Flour in Basel, Switzerland
Hi all,
As I mentioned in some other places around here, I have moved to Basel, Switzerland! Baked bread a couple of times already here although still waiting for all my gear that is still boxed up in Edinburgh and waiting to be shipped. Still it worked pretty well, and I'm quite happy with the oven in the flat (particularly excited by 5°C precise digital temperature control which should be great for e.g. preparing the scald at 65°C!)
I was wondering whether anyone has any advice where I could buy (or order online) a selection of different flours. The options in local supermarkets are actually pretty good, but for some reason I only found 0.5 kg bags of whole rye so far, which is very little. And no other rye options... I could go to Germany or France I guess (bought a bag of rye schrot in Germany yesterday, actually), but also curious to try local flours from around here. In addition, unfortunately backstars.de doesn't ship to Switzerland... And all Swiss online shops I checked only have a limited selection.
Also if anyone has advice about the Swiss flours that seem to be commonly available here but not known outside such as Ruchmehl (seems like something similar to T1050? or Russian grade 2?), or Zopfmehl (flour for Butterzopf, some kind of local enriched braided Sunday bread - but what's so special about the flour for it?), UrDinkel (any different from Dinkel - spelt?) I'd be curious to hear!
of my family. But when I was in Zurich in September, the local coop supermarket (a big hypermarket company in Switzerland) always had 1 kg packages of roggenvolkornmehl -- 100% rye flour -- and it was generally good. Occasionally, you could even get 1 kg packages of Walliser Roggenmehl -- locally grown in the canton of Wallis (Valais.)
Zopfmehl is for zopf -- a braided enriched sweet bread that's a common Sunday treat. The flour, I believe, is all-purpose with 10% spelt added.
I'll query my Swiss fam & get back to you about the nomenclature and where to shop.
Rob
Thank you Rob!
For some reason I only found 0.5 kg bags in Coop, and no whole rye in the other big supermarket nearby - Migros. Maybe it's some supply issue at the moment, I'll keep a lookout for it there.
I've used zopfmehl now just in place of white bread flour (bag says it's 12% protein, which is pretty good here), it seemed to work quite well.
Would be great to hear what your family says, thank you again!
Ruchmehl is 85 percent extraction -- so, as you suspected, like type 1100 or first clear
Dinkel is a hybrid spelt - wheat while urDinkel is pure spelt
Zopfmehl is generally like all-purpose (weismehl, type 400) but isoften pre-blended to be higher protein (like bread flour) and sometimes has some dinkel added.
Thanks a lot! Very nice of them to help out :)
Homebaking.at has a few ruchmehl recipes, including this one which I've made.
It's good.
Lance
Thank you Lance, I've found this recipe too, as well as your post about it I think. It does look good, I'll try something along those lines!
More often than not, using the correct capitalization helps in looking up in German speaking countries. Anyway...info on flours:
https://www.gutekueche.ch/mehl-sorten-backeigenschaften-artikel-378
Here is an internet ordering site, they look pretty posh:
https://www.hagengrote.ch/hagen-grote
Funny that you couldn't find 1 kg bags locally. You could also type in the city name under maps and add "Mehl" and/or "Backen" or "Backwaren"
Dankeschön Mini! You are right I should try searching some more in German, although my mastery of German leaves a lot to be desired. The keywords are very useful.
and still can't find my way around the "yellow pages." Some of the sites come with translation, flags on the home pages etc. ..and then again...fun to pick up another language. :). If need help, just ask.
Thank you Mini! I know a little German that helps, but not enough to really communicate. Especially not with Swiss German speakers - can't even get their ein-zwei-drei, impossible pronunciation. Reading is easier, but still on a basic level. I hear that I'm supposed to receiver a voucher for a free German course from the canton, so will learn study some more next year.
Hi again Mini,
Any ideas what kind of shop might be the best place to get molasses/malt extract? And do you know whether "Brotaufstrich mit Melasse" could be a substitute? (Or wtf even is it?)
the last malt I picked up was at Interspar. But molasses is heated so I would suspect no enzymes are needed and will be used as a flavouring? Reformhaus? Brotaufstrich is anything you smear on bread, "strich auf brot." It can be meat or fish or cheese spread just about anything that is spreadable so...a "spread with molasses." Hmmm. Sounds like a substitute. I would look in the jam (marmelade) section or near the honey (honig) or sugar products.
Reformhaus....there are 3. (You will love it in there.). (You can also ask to have your whole grains milled there too!)
https://www.google.at/search?q=reformhaus+Basel,+Schweiz&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-at&client=safari
maybe 6:
https://www.local.ch/de/q/basel/reformhaus?slot=yellow
That shop looks perfect, thank you! Also flour, and probably everything else I might need. Amazing.
