August 6, 2022 - 11:41am
Source for First Clear Flour?
The posting about Eric Hanner led me to look at the recipe for Eric's Fav Rye, which includes first clear flour. Does anyone have a good source for that particular flour?
Thanks and happy baking.
Ted
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sells Ardent Mills "Powerful" brand first clear flour. 5 lb bags and 50 lb bags.
https://www.bakersauthority.com/products/ardent-mills-powerful-premium-clear-flour
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Stover and Co sells Bay State Milling "Boxer" brand first clear.
https://www.stovercompany.com/boxer-clear-flour-50lbs
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If you're willing to do some detective work, and can store a 50 pound bag of flour, consider this: 10 to 15 pounds of flour from Baker's Authority, with shipping, is going to cost about as much as a 50 pound bag without shipping.
How can you get a 50 pound bag of flour without shipping? From a restaurant/pizzeria/bakery supply distributor... IF there is one near you. And if they will do "counter sales" to individuals.
How do you find such a distributor? Either online Yellow Pages, or .... look to see who distributes General Mills "All Trumps" flour near you.... because... All Trumps is used for pizzas and bagels... and ... First Clear is also used for bagels. So, there's a chance that a distributor of All Trumps will sell, or can special order, First Clear.
Here is a web page to see who sells General Mills All Trumps in your area. Use the "Find a distributor" form.
https://www.generalmillscf.com/products/category/flour/hard-spring-wheat/all-trumps-enriched-malted-50lb
Good luck, and bon appétit.
Thanks for your reply. I checked before my original posting and saw that Baker's Authority sells first clear flour, but I also noticed a large number of customer complaints (and the seller's response that staffing issues were a problem). Baker's Authority also appears to be similar to what Stan used to do at NY Baker in taking large bags and repackaging them in smaller quantities.
Have you tried Baker's Authority and found them to be reliable?
I’ve bought from them several times and haven’t had any problems. I don’t really have anywhere to store a 50 lb bag of flour, so I stick to the 10 lb bags. I wasn’t aware of the customer complaints.
I have not purchased from B. A. personally.
I regards to reviews... realize that BA is in Queens, NYC, NY. NYC had strict lock-downs early in the pandemic. NYC was extremely hard hit in terms of a high infection rate, illnesses and deaths early on in the pandemic. And 2020 saw retail baking supplies shortages along with huge demand. I can imagine how the early 2020 reviews came to be.
Based on their list of open employee positions on their web site, I'd guess that they might not have fully recovered yet.
So, yeah, I'd be wary.
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I think your best bet might be a nearby flour distributor as I mentioned.
The spec sheet at BA for first clear says .76% ash. So it's slightly "high extraction." (Regular white flour is .50 to .55% ash, whole grain is 1.6%)
If you normally combine whole grains with bread flour, you may like using first clear instead. At one pound per week, you'd use up the 50 pounds in a year -- even quicker if you sell/share some flour with local baking friends.
I'd like to try some, but I have never used or bought any yet.
I have called around, and Indianapolis does have restaurant/pizzeria/bakery supply distributors who do "counter sales" to individuals if you go pick it up. I've verified All Trumps, and a couple King Arthur flours, but not first clear.
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If you're friends with a pizzeria or bakery owner, you might even be able to ask them to buy a 50 pound bag to resell to you.
That’s where I always buy it. You can order online at www.kingarthurflour.com
Before posting my question I checked around, including King Arthur, and did not find any first clear flour at King Arthur. They do have many different flours, but I don't think that first clear flour is one of them. Did I miss something?
I saw pictures of KA clear flour online (3lb bags),on a blog post from 2019, but not on the KA website either. You could try calling them or emailing them. It may be something on a super secret list, seasonal or even discontinued. KA has been nice when I have called them.
Here is the post I found when I did a picture search: https://greasylittlebirds.com/first-clear-flour/ So they at least used to have it.
Thanks. King Arthur used to stock rye chops, but they dropped that awhile ago (which I confirmed once by an exchange of emails with someone there). I imagine that they dropped first clear flour too since it is no longer on their website.
in a chat. They told me they just recently dropped it.
I guess I should have realized it when I was there last month😱
My question, which I've asked before, is there a good substitute or approximation for first clear flour?
