Why Do "Whole Wheat" Recipes Require "All Purpose" Flour? (bread, pizza)

[Jdilladoesitbetter]

I was looking to make some whole wheat pizza crust soon. From what I've seen, a lot of the whole wheat recipes call for all purpose flour.

Is there a reason for this? Is it strictly a matter of texture or something? Or can I just ignore the white flour and go all whole wheat?

[figmalt]

If you go all whole wheat, you need to add about 1 tablespoon of gluten per cup of flour. The whole wheat dough won't be elastic/soft enough without it, which is why they typically add white flour into the mix. If you like dense, hard pizza dough, then you can use just whole-wheat without the extra gluten.

Here's some good information about improving your dough with various enhancers:
Bread Machine Digest » Dough Enhancer’s: And How-To Use Them

[MRBookworm]

You can make yeast breads with exclusively whole wheat flour without adding gluten.

In my experience, a 100% whole wheat dough requires more liquid (to hydrate the bran) and a longer rise time to account for the relative lack of gluten. The amount of gluten isn't reduced in whole wheat flour, it's just that the addition of the bran reduces the relative concentration.

If you're familiar with the sponge technique for making bread, you'll notice that this works wonderfully well with 100% whole wheat flour.