January 5, 2022 - 4:13pm
Flour sources
I have been using Breadtopia bolted flour (high extraction) for several years and am very happy with it but I don't see it mentioned much on this site. Mostly I see Central Milling as a source. Has anyone done a comparison? What do most people use as their source?
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I buy Giusto's organic hard red wheat. (50lb at Harvest House, Concord, CA- It is a bargain buy there.)
For bolted flour: Take freshly milled flour and sift it. Then re-mill the bran 2-3 more times. After sifting this bran, about 8% of the bran is left.
You don't have an issue with your millstones binding? I've never tried that method. I use 1/30th" and 1/50th" sieves, but I'm intrigued.
I have this sieve :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003N3F7CM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
Some comment that it has 20-30 holes per inch, so that would be med-fine.
The stones on the Komo grain mill might warm the flour a bit (500 gr) but you can wait between grindings if you want to. I don't.
The small amount of bran that is re-ground 2-3 X never gets caught ("binding" - does this means that the stones don't move?).
Sifting out the bran and regrinding it has helped my whole wheat sourdoughs a lot!
Thanks joe. Sorry, I probably should have use "blinding" v. "binding" as I mean gumming up the stones to blindness, like rye can do sometimes. Didn't mean binding up resulting in the inability of the motor to turn.
With my 1/30" and 1`/50" sieves, using DanAyo's great technique of a massager (I really think this helps get as much sifting as can be done, avoiding inconsistencies), and noting different WW flours will give me different yields (not extractions, as I'm not losing only hull), for KA WW I get 98% yield on the 1/30" and 87% on the 1/50th screen (not true sizes, due to wire thickness. I've just used my yields and baked from there).
Thanks for writing on your your "bran" percentages after sifting. I am going to aim higher now that I see you are at 98% (as compared to my 93% on 1/30-1/40 sieves) on a 1/50 sieve! I often want to skip sifting when doing a 100%WW lean dough only to regret it.
Can you give a link to DanAyo's great technique that you mentioned above? I have been searching for it.
I balk at paying shipping. Typically I take GM WW and sift it. It has bran in nice large flakes which easily separate gving me 85-88% yield. When I want a slightly lighter fare I have 750 available locally and it's amazing.
Do you happen to use a 1/30th" sieve? That's very close to mine on the 1/30th". Confidence point!
I haven't done it in a while, but I'm more or less certain that I use 32 mesh sieve for this..
Hey suave - you mean a #32 mesh, or the gap is !/32"?
Either way, pretty cool the similarities. Haven't bolted in awhile. Another shout out to DanAyo for his idea!
(can anyone tell me how to link a member so there's a hyperlink to their username)?
Mesh # refers to a number of holes per linear inch, so 32 mesh would be a finer sieve than 1/32. But I'd bet that when they mean 1/32 they really mean meash, because no one uses anything other than mesh.
OK, thanks. That did seem a bit weird, but I got the two anyway and now I know the yield so it works.
I've used Breadtopia's bolted flours before and am happy with them. I also buy from Heartland Mill once every few months (I'll load up with a big order). I'm very happy with their products, which are also organic like Breadtopia's. In fact, the best loaves I've made have been with their flours. You can bolt your own flour too as the others have mentioned. I do that sometimes too, when I mill my own grains.
Thank you all for your comments. Although I like Breadtopia the shipping is high. I'm going to try sifting my own with a #40 sifter from Breadtopia and also try mixing 50-50 whole and white flour to approximate high extraction. I'm not into grinding my own flour.
Dennis