Many British bakers here?

I don't use 100% UK grown flours though - mostly buy from Shipton mill who blend UK and continental (or Canadian) to get the gluten/protein content up - which most of the larger mills will do.

What are you using?

-Gordon

http://www.shipton-mill.com/flour-direct/finest-bakers-white-bread-flour-no-1-101.htm

I've not used it though. I do try to make sure all the flour I use is organic though, and that's isn't which is probably why I've never looked at it when checking. I use their No. 4 flour for all the white stuff I need, as well as their stoneground wholemeal.

I was buying some stoneground wholemeal from a local(ish) mill once - Otterton. They mill Maris Widgon + another local one in their bread flour mix but it's not cost effective for me (I do the microbakery thing)

Same for folks like Gilchesters, etc.

However, BakeryBits are selling some nice home grown heritage wheats that I keep meaning to try for myself - again, not cost effective for the commercial side, but they have a good variety: http://bakerybits.co.uk/bakery-ingredients/flour.html

You might not be getting much gluten strength simply because there isn't much there in the first place... Try a 2 hour autolyze first. (ie. mix flour + water, leave for 2 hours, then knead in yeast & salt) I'm doing that for all my wholemeal breads and it makes a good difference...

-Gordon

Relatively low by most people here's accounts... Except my 100% wholemeal - that's 80%, 2 hour autolyze and overnight ferment (1.8g dried yeast to 530g flour for a generous 800g loaf in a tin)

My overnight sourdoughs come out at about 63% overall. That's with a 80:20 blend of white:wholemeal flour. I get complaints of too big holes if I go higher... Doesn't hold the marmalade...

-Gordon

For my bread I only use Dove's Organic white which my local deli gets in for me in 14kg bags.

For pizzas etc I have 25kg bags of Caputo )) flour (blue bag)

Plus some Marriage's amd Allinson's individual flours to ring the changes

I tend to bake either sourdough or pain sur poolish, with the odd fruit loaf and batch of kaiser rolls thrown in for good measure.

Most of my breads (I only bake for myself, my mum and the odd friend) are 30% wholegrain. For those I use Allinson's strong white. My dark flours are the Tesco's stoneground wholemeal (surprisingly good), Bacheldre Mill's whole rye - also stoneground, and the Duchy Organics malted grain (so much more flavour than Hovis). If i'm making purely white bread, then I'll use either Waitrose's Leckford Estate or the Duchy Organics.

I do use some Polish flours as well (light rye and oat).

When it comes to hydration, I typically work at around 65% for my everyday 30% wholegrain. Much higher than that and it simply gets too messy...

There's a working windmill nearby that I found sells flour to the public. Next time I'm down that way I plan on trying out their wares.

The best I've used is the French T55 flour for pizza.

....  I tend to use Bacheldre wholemeal rye at 80% hydration for a superb moist rye bread.  For my predominantly white bread, I use (at the moment) Allinsons at 70% hydration and for my predominantly wholemeal bread, I use either Allinsons or Waitrose very strong at 80% hydration.  For the white, I tend to use bannetons and for the wholemeal and rye, I use loaf tins.  All are made using an overnight sponge - currently at either 20% or 50% prefermented flour with just 1% salt added after the morning autolyse.  I do try other flours when I see them - Doves Farm Einkorn for example and any locally milled wholemeals that I see on my travels.  This all works well for me within my timescale and environment.