What flour is best for focaccia?

Bread flour at roughly 12–14% protein is the most reliable choice: it holds a high-hydration dough together and gives an open, chewy crumb. A strong Italian tipo 00 (W 260–300) is equally good and gives a finer, silkier crumb.

Can I use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour for focaccia?

Yes. The focaccia will be a little softer and slightly less risen, and the dough will be slacker. Reduce the water by about 3–5 percentage points and be diligent with the stretch-and-folds to compensate for the lower protein.

Is bread flour or all-purpose better for focaccia?

Bread flour for a chewier, more open, better-structured crumb and easier handling at high hydration; all-purpose for a softer, more tender bread. Both work — bread flour is the more forgiving of the two.

Do I need Italian 00 flour for focaccia?

No. The 00 refers to how finely the flour is milled, not how strong it is, so a 00 can be weaker than your ordinary bread flour. If you use one, choose a strong 00 (around 12.5–14% protein, or W 260 and above).

What is semola rimacinata and can I make focaccia with it?

It is finely re-milled durum wheat, traditional in Puglia. It gives a yellow crumb, nutty flavour and a crisp base, but its gluten is less extensible, so most bakers blend 20–50% semola with bread flour rather than using it alone.

How much protein should focaccia flour have?

Aim for 12–14%. Below about 11% the dough struggles to hold high hydration and the crumb tightens; above 14% the bread turns chewier than most people want from focaccia.

Can I use self-raising flour for focaccia?

No. Self-raising flour contains baking powder and salt, which conflict with yeast fermentation and the recipe’s own salt. Use a plain bread or all-purpose flour and let the yeast do the work.

Guide

What Flour to Use for Focaccia: Bread, 00, All-Purpose or Semola

Why protein is the number that matters, what “00” actually tells you (less than you think), and how to swap one flour for another without wrecking the dough.

By FocacciaRecipe editorial · Updated 2026-07-31

Quick answer

Bread flour, at roughly 12–14% protein, is the most reliable choice for focaccia: it holds a wet dough together and gives an open, chewy crumb. All-purpose works and makes a softer, more tender focaccia — expect a slacker dough and slightly less rise. Italian tipo 00 describes how finely the flour is milled, not how strong it is, so check the protein or W rating on the bag rather than the number.

Protein is the number that matters

When flour meets water, two proteins — glutenin and gliadin — link up into gluten, the elastic network that traps fermentation gas and lets a wet dough hold its shape. More protein means more potential gluten, which means a dough that can carry more water without collapsing into a puddle. Since focaccia is a high-hydration bread, usually somewhere between 75% and 85% water, this matters more here than it would in a stiff sandwich loaf.

In practice you are choosing between roughly three bands. Bread flour sits at about 12–14% protein and is the dependable default. All-purpose (plain flour in the UK) sits around 10–12%, with UK plain flour typically at the lower end of that range than American all-purpose. Cake and pastry flours sit lower still and have no business in focaccia.

You will find the protein figure on the nutrition panel of almost every bag: look at the grams of protein per 100 g. A flour listing 12.5 g per 100 g is a 12.5% protein flour. This is the single most useful thing on the packaging, and it is more informative than the words on the front.

Bread flour: the reliable default

If you want one flour that makes good focaccia without thinking about it, buy bread flour. The extra protein gives you a dough that comes together into a coherent, stretchy mass during the folds rather than staying soupy, tolerates a long fermentation without slackening into soup, and rises into the open, slightly chewy crumb most people picture when they think of focaccia.

It also absorbs more water than a weaker flour, which is exactly what you want when the recipe calls for 80% hydration. The same 80% in all-purpose will feel noticeably wetter and handle more awkwardly, because there is less protein to hold the water in the structure.

The trade-off is a slightly chewier, more resilient bite. That is a virtue in a classic sheet-pan focaccia and a modest drawback in the softest, most pillowy styles, where a little tenderness is welcome. Our ingredient page on bread flour goes further into brands and protein ranges.

All-purpose: what you actually give up

All-purpose flour makes perfectly good focaccia. This is worth saying clearly, because a lot of baking writing implies otherwise. The bread you get will be a little softer and more tender, with a slightly tighter crumb and marginally less oven spring. For many people that is not a downgrade; it is a preference.

What changes is the handling. At the same hydration, an all-purpose dough is slacker, stickier and less willing to hold structure through a long bulk. Two adjustments make it behave. First, take the hydration down by about 3–5 percentage points — an 80% recipe becomes 75–77% — which costs you very little in the finished crumb. Second, be a little more diligent with the stretch-and-folds, since you are building strength in a flour that has less of it to give.

If the dough still feels unmanageable, that is not a failure of the flour; see our guide on dough that is too wet and sticky, which covers wet-hand technique and how to tell slack-but-fine from genuinely over-hydrated.

Tipo 00: the most misunderstood bag in baking

This is where most flour advice goes wrong, so it is worth being precise. In the Italian system, the numbers — 00, 0, 1, 2 — describe how finely the grain is milled and how much of the bran and germ has been sifted out. Tipo 00 is the most refined and finely ground; it says nothing at all about strength. A tipo 00 can be a soft, weak pastry flour or a very strong pizza flour, and both are legitimately labelled 00.

