Caputo Nuvola: The Best Flour for Airy Crust

Caputo Nuvola (purple) has become one of the most popular flours in Italy. It can handle higher hydration, resulting in a taller, lighter, and fairer crust.

In this blog post, I will explore how Caputo Nuvola stacks up against its more popular brothers, Caputo Pizzeria (blue) and Caputo Chef’s Flour (red). It’s supposed to make a lighter and airier crust. But does it deliver on this promise? After baking a bunch of pizzas, I was surprised by the result.

What is Caputo Nuvola?

Caputo Nuvola Is a Tipo 0 flour, specifically designed for high-hydration pizza dough to create a light, airy, which puffs up in the oven. With its strength of W270-280, Caputo Nuvola can hold up for a long leaving time, making it ideal slow fermentation Neopolitan-style pizza.

Caputo

Caputo is considered one of the top producers of pizza flour. It’s a family business, that started in Naples in 1924. And has supplied the local pizzerias of Naples with high-quality flour for generations. Caputo is also recognized by AVPN (The True Neapolitan Pizza Association), and considered one of their “approved suppliers”.

Tipo 0

When people refer to pizza flour, they’re usually talking about Tipo 00 flour. Caputo Nuvola is however a Tipo 0 flour. Does that make it less ideal for pizza?

Tipo 0 vs Tipo 00

Pizza flour is just a collection of different wheat flour that has the right properties for baking pizza. This means the right, gluten content, absorption, etc. But when people talk about pizza flour, they’re usually referring to Tipo 00. But both Tipo 0 and Tipo 00 are categories of flour on the Italian flour scale, and both are great for pizza.

Tipo 00 is the highest quality flour category on this Italian flour scale. It’s soft, white, finely ground, and is made from the core of the grain.

Tipo 0 is less refined and is made from around  70% of the grain. It, therefore, contains more bran and wheat middlings, than Tipo 00. This also gives Tipo 00 its darker color and a coarser and less soft feel to it. 

Both Tipo 0 and Tipo 00 can be used for pizza baking because they are in the same gluten and strength content range. The AVPN states that a true Neopolitan pizza should be made with either Tipo 00 flour or Tipo 0 flour.

What’s Unique of Caputo Nuvola?

What does Caputo Nuvola bring to the table? Why do you need yet another pizza flour?

Higher Hydration Gives an Airier, Lighter Curst

The main benefit of Caputo Nuvola is that it makes an airy, puffy pizza crust. The reason why it gets a better crust than most other flours is that it’s designed for higher hydration dough.

Pizza dough hydration is simply the amount of water in comparison to flour. And higher hydration gives the dough a lighter, crust with larger air bubbles. The reason is that the higher water content will soften the gluten network in the dough, and make it more flexible. This increased flexibility will create larger pockets inside the dough, that will be inflated by CO2 from the fermentation process.  

To be able to make a hydration dough the flour needs to be stronger because the softening of the gluten network will also weaken it. If the flour isn’t strong enough, the air bubbles will puncture, and the dough will deflate.

Caputo Nuvola W rating

Caputo Nuvola has a strength of W 260-280, longer rise doughs. This is also within the recommended strength by the AVPN of W 250-320 for true Neopolitan pizza.

The strength of Caputo Nuvola allows it to be able to rise for a longer period. W 260-280 is great for up to a 24-36 hour fermentation.

Caputo Nuvola Elasticity

Like most Caputo pizza flours, Caputo Nuvola has an elasticity of P/L 0,50 / 0,60.

Caputo Nuvola Super

You might have noticed that the name Caputo Nuvola Super shows up sometimes, and be confused about whether this is the same product or not. There are two versions, the regular Caputo Nuvola, and Caputo Nuvola Super.

Caputo Nuvola vs Caputo Nuvola Super

The main difference between the two is the strength. While Caputo Nuvola has a strength of W260-280, Caputo Nuvola Super has a strength of W 320-340. The even higher strength makes it more suitable for longer leaves. At more than W 300, it can easily hold up for 48 hours or more. So if you’re looking at long fermentation times, you may want to look into the Super version.

Caputo Nuvola Super is also a good choice for biga,  which is an Italian pre-fermentation technique, to enhance flavor. The reason is that when you make biga, you leave it to ferment before mixing it with the rest of the ingredients to form the dough. Extra strength is therefore a benefit.

It is however pretty hard to get your hands on a bag of Caputo Nuvola Super unless you buy in bulk. Most of the time, they’re sold in 55 Lb (25kg) bags, which is a little much for me.

Caputo Nuvola Review

I had heard a lot of good things about Caputo Nuvola, I was therefore pretty excited to try it myself. Since I’ve been using Caputo Pizzeria for a long time for almost all my pizza baking,  I already knew Caputo was making great pizza flour. But I wasn’t sure Nuvola would make better crust than my long-time favorite Caputo Pizzeria.