Yeah, that's where I found the spread, below the honeys, together with some other sweet spreads... So it appears to be a possible substitute if I find nothing else, but not ideal.
we will know where you are. Lol!
Thanks again Mini - that exact shop turned out to be the right kind, but wrong size - a little too small. And they didn't have malt extract at least at the moment. But this did point me in the right direction - the lady working there recommended another organic supermarket even closer to my flat, which was perfect - for future reference, it was Alnatura. Big variety of flour including whole grain rye in 1 kg bag, different grains as whole kernels, etc.
No malts (but I have active barley malt and red rye malt coming at some point from Edinburgh...), and no non-whole grain flours rye - the only thing I still need to figure out.
in the middle...Emmer fullgrain flour! Cool!
Hard to read the fine print on the rye (roggen) and spelt (dinkel.) Packages with windows look like whole grains.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/XYqdyx1vF6VspLco9 here is the link to the full resolution photo, if you are curious!
Hafer = Oats.
Dinkel = Spelt. Whole flour (bottom shelf, no numbers always whole grain no extraction ground fine) 630 is fine or white (nice) and 1050 a little more whole in the wheat flour.
Weizen = Wheat. (Bottom shelf. Again no numbers = whole grain no extraction ground fine) 405 cake flour, and 550 all purpose
Roggen Vollkorn Mehl. (No numbers, whole grain ground fine)
Next time turn a few packages around to show more detailed information including what is found in 100g and other interesting stuff. :) Then it is more definable.
Also see Buchweizen = Buckwheat, Hirse = Millet, and..... Grünkern <----you won't find this everywhere!
Thank you! Yeah I've figured out the names of the main grains. I didn't need any flour right now, just wanted to get malt extract, and explore the possibilities. So didn't look into protein content etc of different flours.
I actually looked up what Grünkern is (this one was from Austria btw)! Never heard of that - apparently it's spelt that's harvested early? And I think used for a porridge-like dish, not baking? Have you ever tried it?
staring at me. Maybe we can do something together.
A search and a translate shows one product was just molasses plus water and sugar
https://login.trustbox-swiss.ch/index.php?gtin=07610247001161&back_query_string=veron
Thank you!
You'll find that every city and even every village has it's own mundart, or dialect and pronunciation, of Schwiizerdütsch -- and sometimes people from different regions can't easily follow each other though they're all speaking the same language. Also, German will only help a little, because Schwiizerdütsch is not German and German-speakers from other countries most often only vaguely understand it. The good news: most Swiss in the German-speaking part of the country understand what they call high German -- because, though they speak Schwiizerdütsch, they read and write high German.
Greater complication: most people in the French and Italian parts of Switzerland don't speak Schwiizerdütsch and many don't speak high German either. What's more, Swiss French is not pronounced like French French.
Gotta love it. I wish I spoke it.
Rob
Yeah I know - I'm not even going to bother so much with Schwiizerdütsch to be honest, first need to learn Hochdeutsch! That will help already, and not only here but also across the border and in Austria. And I think they don't actually teach the Swiss dialect if you do a German course here, just the High German.
Again went to the two nearest pretty big supermarkets (Migros and Coop). Migros had no rye flour at all, although it's overall a little bigger. Coop had the same 0.5 kg bags of whole rye, and also I discovered it has 1 kg bags of rye schrot (of unknown coarseness), which either I didn't notice before or they didn't have. I'll have to go somewhere a little further to find more options.
Hope you're able to source the flours that you need Ilya. I can relate to not being able to find things. Good luck.
Benny
Thanks Benny. Worst case, I can source them in Germany - luckily, Basel is right on the border. But would be great to get it somewhere in the city itself.
I'll explore the Swiss varieties too, bought a bag of Ruchmehl today, for example. Should be interesting.
that, while Basel's bread-baking tradition does not seem to involve lots of ryes (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basler_Brot), you might take this as an opportunity to exercise your German by asking some local bakeries where they get their roggenvolkornmehl:
https://www.bread.love/ -- a bakery from Hamburg & Berlin that has a branch in Basel
https://www.sutterbegg.ch/home
https://www.bio-andreas.ch/
Rob
Thanks for the idea Rob - it sounds great, although a little too extroverted for me😅
But Shipton Mill sells what they call Dark Swiss Flour. You might wish to email them.
Thanks Abe, interesting info! I'd guess this is their approximation of Ruchmehl - that seems to be a unique Swiss kind of flour which is some sort of high extraction flour. From my quick reading it appears that without a standard the ash content and specific "blend" can vary a lot between producers though.
It'd be my pleasure Ilya.
Thank you for the kind offer Abe! Let's figure out what it is, if it's Ruchmehl then it's available in any supermarket here, no need to send it :)
The Weizenmehl 1050 or Spelt 1050.
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Yeah Ruchmehl is supposed to be similar to T1050, but perhaps not identical? I am not sure...