oh! And the KA's type 55 flour version... I just don't see any of these, and I'm wondering if some stores that I'm not even thinking of are the ones that do carry them.

(thanks, again!) 

Melissa in Atlanta

I followed the lead of crumb bum and leemid and went to the local Cash & Carry, which is a food wholesaler. I got a 50 pound bag of really good Pendleton Mills flour for around 15 bucks. I opened it in September or October and just finished it off.

I would suggest looking for smaller, health/bulk foods type stores in your area. In the larger markets I've found a comparatively smaller variety of flours, as well as other ingredients. When just buying for myself, I would just dip into the bulk bin, but our store also offers direct catalog ordering through a distributor, which greatly opens up the options and reduces the price. Now I buy Heartland Mills flour in 25# sacks. And its been more likely that a smaller place could procure something specific that they don't have for you than a larger place.

-Cyrus

In the classroom and in many of the popular artisan baking books, it seems consistency in protein content and quality of flour is stressed. Recipes here talk about as little as 0.1 grams of yeast, which we can't even measure on the average bread maker's scale. It seems consistency of the flour and protein content might be important. They are certainly a bigger proportion of the final product. King Arthur, Bob's Mill, and North Dakota Mill (https://www.ndmill.com/ndmill/new/index.cfm) often come up as trusted sources. Has anyone had trouble with the "big names" products, bargain products, or bulk food products?

 I don't want to sound stuffy. Several of my beliefs have already been exposed as urban legends in the short, 3 days I have been following events here. 

Greg

I'm a Heartland Mill flour fan. For a high extraction flour, the Golden Buffalo is pretty much a standard, if I'm not milling and sifting my own. Their white and whole grain flours are also excellent.

KA is where I go for small amounts of specialty flours and I like their organic AP flour, too.

For high protein whole wheat flours, Wheat Montana is very good, and their AP is really an excellent higher protein white bread flour.

However, the shipping costs of doing this over the internet make things much more expensive. It's probably cheaper to get flour locally, but then you have to work on  finding out how often they purchase and how they store. So far, for freshness and consistency, I like getting flour shipped from Heartland Mill or Wheat Montana, even though the shipping is costly.

yesterday, in the Asian market. But it wasn't cheap, imported over England from no where land.

Hi Melissa,

I mail order mine from Honeyville Grain.  I love their artisan flour.  I buy it in 50 pd bags and with shipping it ends up costing a dollar a pound, which is much cheaper than if I buy it locally.  There web site is www.honeyvillegrain.com

 They have most other flours you would want as well.

 Hope this is helpful.

Another place to look is your local grocery health food section. I was actually shocked to find KA Select Artisan flour in my local store although they only stock the small 2-lb bags. Still, they work out to be less expensive than ordering online from KAF when you factor in shipping costs.

There are many different flours in the health food section that are not stocked in the regular baking aisle and it took me a while to figure this out so check out your local store.

I love Heartland Mill Golden Buffalo high extraction flour and their durum flour which is fantastic and though it costs a pretty penny to ship them it is worth it to me. I order special flours from KAF such as their French style flour and Italian 00 and medium and light rye which I simply cannot find locally.

I just try and plan ahead and get quantities that I can store and use. I have no other option when these flours are not carried locally and I'm pretty sure that won't change any time soon. I love bread baking so much and experimenting with these flours so I just consider it part of the bread baking process.

My local cash and carry has 50# bags of Pendleton Mills High Pro flour for $25.  My wife picked up a 5# bag of Gold Medal Bread flour for $5 today... figure I'll just get a 50# bag to tie me over for a bit and save some $.

Any tips on storing a bag of flour this large?

Hans 

I have been ordering flour from a local health food store. I don't have to pay shipping. You just have to be carefull you get what you order.

We were in the process of moving and I had just opened a 25 lb bag of organic unbleached flour by Montana Millings. A portion of the bran is sifted out and the wheat germ is left in making the flour tan in color. Many home bakers do not buy this flour in such large quantities for fear of the flour going rancid. As I made mention we were in the process of moving and I had just bought a huge stone crock that weighed a ton. I stuff the 25 lbs of organic Montana unbleached flour into the crock. We ended up moving to Oregon, elevation 5,000 feet, mountain country.

After we moved the crock was set aside and forgotten you know what its like when you move. About a year later I discovered my crock. I opened the crock knowing full well that the flour would be rancid, especially this kind of flour. To my surprise the flour smelled sweet and fresh. I could hardly believe the flour wasn't rancid after being stored in a cool arid place for over a year and no bugs in the flour.

Now I have 5 huge stone crocks where I store all my grains and flours. If I had not experienced storing my flour in a stone crock for over a year, especially a flour that is known to only keep for a short while. I would never have thought of using stone crocks for storage of grains and flours.

So now I'm buying the highly perishable flour in 50 lb sacks and storing in a stone crock. The climate here is very dry and cool for the most part. If we do have hot weather of 100ºF during the summer we get no more than a couple of weeks of hot weather. Winters are dry and we do get snow. I don't know if the weather also played a big part.

I have to buy flour in volume for we live quite a distances from town. So all my storage containers for grains and flours are stone crocks and I never have problems with bugs at this elevation either. I also notice that the stone crocks are cold to the touch when stored in a cool storage room. So that may make a difference too. My stone crocks will whole 50lbs of grains or flour. I've decided to buy at least two more.

I'm now baking with this flour and producng beautiful high rising loaves. I also use this flour for making my starters.

Jolly

I live in Los Angeles, and use Organic flour only. Until now I have been buying 5lb bags of AP and WW from Whole Foods which I believe is a repackaged Giusto's. Their price has recently risen to $3.69 for a 5lb bag. However, now I discovered that both Ralph's (owned by Kroger) and Pavillions (owned by Safeway) both have AP Organic flour under their own brand name for $2.99 for a 5lb bag. So I get my white flour there now.

Rudy