What is the best pizza flour and what is the flour type?

Last Updated on August 22, 2021 by Stefano

The key ingredient to make pizza is definitely Flour. So before or later you will ask yourself what is the best Pizza flour. However you soon realize there is not a specific answer to this question. The best pizza flour requires also to knoe the flour type.

With this blog post I want to talk you a bit more about flours. Specifically I want to clarify you some misconceptions about Italian Pizza Flours. Thanks to what I am going to share you will be free to buy the best flour for pizza. You will not need so search anymore the word “Pizza” on the package.

Are you ready to really learn what are best pizza flour and flour type?

Soft Wheat vs Durum Wheat

First of all let’s start talking about wheat. It’s from there that we obtain the flour. The majority of flours for pizza are made from soft wheat. Actually every package of flour with “pizza” or “Pizzeria” written on top is from it. However some traditional recipes, especially from some parts of Italy (south), are also using Semolina Flour, better known in Italy as “Semola rimacinata“.

The majority of the recipes that I will be sharing on this website will be using Flour from soft wheat. Only in some cases we will be adding some percentage of semola rimacinata.

If you are new to the white art world and want to make pizza dough at home you will be looking at buying flour from soft wheat. However I wanted you to know that this is not the only option to use when making pizza.

What is the Flour type (or “tipo” in italian)

If you visit an italian shop you will find the following Flours type:

• Integrale
• Tipo 2
• Tipo 1
• Tipo 0
• Tipo 00

Integral flour means that the whole wheat is used. Starting from Tipo 2 to Tipo 00 we identify how much refined is the wheat. More in depth Tipo 2 is less refined than 1 and so on.

I know, this information is available everywhere. But what is the real and practical difference between all of them?

Let’s start talking about the taste. Going from the less refined flour to the more refined one there is a huge difference. The dough will have a much stronger flavor if you use for example a tipo 1, compared to a tipo 00. Therefore if you are searching for a tasty crust you want to go for a less refined flour.

Another important difference is when you mix ingredients. Generally less refined flours are able to absorb more water. You want to consider that and go for a little higher hydration when using less refined flours. However in such case there is not a specific rule to apply to modify the hydration. It really depends on the flour. My suggestion is to try with small increase to understand how the flour reacts. If you see that water is very well and quickly absorbed you can try using more water.

From my point of view, the best pizza flour and flour type to use to start are the Type 0. They keep a good amount of taste and they are generally well balanced. Otherwise stick on a Type 00, which is more common.

Flours Types in the world

If you do not find flours types written on labels you have a couple of options. The first one will be to use an extract from the following label where there is a comparison of some flour types as they are classified in the world. The second is to start looking at the labels and try to find the flours that works best for you.

Flour Types in the world

If you don’t find your country you can contact me and I will try to find the information and add it to the table.

Start reading the labels, search proteins

What should you do in case you really can’t find details about the flour?

Well, there is an easy answer to this question: start to read the label on the side of the Flour package. It’s incredible how many details you will find there. So try to take some pictures of labels of your favorite floursand look at what technical details you can get.

My recommendation is to start searching for the amount of Proteins. To clarify this is not the only information you should look at it. However I think is the easiest value to start to deal with. Indeed a good Pizza flour needs to have as minimum 11% of proteins per kilo. However keep in mind that the amount of proteins can be misleading in case of less refined flours. For instance is normal to have higher amount of proteins in Type 1 or 2. Therefore, when I mention 11%, you want to refer it mainly to Type 00 and 0 flours.

In conclusion, I will be sharing more advanced information about flours in the near future, but if you are a beginner and you want to improve your knowledge I am giving you a good starting point.

Other values from website of flour brand

If you want to go deeper and be more conscious about the product you are buying you can also go a step ahead. Indeed you can check the website of the flour brand and look for the technical specifications of the flour. Although this is not always common information to find, a lot of brands are open to share more technical details.

Of course you then need to know what to look at. In other words, we will need time to further discuss what are important aspects of the flour to make Pizza.

What is then Best Pizza flour and flour type

Finally, there is not a Best Pizza flour or best flour type overall. What is the best flour is up to you.

However I think that there is a flour to start. Indeed, as I wrote before, I would start with a Type 0 or 00 and looking at amount of proteins to be at least 11/12%. Undoubtedly this is a simplification but it’s a good point where to start. Definitely better than just buying whatever flour you find in supermarket 🙂

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