I'm poking around the King Arthur Flour website (Danger, Danger! Danger Will Robinson!) AHEM. Anyway... they have
1) King Arthur Sir Lancelot Hi-Gluten Flour - 3 lb. (14.2% protein) $6.95
2) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour - 5 lb. (12.7% Protein) $4.95
3) King Arthur European-Style Artisan Bread Flour - 3 lb. (11.7% Protein) $7.50
They labeled the Sir Lancelot as being the best for working with whole grain breads. Obviously the regular unbleached bread flour is preferable, price-wise. Couldn't I just put in a couple of tablespoons of vital wheat gluten into my rye bread flours if I'm having problems with gluten development for a fraction of the cost (especially as I can buy it at Whole Foods for less than half the price of KAF's package) when I'm wanting to deal with a heavily whole-grained bread?
Hi Sula...
You forgot to add the $6.50 shipping fee to each of those three flours. Yowzer...
Unbleached bread flour works when you're using a higher percentage of rye. I've been using 40 percent KA bread flour with 60-percent Arrowhead Mills organic rye with very good results.
Admittedly, I've been waiting for KA to have a free shipping deal so I can place a big order. In the interim, I'm looking at other sources.
If you are going to add vital wheat gluten, other threads on the topic have suggested a ratio of one tablespoon per pound of flour.
Even though I live about 15 minutes from there, I often wait for free shipping. I live on the NH side of the river (no sales tax) so I save if they send it to us.
Do they have a certain time of year that they do that, or do I just need to keep popping in? As it is, even with shipping, what I can order from KAF is still cheaper than what I can buy at the store from the bulk bin, at least as far as bread flour goes.
The question though is which of those do I really want/need for making whole grain breads? My bread has been fairly dense and I'd love to be able to get a more open crumb. I think part of it is that my sourdough starter is still fairly young.
Right now it's around 93% humidity so I'm not even going to TRY and make bread for the next couple of days!
RE, above: Is that $6.50 shipping -PER BAG-?! They don't have the bread flour in 25# bags yet. Grrrrr! I was basing my shipping off of the $8 that I'd gotten toted up for a 25# bag of the AP flour.
I just went and looked at the site and if you order $60 or more you can get $3 shipping, which isn't bad. But then again, I don't really need $60 worth of stuff! On the other hand, there's such a fine line between 'want' and 'need' and they do have some nice non-flour items...
I just got the email that KAF is now offering free shipping on orders of $80 or more, and $3 shipping on orders of $60 or more.
I won't be ordering after all, though, as my local grocery just had KAF Bread Flour on sale for $3.09/5lbs bag.
I just went to the Super Wally world up North here today and they had the KAF bread flour for 3.59/5lb bag.
Doesn't your grocery store carry KA flours? I certainly do not live in a very populated area and my store carries a variety of KA flour, even the white whole wheat which I love. Even if you had to drive a little ways it's still cheaper than all that shipping! Also, the white whole wheat has over 13% protein, more than their bread flour so maybe try using that.
AP flour, but I don't recall seeing the blue bread flour package. Then again, at the time I wasn't looking.
Not only do they have it, it's more than $1/5 lbs. cheaper than ordering it direct from KAF. How weird is that?