So "use 00 flour for authentic focaccia" is incomplete advice. What you want to look for instead is the protein percentage, or, on Italian bags, the W rating — a laboratory measure of dough strength. Roughly: W 170–220 is a weak flour suited to soft, quick doughs; W 240–280 is a good general bread and focaccia strength; W 300 and above is a strong flour built for long fermentations and very wet doughs.

A strong 00 (say W 260–300, around 12.5–14% protein) is genuinely excellent for focaccia. Its fine grind hydrates quickly and gives a silky dough and a fine, even crumb with a tender bite. A weak 00 in an 80% hydration focaccia will simply not hold up. Judge the bag by its numbers, not its label — our tipo 00 ingredient page covers reading Italian flour packaging in more detail.

Semola rimacinata: the southern Italian option

Semola rimacinata is durum wheat, re-milled to a fine flour — the same grain behind dried pasta, and the traditional flour of Puglia, where focaccia barese comes from. It is a genuinely different ingredient rather than a substitute, and it changes the bread in ways you can see and taste.

It brings a warm yellow colour, a distinctly nutty, faintly sweet flavour, and a crust that fries up crisp and sandy in the oil. Durum protein is high, often 12–13%, but its gluten behaves differently from bread-wheat gluten: more tenacious and less extensible, so a pure semola dough resists stretching and can feel short and springy rather than flowing.

For that reason most bakers blend rather than commit. Somewhere between 20% and 50% semola, with bread flour making up the rest, gives you the colour, flavour and crisp base without a dough that fights back when you dimple it. Traditional focaccia barese pairs semola with mashed potato, which adds the moisture and softness the durum does not. Start at 25% if you have not used it before — see our semola focaccia recipe and the semolina ingredient page.

Whole wheat and blends

Whole wheat flour contains the bran and germ, which brings flavour, colour and a real nutritional difference — and also sharp bran particles that physically cut gluten strands, plus a lot of thirst. A 100% whole wheat focaccia is dense and heavy, and not what most people are after.

Used as part of a blend it is excellent. Ten to thirty percent whole wheat gives a nuttier, more interesting bread while leaving the crumb open. Because bran absorbs water slowly and greedily, add a little more water than the white-flour version and give the dough a longer rest after mixing so the bran can hydrate fully before you judge the consistency — otherwise you will read a dough as correct and find it stiff twenty minutes later.

The same principle covers rye, spelt and einkorn: they are flavour ingredients in focaccia, best kept to a minority share, with the structural work left to a strong white flour. Our whole wheat focaccia recipe is built on that ratio.

Swapping flours without wrecking the hydration

The mistake that ruins most flour substitutions is treating grams of flour as interchangeable while leaving the water alone. They are not interchangeable, because different flours drink different amounts.

A workable rule: moving from bread flour to all-purpose, reduce water by about 3–5% of the flour weight. Moving the other way, from all-purpose to bread flour, add roughly the same amount. Adding whole wheat or semola, add water — about 2–3% for every 10% of the blend, and expect semola in particular to keep absorbing for a while after mixing.

Whatever the numbers say, hold back the last 20–30 g of water at the mixing stage and add it only once the dough has come together and you can feel what it wants. Flour varies by harvest, brand and even how humid your kitchen is, and your hands are a better instrument than a recipe written for someone else’s bag. Our hydration guide explains how to think in baker’s percentages so these adjustments become arithmetic rather than guesswork.

Frequently asked

What flour is best for focaccia?: Bread flour at roughly 12–14% protein is the most reliable choice: it holds a high-hydration dough together and gives an open, chewy crumb. A strong Italian tipo 00 (W 260–300) is equally good and gives a finer, silkier crumb.
Can I use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour for focaccia?: Yes. The focaccia will be a little softer and slightly less risen, and the dough will be slacker. Reduce the water by about 3–5 percentage points and be diligent with the stretch-and-folds to compensate for the lower protein.
Is bread flour or all-purpose better for focaccia?: Bread flour for a chewier, more open, better-structured crumb and easier handling at high hydration; all-purpose for a softer, more tender bread. Both work — bread flour is the more forgiving of the two.
Do I need Italian 00 flour for focaccia?: No. The 00 refers to how finely the flour is milled, not how strong it is, so a 00 can be weaker than your ordinary bread flour. If you use one, choose a strong 00 (around 12.5–14% protein, or W 260 and above).
What is semola rimacinata and can I make focaccia with it?: It is finely re-milled durum wheat, traditional in Puglia. It gives a yellow crumb, nutty flavour and a crisp base, but its gluten is less extensible, so most bakers blend 20–50% semola with bread flour rather than using it alone.
How much protein should focaccia flour have?: Aim for 12–14%. Below about 11% the dough struggles to hold high hydration and the crumb tightens; above 14% the bread turns chewier than most people want from focaccia.
Can I use self-raising flour for focaccia?: No. Self-raising flour contains baking powder and salt, which conflict with yeast fermentation and the recipe’s own salt. Use a plain bread or all-purpose flour and let the yeast do the work.