Incorporate whole grains into your pizza dough for texture, color and variety
When Julia Duncan-Roitman set out to open Joy Hill pizzeria in Denver, she hoped to work with a local mill to source heirloom wheat varieties. Inspired by the nutritional value of ancient grains as well as their connection to the tradition of bread-baking, she began learning about wheat varieties such as Turkey Red and Rouge de Bordeaux.
Today, Duncan-Roitman’s pizza dough includes 10% rye sourced from Colorado’s San Luis Valley and milled to her specifications. “It’s a thirsty grain, and we had to play around with the percentages to have enough hydration,” she says of using rye. “It’s a crispier, thinner crust, but we think the flavor and texture are great.”
Janine Sanguine, outreach and engagement manager at the Washington State University Breadlab, confirms that pizzerias might have to adjust their dough recipes when incorporating whole grains, such as barley, buckwheat, rye, spelt and even “colorful” wheat. Sanguine says that dark purple or bluish green undertones can be a quick indicator that flour is milled using whole grains, since the bran of a wheat kernel can have deep colors.
While white flour uses only the endosperm part of the kernel, whole-grain flour typically includes all three components: bran, germ and endosperm. “Intact, you can have this beautiful, deep color. A lot of the bakers are interested in it,” she says.
One drawback of whole grains, Sanguine admits, is the public perception that more healthful products don’t taste as good as those made with white flour. But in addition to being more nutritious and colorful, many operators tell Pizza Today they believe whole grains make dough more flavorful as well.
Whole Grains in Practice
When Sarah Minnick of Portland, Oregon-based pizzeria Lovely’s Fifty Fifty started experimenting with whole grains 13 years ago, she was drawn to a local producer milling bright white whole-grain flour. “They were going to use it for school lunches, and so kids would not think something was whole grain,” Minnick recalls. “It’d be so bright white, they thought it was white bread. So, I started to get interested in using that flour.”
At first, Minnick started using 20% whole grains in her pizza dough, although today the dough at Lovely’s includes 40% whole grains. “We actually have a mix of five flours right now,” she tells Pizza Today, adding that Lovely’s buys the bags of flour separately and mixes them at the restaurant. “It’s a mix of that same hard white wheat, red wheat and a spelt – those three make up our 40% whole grain. And then the two other flours are two different white flours; one’s a high protein and one’s a lower protein bread flour.”
Minnick says the whole grains make it possible to push dough hydration to 82%, which gives her pizzas a longer shelf and allows them to reheat without getting tough. Due to the high hydration, it takes about
10 minutes to bake pies in Lovely’s wood-fired oven.
Freshly Milled Grains
Duncan-Roitman says when working with pizza dough, she can feel the difference when using freshly milled grains because they retain the scent, oils and moisture compared to flour that has been sitting on the shelf. “That bag of flour at the store has been through hell and back; it’s been used and abused,” she says, adding that freshly milled grains don’t have the same dusty quality. “I can taste it, and I certainly can feel it when I’m working with it.”
A Colorado-based mill delivers about 200 pounds of rye flour to Joy Hill once per month, and all bags are marked with the mill date. According to Sanguine of the WSU Breadlab, rye is a popular grain for sourdough starters because its active enzymes foster a lively fermentation, even reviving sluggish starters.
Another advantage, according to Duncan-Roitman, is rye’s long tap root, which keeps the soil intact and requires less water. “It’s a sustainable and regenerative crop,” she says.
Spelt, an ancient subspecies of wheat popular with pizzaiolos, has high gluten content that creates an elastic dough that stands up to handling and heavy toppings. Watch out when proofing dough made with spelt, as quick fermentation means dough can become over-proofed more quickly than standard white-flour dough. Using cool water is one technique to curb these overeager fermentations.
Access and Production of Whole Grains
Many pizza makers tell Sanguine that their biggest obstacle to using whole grains is access – a problem the lab is working to address through breeding trials and commercialization. Among these projects is creating varieties that marry the flavor, nutrition and cultural significance of ancient grains with the yields of more modern varieties.
Another barrier to the use of whole grains in commercial pizzerias is cost. “They are more expensive, which is really counterintuitive to me,” Sanguine says, explaining that industrial roller mills separate the bran and germ from the endosperm to create white flour. For whole-grain flour, companies using roller mills must add those components back into the grain mix. Other mill types do not separate wheat kernel components during the milling process, resulting in ready-to-use whole-grain products.
State agricultural extension offices often have information about grain producers and specialty mills in each state. Additionally, Sanguine encourages pizzerias to contact The Breadlab with questions – even if they are not located in Washington state.
Using Whole Grains in Pizza Crust
When pizzeria owners are worried that customers might revolt over whole grains in their pizza crust, Minnick of Lovely’s Fifty Fifty encourages them to branch out.
“There’s really nothing to lose. … Try 10% or 20%, and I think all you’ll see is a better product, a more interesting product and a more flavorful product,” she says. “It actually does have the capacity to be very lofty and light when you use it that low. Even ours at 40%, I’m sure most customers don’t even know it has whole grains in it.”
Both Lovely’s Fifty Fifty and Joy Hill regularly post about their use of whole grains on social media and include information about artisan ingredients on their menus. Duncan-Roitman points out that utilizing freshly milled whole grains can be more expensive than purchasing flour from a distribution warehouse, so operators should know “what your market will sustain, if your guests will pay for that added expense.”
In the case of Joy Hill, the answer is yes. Starting this season, the pizzeria will begin selling dough at a local farmers market for shoppers looking for high-quality pizza dough to bake at home. “If your specialty is working with local produce, seasonal produce, this can be another added flavor profile that’s local,” she says.
KATE LAVIN is Senior Editor at Pizza Today.
