Stone ground WWW vs. roller milled WWW
As I came to the end of my supply of Wheat Montana WWW, I picked up a bag of Hodgson Mill WWW. The WM flour appears to be roller milled while the HM states on the bag that it's stone ground. There's a definite difference in the appearance and feel of the two flours.
The loaves I've baked using my usual recipe, both sourdough and yeasted, since switching over to the HM have all baked smaller than loaves using the WM. The recipe is the tried and true 1-2-3 with 15-20% WWW. So far I've tried using a larger poolish or levain, including the WWW in building the poolish, and soaking the WWW but nothing seems to be doing the trick. I don't know anybody that's local that could provide fresh milled flour which seems to be the last factor I could change.
I'm open to suggestions.
It sounds like your latest flour contain more and larger chunks of bran. It is less refined and contains more of the whole grain. If this is the case each flour will bake up quite differently. The less refined flour will need more water.
It is my understanding that whole grain flour does not need to contain 100% of the grain milled. Some of the grain (bran) can be extracted and the flour can still be labeled whole grain. Since I mill my grain, I am not super familiar with this.
I am assuming WWW means Whole White Wheat.
Dan
For me, fine-looking store-bought whole wheat flour like Bob's Red Mill and Indian atta absorbs up to 100-105% water. Coarser ones and home-milled flour cannot take as high a hydration, more likely around 95%. This makes sense with the assumption that all of them contain 100% whole wheat (no bran is removed) as the finer the bran, the larger the surface area for water absorption. I don't have the information regarding the labeling for commercial ww flour so I won't comment on that.
@Postal Grunt, did you notice anything different about the dough (elasticity, extensibility, stiffness/slackness etc.)? This helps to figure out if change in dough development and hydration is needed.