Homemade Tasso

[PetersCreek]

Any time my man. Vampyr and I have been playing with the Caputto flour in pizza lately too. Home made Italian sausage, home made sauces, it don't get any better. Anytime you want to make sausage let me know.

Did you get that Caputo flour locally or by mail?  I've been curious about it, myself.

I just finished my first Canadian bacon this past weekend and I'm definitely interested in sausage making.  I've even been eyeballin' a stuffer at Cabela's.

I definitely want to get together once the weather's a bit warmer.

[iceman]

We've been getting it through Melano's disributor up here in Anchorage. Barb and Steve at Teddy's Tasty Meats puts in an order about every six weeks with them. We order the 2 lb. bags (10 to a box) instead of the 50 lb. bag. They carry the Caputo Pizzarea flour and a few others like the pasta flour. Malano won't ship direct to us even with my food manufacturing license so we use Teddy's. I have a bag I can give you if you want to try it. :)

[winemakers]

I am not worthy
I am a mere smoker of meat from the suburbs of Cleveland, occasional brewer of beer, maker of wine, stuffer of sausage............

What is Caputo flour?  Contextually, it is specialty flour for pizza's.  Sing me the praises please?  High protein, glutinous, etc.?

mld

[MallardWacker]

OOOGLY-MOOOGLY...that sounds great.

[iceman]

I am not worthy
I am a mere smoker of meat from the suburbs of Cleveland, occasional brewer of beer, maker of wine, stuffer of sausage............

What is Caputo flour?  Contextually, it is specialty flour for pizza's.  Sing me the praises please?  High protein, glutinous, etc.?

mld

Copied from the pizza making forum;


I'm not quite sure I fully understand your question. If you are thinking of what flours are best from a protein content standpoint for particular pizza styles, it is hard to generalize but I do think that there are some useful guides. For example, for a NY style (e.g., a NY street style), I think that a high-gluten flour with a protein content of around 14% is the best choice, followed by bread flour with a protein content of around 12.5-13%. For a Chicago deep-dish style, all-purpose flour with a protein content of around 11-11.7% is a good choice, although it is also possible to use a bread flour based on recipes I have seen. For a Neapolitan style, the only flour I would use would be an imported 00 flour with a protein content of around 9-12.5%, with a preference for one with a protein content of around 11.5-12.5% (such as the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour). For a cracker-type pizza, I have seen everything from all-purpose flour, to bread flour to high-gluten flour. For an American style, high-gluten flour and bread flour appear to be the most common choices. It is also possible to blend different flours with different protein contents to achieve a desired final protein content or other characteristics. A good example of this is DiFara's, in Brooklyn, where high-gluten flour and 00 flours are combined.

If you stay within the general ranges of protein mentioned, brand names are not so important in my opinion. I happen to like the King Arthur flours because they are unbleached, non-bromated, and generally have a slightly higher protein content than used by competitive products, but there are many other good brands of flours out there. If a particular flour you have found is unbranded, then I would want to know what its protein content is, as well as any other details and specs for the flour that may be available because many unbranded flours can be of poorer quality than the branded flours. Also, most unbranded flours come in very large bags (usually 25-50 lbs.), so it is a good idea to know what you are getting since you will be living with that flour for quite a while.

To get a better feel for different flours, you might also take a look at the Pizza Glossary at the forum, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/pizza_glossary.html.
Hope this helps. Pat  ;)

[Wildcat]

Wow!  Iceman you obviously know your stuff!  This is way beyond my simple abilities.

[winemakers]

thanks, and thanks for the link

mld