So few recipes specify its use that a 2–3-lb bag, let alone a 50-lb sack, would be way too much flour. I have usually used bread flour and a little vital wheat gluten as a substitute, but I know that isn't perfect.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks!
but the end result will be probably different. At least in taste. FWIW, if you're into rye baking, a lot of recipes in Ginsberg's book use first clear, most notably his Jewish rye but also a bunch of others. However, Hamelman eschews using first clear and specifies all purpose in his rye breads. He even mentions one of the biggest differences between him and Ginsberg is the use of first clear. It's in his quote on the back cover of Ginsberg's book and I think Hamelman mentions he prefers the taste of all purpose in his book and I'm pretty sure he doesn't specify it even in one of his numerous recipes. Regardless, I think, substituting first clear for patent flour or vice versa in those rye recipes should be fine even if the final result has somewhat different taste. Comparing Ginsberg's and Hamelman's recipes for Jewish rye might be enlightening here.
I bake mostly rye breads so first clear is featured rather frequently in my loaves as I love Ginsberg's book and as far as I can tell he's the only one to feature it prominently in the recipes. I also came across this page in my quest to find more info about first clear and I gotta say I was hooked after my first loaf. It just had a different taste than a patent flour loaf. This one can certainly be made without yeast (or sugar) and adding seeds (chia, nigella are the ones I tried at different percentages and hydrations) brings a wholly different dimension to it. I don't know about 50 pounds but thanks to all of the above I have no problem with depleting a 5 pound bag of first clear.
I learned about first clear flour from Greenstein's book - the "deli rye" - and got some from King Arthur's. Too bad they don't sell it any more. I liked the deli rye better using first clear compared with AP. You have to get used to it - it needs more water and feels a little different, but it's not that hard to work with. I've made that deli rye bread many times, with instant dry yeast, with sourdough, with caraway seeds and without, and it's always been very good.
Once in a while I use the flour in something else, and once I used it for 100% of the flour in a loaf of sourdough. It made for a good loaf, but it's on the expensive side to use as the only flour.
it's the left overs from milling patent flours. But that's maybe because it's not as popular/known. I never made or even knew a 100% first clear loaf is a possibility. And come to think about it, not sure why I hadn't thought of this myself? Chicken, perhaps? But I'll make sure to make one once the baking season starts for me again.Thanks for the tip!
As for the flour itself, Baker's Authority seems to always have it in stock.
Yes, BA's is what I've got now. I've only baked with it once so far, and it went all right.
I baked a loaf of 100% first clear today, just to show how well it can work. I used a low amount of sourdough so I could get a long overnight bulk ferment - in the end, about 11 hours. It was a small loaf, since this was an experiment.
Formula
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300 g First Clear from Baker's Authority.
210 g room temperature water
45 g cold starter
6.1 g salt
The flour did not absorb water as I remember from using KA's FC long ago, and I would reduce the hydration if I made it again. The dough was very soft and extensible. I used a lot of bench flour when forming a preshape and the final loaf, and that stiffened it up very nicely.
From the pictures below you can see that the final loaf volume is very good and the crumb is very acceptable. The crumb was a little soft when chewed, which may have been because of a relatively high water content. The flavor seemed a little darker or earthier than the same loaf using AP flour would have been.
first_clear-1.jpg
first_clear-2.jpg
first_clear_crumb.jpg
I happened to read some of the links in the post concerning Eric Hanner. If you look back to his post about his rye you will see he says use regular white flour and add some whole wheat. I don’t remember the exact amount but I think it was 20% of total flour weight.
I'm buying a 50lb bag of Ardent's First clear from Baker's Authority. It'll cost $1.56 pound (edit: corrected price per pound), including shipping.
Baker's Authority
The only downside? I'm in Pasadena, California, so you'd have to live in southern California.
Any takers?
--Steve
I live in Whittier and am interested in purchaseing some first clear flour but since I have not ever used it before I am reluctant to agree to 23 pounds at such a high price. (Also I am financially strapped at this time.) I would love to buy 5 or 10 pounds if that helps you. (I can pick it up.) Let me know.
I made a major error with the math. Here's the correct price:
50 pound bag
$32 flour
$46 shipping
Total $78
$78 divided by 50= $1.56/lb
So half -- 25 pounds -- would be $39
It's be great if you can do that with me.
Baker's Authority
Yes! I'd love to split for $39. How do I proceed?