But they're very careful to combine stone ground flour with stronger flour and to keep the whole grain flour to a minimum (less than 20%). They're both using it in small amounts for flavor, not for strength. Scarr is mitigating the damaging effects of the bran by sifting some of it out, which I see Cairnspring doing on it's Glacier Peak variety, which certainly helps avoid some of the bran's gluten destroying properties, but, at the end of the day, stone milling doesn't produce strong flour- at least, not the kind of strong flour you'd want for NY style pizza- or for a more manageable dough at elevated hydration.
Thanks for this. Do you have any brands or mills you like and recommend?
