Bad flour?

[lane]

Had some trouble with my last batch of dough, and am guessing the flour could be bad?
I always follow the directions in the downloadable book from this site. It has always worked great untill the other day. My dough would not ball up in KA mixer. It seemed to get softer or more like a pancke batter as it mixed? I was using the caputo flour. I decided I must have mixed or weighed something wrong and tried again with same results. I then went and got some regular bread flour and it worked perfect.
Is there a way to tell if caputo is bad?
Thanks

[texassourdough]

There are a variety of things that can cause the problem you describe - hydration, enzyme problems, etc but I tend to discount them based on your description.

I am going to guess you have either the wrong Caputo (there are more than one flavor) or that the flour is counterfeit (if so probably pastry flour to approximate the fine texture of 00.

That said, flour is variable and even reputable mills sometimes experience variation. (I got a shipment of somewhat expensive organic AP that requuired major hydration adjustment last summer.) It could be simple variation --- but I would bet not.

My money is on pastry flour! (That is a gut feel guess and no more!) I know of no easy test you can do.

Good luck!

[Lburou]

Originally Posted by lane

Had some trouble with my last batch of dough, and am guessing the flour could be bad?
I always follow the directions in the downloadable book from this site. It has always worked great until the other day. My dough would not ball up in KA mixer. It seemed to get softer or more like a pancke batter as it mixed? I was using the caputo flour. I decided I must have mixed or weighed something wrong and tried again with same results. I then went and got some regular bread flour and it worked perfect.
Is there a way to tell if caputo is bad?
Thanks

FWIW, last December, I made a 2kg batch of pizza dough using Caputo flour with the same outcome. Got the flour at the Central market in FTW. Made another 1kg batch last week (half Caputo and half King Arthur) and it was fine.....Same recipe, go figure.....

[TropicalCoasting]

Sounds like Kaput flour.

[thezaman]

i have had the same problem.i think you got some moisture in the flour.did the dry flour have small balls of flour in it.if so i have had this problem to.i sent it back to the store.got new and it was fine.when you pour the flour if you see little balls of flour beware

[texassourdough]

Good observation, thezaman! I have never had flour that was anywhere near wet enough to cause problems like this but I have seen dry flour and wet flour demand signficant dough hydration adjustments. Thanks for suggesting it!
Jay

[thezaman]

the flour too a lot more water to get it to blend.it was unusable as a finished dough.i wasted a fire on it.totally unable to get it ti strech