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03 Flour




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This article is from the How to Make Basic Bread FAQ, by Darrell Greenwood darrell.faq@telus.invalid with numerous contributions by others.

03 Flour

A wide range of flours are available commercially, white, whole wheat, oat,
triticale, rye, pumpernickle, soy, gluten, etc. If you're beginning, try
and find an unbleached white flour such as Stone-Buhr, rather than simply
picking up a bag of Gold Medal. I've not had much luck with Gold Medal or
its ilk, the bread tends to come out soft and flavorless. Stone-Buhr comes
in 5 pound packages, in whole wheat and white, and makes good beginners
bread. You should also check for a good 'health food' store in your
vicinity, and ask what they have to offer.

Mary Shafer, (shafer@ra.dfrf.nasa.gov) one of my favorite net-people, (and
NASA Dryden's best baker!) made another good point on flour selection
commenting on a recently posted biscuit recipe:

> Buttermilk Biscuits
> 4 cups all-purpose flour (I used high-gluten or sometimes sapphire)

" Don't use high-gluten flour for biscuits; it makes them a little tough.
Use all-purpose flour instead. The national milling companies even make
the all-purpose flour sold in the South lower gluten than that sold
elsewhere, because so many Southerners use it for biscuits. Also, don't
handle the dough any more than you have to, as this will also make them
tough. You want just barely enough structure to hold the CO2 in. "

<end Mary's quoted material>

I buy hard-wheat high gluten white flour in bulk, 15 to 20 pounds at a
time, and grind my own whole wheat, rye, oat and triticale flours. We'll
talk about mills in a later section, but they're unnecessary for a
beginner. Your first task is to find good quality, high gluten content,
unbleached bread flour.

 

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