One day, not that long ago, I was checking the baking aisle at a local specialty market, and discovered that they were now selling Caputo Nuvola!

They only had one 1kg (2.2 lbs) bag left, so I quickly grabbed it before anyone else got the chance. I guess there must be other pizza enthusiasts around here, that were excited about Caputo Nuvola as well since they only had one left.

Caputo Nuvola Recipe

The recipe I used for this review is my Authentic Neopolitan pizza dough recipe, with a slightly higher hydration of 65%. I also made the same dough with Caputo Pizzeria, to compare the results.

After a 24-hour rise, I baked the pizzas on my pizza steel using the broiler in my home oven at 500°F (260°C).

Caputo Nuvola vs Caputo Pizzeria

For a long time, my go-to pizza flour was Caputo Pizzeria, which I’ve made a lot of amazing pizza with. I had heard about Captuo Nuvola but didn’t try it until recently.

Honestly, I just assumed that Pizzeria was the best pizza flour out there. And perhaps that’s true for wood-fired pizza. I do however bake most of my pizza in my home oven, so it was time to challenge Caputo Pizzeria!

When it comes to price, they both cost pretty much the same, with Caputo Nuvola perhaps a tad pricier. I picked up both for around 7-8 dollars for 1kg (2.2 lbs) in a local specialty market, but they can also be found online.

The first thing I noticed with Caputo Nuvola was that it was coarser than Caputo Pizzeria since it’s a Tipo 0 flour. Caputo Pizzeria has a very fine grind and therefore feels softer when you bake with it. The color of pizzeria is also whiter than Nuvola.

Kneading

When I started needing my doughs, the one made with Nuvola felt elastic and soft to work with, and it absorbed the water well. The same goes for Pizzeria. While kneading, I couldn’t really feel any difference to speak of; both doughs were soft and elastic.

Bulk Fermentation

I then left them to bulk ferment for 4 hours. As you can see from the image below, the Nuvola dough did rise more, than the Pizzeria dough.

Balling and Proofing

I then proceeded to make dough balls, and let the dough rise for an additional 20 hours. And the same happened here, the Nuvola dough balls rose more than the Pizzeria dough balls. The difference is however not as visible as during bulk fermentation, but it’s still a difference.

The Pizza Crust

The next step was to make a few Margherita pizzas (like I always do when I’m testing pizza!) and bake them on the highest setting in my oven on a pre-heated pizza steel (500°F/260°C). I also used the broiler to increase the temperature and get a result closer to a wood-fired oven. The baking time was around 5 minutes.

Both pizzas turned out really good, but the pizza made with Caputo Nuvola had a little more puffy crust than the one made with Caputo Pizzeria. The crust also had larger air bubbles and felt overalls lighter and softer. Honestly, I think the Nuvola pizza, had one of the best crusts I’ve ever made!

The crust on the Caputo Pizzeria pizza, on the other hand, was a little bit denser and not as soft and light as the Nuvola crust.  

Another thing I noticed is that the Nuvola crust seemed to brown a little faster than the Pizzeria crust. It could’ve been my oven that didn’t have a consistent temperature, but I baked several pizzas with each flour, and it seems to be a trend. Caputo Pizzeria is advertised as a professional pizza flour, intended for really hot wood-fired leaves, so I guess, there is something that makes it brown slower.

Both flours made delicious pizza, and to be honest, there wasn’t a huge difference between the two. They made elastic and extensible doughs, that were great to work with and easy to stretch out. They both rose nicely and buffed up and made a nice crust on the pizza. The flavor was also almost indistinguishable. Caputo Nuvola, did, however, rise a little more, and also puffed up more in the oven. This made an airier, and softer crust with larger air bubbles.

If I have to choose one, I think I prefer Nuvola. There wasn’t much of a difference, but the crust turned out slightly better every time in my home oven. I, therefore, think Caputo Nuvola is the best choice for baking Neapolitan-style pizza at home.

Conclusion

Caputo Nuvola makes a nice elastic dough that is nice to work with. It’s also a fairly strong flour, with good gluten development, which makes it easy to stretch without ripping it.  The strength of flour also makes it hold up well for longer fermentation, which is ideal for Neapolitan-style pizza. That’s an important thing to me, personally, because I love long fermentations, that add complex flavor to the crust.

It’s also the pizza flour that gives the nicest crusts, soft and airy, in my home oven. On a pizza steel, it makes a phenomenal pizza crust. It always puffs up nicely and creates large air bubbles. The crust also turns out crisp on the outside, yet soft and light on the inside.

It can’t go wrong with any Caputo flour. They are all really high quality and always make delicious pizza, but I think Caputo Nuvola is my new favorite flour for baking pizza in my home oven. I therefore strongly recommend Caputo Nuvola to anyone serious about making Neapolitan-style pizza at home.

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