March 24, 2018 - 8:21am
Comments on First Street Flour sold at S&F
Hi, I was at Smart & Final, saw they had 25lb bread flour and AP flour by First Street. The cost is ridiculously low, ie about $7.88 for 25lbs. If anyone has experience using the First Street flours, please comment on taste and how it might compare to say KA or Gold Metal. I am trying to make bread as inexpensive as possible, however, is only for family consumption.
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In addition, recommendations for a good storage container options, less than $20 for 25lb bag of flour, would be greatly appreciated. Utility or function more important than style here.
Hi, I buy my bread flour at Costco Business Center and pay 8 dollars for 25 lbs. The flour is great, I use it for pizza and bread. You can use your regular Costco membership at the business center. They also have great prices on other baking and pizza making needs.
Hi
I have been using First Street flour for over 5 years and it works fine for me. I have had no problems or bugs in the flour. I also use the bread flour from Sam's club and get the same results. The price is RIGHT. I have tried other flours and noticed no difference. That is my opinion.
I have been using Smart & Final flours for a number of years (more than 15) and they have changed the packaging but probably not the flour in the packaging. Until about 2018 their house brand high gluten flour was La Romanella which I believe has been re-branded as First Street High Gluten (green bag), while their First Street Bread Flour (brown bag)_ has remained the same. I don't think the protein content of the high gluten flour is as high as Kyrol or All Trumps (14%) but it makes good bread and pizza dough, it is fresh when it arrives at the store (milling dates are less than 60 days old in general). And I have never had an issue with contamination.
Hi, I have been using First Street flour also for many years and no problems, price is great. I store the 25lb bag of flour in a Home Depot plastic bucket and it keeps fine. 25 lbs last about 2+ months, just bake for home use.
I just bought my first bag of First Street High Gluten Flour and used it in a sourdough dinner roll recipe, no extra yeast, that I made before with King Arthur AP Flour. I had to add a lot of extra flour to the recipe to get the dough to be workable, it was very sticky. The amount on the bag states that a 1/4 cup is 30 grams, which would actually be less flour than the amount of AP flour called for in the recipe. Just trying to find out if anyone else has found that you need a lot more flour compared to the liquid.
Baker's math is based on weight. There is no conversion to cups and teaspoons. Everything is in grams.
What is the formula you are trying to make? Without that, it is sort of impossible to provide any useful guidance.
This is the recipe I made the first time using King Arthur All-Purpose Flour. I weigh everything in grams that I bake:
227 grams lukewarm water
46 grams potato flakes
113 grams fed sourdough starter, and ready to use
85 grams butter, at room temperature
6 grams salt
24 grams sugar
35 grams buttermilk powder or dry milk
330 grams KA AP flour
When I made it with the First Street Flour I ended up adding another 35 grams of flour just to get it to be workable after the first rise. I did not have that issue with the KA Flour.
As written it is around 75% hydration which is pretty wet.
Add 35g flour and it is down to 69% which should handle just fine (as you observe)
Not much difference between KA AP protein content (11.7%) and S&F HG (which - based on comparing performance with Kyrol which is 14%) is probably around 13%. So I am a little surprised but not amazed that you found it to be very wet without additional flour. Might be just new flour with a higher moisture content out of the bag compared with old AP flour that had been in your kitchen for a month or two.
You could try mixing it without the salt and butter, autolyse for 20 min, add salt and mix until smooth, then work in the butter in 2 or 3 tranches until it all comes together.
You should be able to mix the 75% dough mechanically and get it to behave but it needs to be mixed at high speed because it is more like ciabatta than baguette dough.
Thank you for your response, I didn't get a notification that you responded and came here to ask another question on the same subject. I really need to study Baker's Percentages. I decided to make King Arthur's Sourdough Hamburger Buns but doubled the recipe because I wanted more than 6 buns. Problem is that accidentally I didn't double the sourdough starter and water but all of the remaining ingredients. I guess I was looking at what I feed the starter and doubled that amount, I have no idea.
