Flour
00 flour: what the number measures, and why it is not a pizza specification
In Italy, 00 is a legal ceiling on ash, 0.55% on dry matter, plus a protein floor of 9%. It says nothing about strength. In the US and the UK it is not a legal grade at all, just a label meaning pizza flour. You thought you bought a specification. You bought a use.
At a glance
- Strength (W)
- 130 to 390
- Protein
- 9% to 13.5% *
- Water absorption
- not measured
- Stability
- not measured
- Ash
- 0% to 0.55%
- Origin
- Itália (a classificação é legal, não geográfica); o trigo pode vir de qualquer lugar
- Grain
- trigo mole (Triticum aestivum), moído e peneirado nos termos do art. 1 do DPR 187/2001
Sources disagree. The decree lets a flour with 9.00% protein be sold as 00, while the flours milled for pizza run 11% to 13.5%. Nothing on a shelf sits at 9%, so the legal floor filters nothing. And the two figures are not comparable: the decree measures nitrogen times 5.70 on dry matter, a panel measures the flour as it sits.
What it is called in each country
| Country | Called |
|---|---|
| English | 00 flour ou 00 pizza flour, sem nenhum padrão legal americano ou britânico por trás: é rótulo de uso, confira a proteína na nutrition facts |
| Português | o Brasil não tem categoria equivalente: a tipo 1 (cinzas máx. 0,8%) é o tipo 1 italiano, não a 00. Procure sacos marcados tipo 00 ou farinha para pizza e confira o W ou a proteína |
| Italiano | farina di grano tenero tipo 00 (cinzas máx. 0,55%). Confira o W no saco: Caputo Pizzeria W 260/280, Cuoco W 300/320 |
| Français | entre T45 e T55, porque a 00 cai entre os dois tetos de cinzas. Para pizza, farine à pizza ou T55 com W declarado; T45 de supermercado é de pâtisserie, fraca |
| Español | Espanha não usa ceros: procure harina flor (refino) mais de fuerza ou media fuerza (força), RD 677/2016. Na Argentina, harina 0000 tem 0,492% de cinzas e a harina 00 de lá NÃO é a 00 italiana: tem 0,678%, território do tipo 0 ao tipo 1 |
What it is for
Where 00 earns its place is Neapolitan pizza, and not for strength. Ash is mineral matter and minerals live in the bran, so a ceiling of 0.55% caps how much bran survived the mill. With no bran cutting the gluten sheets, the dough stretches to the 4 mm centre the standard asks for, and the rim does not scorch in the 60 to 90 seconds it spends over a floor at 380 to 430 °C. A tipo 1 would tear and burn.
So 00 is not useless, it is misread. The AVPN specification for a pizza 00 reads W 250 to 310, P/L 0.50 to 0.70, absorption 55% to 62%, stability 4 to 12 minutes, ash below 0.55. One line there is the 00; the rest describe that pizza flour, not 00 in general, which is why the table above leaves absorption and stability blank.
When not to use it
Do not buy 00 because you want a strong flour. Molino Dallagiovanna sells eight flours labelled tipo 00 on one catalogue page, from W 130 for shortcrust to W 390 for panettone. Caputo inverts it: Manitoba Oro is a tipo 0 at W 360 to 380, Pasticceria a tipo 00 at W 200 to 220. Ash says which part of the grain the flour came from, W says which wheat. A sieve does not change the variety.
Do not buy it for texture either: the decree allows 00 in granular form, so talcum fineness is an industry habit, not the definition. And for anything that should taste of the grain, 00 is the wrong end of the scale by design.
How to use it
Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom has a legal standard for 00, so nobody has to prove anything before printing it. King Arthur's '00' Pizza Flour is milled from American wheat to what its page calls exacting '00' standards, a claim about a foreign rule that binds no one here. No bag carries an ash figure.
So read the panel instead. In the US protein is per serving: divide it by the serving weight, so 4 g in a 30 g serving is 13.3%. In the UK the panel is per 100 g and the figure is already a percentage. Aim for 11% to 13.5%, the AVPN band.
Better still, if the bag prints a W: 250 to 310. Failing that, a strong white bread flour whose protein you can read beats a 00 bought blind.
The story
The Italian scale measures refining by burning: incinerate a sample and the mineral residue comes mostly from the bran, so ash tells you how much of the grain got past the sieves. DPR 187/2001 caps each grade at 0.55% for tipo 00, then 0.65%, 0.80% and 0.95% for tipo 0, 1 and 2. There is no minimum for 00, only a roof.
For most of the history of milling white flour was expensive, so the top of the refining scale became the top of the quality scale, and the number travelled with the recipes until 00 stopped meaning ash and started meaning Italian.
The proof that refining and strength are separate axes was written by legislators. When the European Union wrote Neapolitan pizza into law, Regulation (EU) 97/2010 named no flour type at all: it wrote a whole rheology table, from W 220 to 380 and P/L 0.50 to 0.70 through to dry gluten and falling number, and not one line of it names a flour type. Germany had objected that the draft authorised a single flour type available in a single member state, and the settlement revoked those limitations. Spain grades ash in one table and strength in another, inside the same decree, Real Decreto 677/2016.
Frequently asked
- Is 00 flour stronger than bread flour?
- No. 00 is an ash ceiling of 0.55%, and one Italian mill catalogues tipo 00 flours from W 130 to W 390. Bread flour and strong white are sold on protein, which does track strength.
- Do I need 00 flour for Neapolitan pizza?
- The European regulation that protects the name never mentions flour type: it asks for W 220 to 380 and P/L 0.50 to 0.70. The AVPN accepts tipo 00 or tipo 0 at W 250 to 310.
- Is 00 just very finely milled flour?
- No. The Italian decree allows 00 in granular form, so fineness is not part of the definition. Most 00 on sale is very fine because that is what its buyers want, a convention, not a rule.
- What can I use if I cannot find 00?
- A strong white bread flour around 12% to 13% protein, with the water near 56% of the flour weight. It browns faster and resists a little as you open it, so work slowly and rest it if it fights back.