Best ingredients and suggestions for a good pizza

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Ingredients for a good pizza

The Flour
Wheat flour is the main ingredient necessary for pizza preparation.
Wheat flour is rich in starch, protein and other substances; it can be of various types, depending on how the wheat has been ground.
It can be whole wheat flour, made from the outermost part of the wheatberry and become more and more finely ground, progressively labelled 2, 1, 0 (zero) and 00 (double zero).
The latter is the most refined and therefore the best to work with.
Within this family of flours, or degrees of coarseness, there is a further distinction by which the flours are rated either strong or weak. The difference is determined by the amount of protein they contain.  A strong “double zero” flour may contain approximately 13% protein, whereas a weak “double zero” may only contain at most 10%.
When they speak of enriched flour for bread baking it refers to a flour which is a “double zero” grade that has been cut with a special tender wheat flour called  Manitoba. This blend is fairly common and can be easily found in any large store.

The Water
Water is one of the main ingredients for making the pizza dough. Because it is such a powerful solvent, as water passes through different terrain, it will acquire different mineral salts and elements, giving it a distinctive chemical composition which will vary from location to location. The water used for pizza dough must be drinkable, at a temperature of between 6 and 12 degrees Celsius, odourless and not carry any unpleasant taste.

The temperature of the Water
The temperature of the water is important because it influences the rate of rising. Water that is too cold, especially in winter, will slow the rising and harden the dough, so that when it is baked it will be flat and stiff.
On the contrary, water that is too hot will over-accelerate the rising, thus causing the dough to lose its elasticity  and the gluten “net” will be broken.
It is important to keep in mind that in winter, the ideal water temperature should be 22°C and in summer, about 18°C.

The Yeast
Yeast is living micro-organism, an enzyme.
In the world of bread-baking there are three kinds of yeast: natural, industrial, and chemical.
In pizza-making, industrial yeast is usually used. When yeast is mixed with water and kneaded into flour, it transforms the sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide, causing the dough to swell and thus, to rise.

To be continued…