The dough came out beautifully, not stiff, not too soft, and only needed 90 minutes for the second rise.and was really impressed that I didn't have to add any extra flour. I didn't realize my goof until I looked at the recipe again. So now I am trying to understand what is going on. So every time I bake with this First Street Flour, just use less liquid?
Original recipe:
My so-called doubled version:
I guess I don't understand what you did. I assume that your starter is 100% hydration. The original recipe pencils out to be ~74% hydration (or 76% depending on how you account for the sugar) and your "doubled version is only ~46% hydration. Did you intend to double to original recipe? If yes, then there should be 340g of starter and 340g of water and you only put in 240g each so you have a lot less liquid than you should. Or did you type 240 instead of 340? I think if you do the math right and follow the formula you should be fine. 76% is pretty wet, so I would not be surprised if you still want to add a little flour but that should be the case with either flour. And you don't need either the rye flour or the potato flakes - just use white flour until you get it where you like it and then you can play with it to make it different. The important thing is get to success early. After that you know that anything that goes wrong is all your fault and not built into the formula.
And yes, study up on Baker's Percentages so that you know about where any particular formula will put you in the space of all bread doughs. You have a lot of fat (about double the minimum) and a lot of other stuff that the gluten has to hold up. If it is too wet, you can change the hydration by reducing the liquid in the formula and your Baker's math will tell you when you are down to 69-70% which is where I think you want to be for hamburger buns.
PM me if you have further questions.
I can't believe I don't have an account here. I've used this site for years(probably longer than ten at least). Oh well.
I searched up info on this flour and found this post, so awesome.
I just purchased a 25lb bag, hard time to choose between the HG and BF. I've never used HG so we'll see. These price points though, just makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. That's another post, I suppose.
I'm a bit miffed that there is little to no information on the bag about what's in the bag other than the "enriched"ments. I would have liked a protein breakdown.
Crossing fingers for a mockmill this winter, though.
I'll see about posting pic's of my results. My Minion mother is getting over it's own cvid and I'm doing a refresh now. Fresh starts all around.
There is not a lot of difference between the two flours. Maybe 2% protein, but perhaps less. Both of them mix pretty fast if you autolyse for 20 min.
Ok, thank you so much. It's hard to know what to expect, I guess you're always ready for a let down in a way.
I've never worked with it so that note on autolyse is much appreciated. Autolyse has made it to a regular appearance in my toolbox with all the stay home stuff. This is actually my first use of such a processed flour. I'm kind of scared to like it, tbh. Only because it feels like it has the potential of making you spoiled in a way. Only live once I guess.
If you have access to a COSTCO Commercial outlet, see if they have Kyrol (high gluten). It is the Ardent Mills high gluten flour and really nice (14% protein) and they run a very clean process. I used to get it when I lived in the DC area but recently discovered that I could get it from Costco. I think it only comes in 50 lb bags.
I have a Sam's, actually. I should have looked there. The price on this flour made me flip, though so it was kind of trigger effect. I'm hoping to be able to be a bit more local in the near future.
Does anyone know the protein % of these two flours? I can’t tell from the pictures on the app I use to shop during covid. I actually mainly want to know because I’m looking for reasonably priced flour for making seitan, so more protein content is better. ( But of course, I also bake breads!) Just trying to figure out whether $2 more for 25 pounds of the high gluten actually is worth it.
So roughly proportional to cost. The BF behaves like ~14% and the HG is noticeably higher, perhaps 16%. But check with your local bakery supply house for 50lb bags of vital wheat gluten (or occasionally in bulk at Whole Foods). I find that Bob’s Red Mill VWG is very expensive but available. I think you will find that washing the starch out of regular flour is both hard and time consuming and uses a huge amount of water.
I do make seitan with VWG all the time - usually Anthony’s brand. But I’ve also found that “WTF” (wash the flour) seitan works better for some types of vegan “meats,” with less VWG aftertaste. And I save the starch water for making noodles. I just don’t want to waste my good, more expensive bread flour on this. I will save it for bread! I think I will try the inexpensive high gluten flour for my seitan. Thanks!