New York State recently announced its intention to ban potassium bromate, an ingredient in the most popular flour used by NYC pizza and bagel shops. The news sent panicked bakers scrambling to adjust for losing the flour, which is vital to maintain the status quo for many restaurants. Edible Brooklyn talked to several pizza places to gauge how difficult the transition will be. The answer appears to be: not that bad.
Potassium bromate has been banned in Europe for nearly 30 years, and has also been banned in California. It has long been linked to cancer in lab animals exposed to the substance. So why was everyone using it? Bromated flour has a stronger gluten network which allows it to hold more gas, resulting in a lighter, springer end product. What is does in practice is serve as a shortcut for long fermentation times. According to Scott Weiner of Scott’s Pizza Tours, “It’s like a no-brainer. It works incredibly well for what it’s supposed to do,” he says.
Most artisanal pizza purveyors avoided bromated flour in the first place, so they won't have to change at all. Charlie Webb, of Poughkeepsie's Hudson and Packard, is one such pizza maker. “The process of bleaching and bromating flour doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he says. “Everything healthy about the flour has been taken away, so they have to enrich it. People don’t know how to work with dough so they choose bromate to speed up a process that can be mastered with time and temperature.”
Some bakers who were using the bromated flour have experimented with switching to a non-bromated version, and most have been pleased with the results. Paul Diagostino has owned the House of Pizza and Calzones for over 20 years. He made some tweaks to the process and has had mostly positive results. “Change at first freaks people out,” he says, “but in the end, I think this is better for everybody—from operators all the way to the consumer.”