Hi,

I am considering placing an order to Central Milling for high-extraction flour, the ideal flour for certain Miche loaves.  If anyone in the mid-Hudson Valley, anywhere from Yonkers to Kingston on either side of the river, wishes to go in on a 50# bag, please contact me off list.  Thanks very much.

Rodger

I am interested in find a source of supply for smaller amounts( 5-10  pounds) of high extraction flour for making the bread High Extraction flour Miche as listed in Peter Reinharts Whole grain breads, page 164.

Do you know of a source of supply that will ship.

I live in Western North Carolina near Asheville.

With all of the attention on the Miche breads of various members, I was motivated to try the one dmsnyder posted on. I was taken by the flavor comments and the use of toasted wheat germ. I took a stab at replicating the high extraction flour David used by combining 25% whole wheat flour with 75% Better For Bread (my stock AP). I use the fresh ground WW from Organic Wheat Products (flourgirl51) which is stone ground. She offers it ground fine but I have been using the more course ground product which you can see in the bread. David's photos seem to indicate a finer grind which would make the dough less speckled. Perhaps I'll run some of my WW through the mill to take it down a step in particle size. I think this would be a great excuse to order some Golden Buffalo high extraction flour.

I also took Davids suggestion with oven temperature and pre heated at 500F then lowered to 440F after loading and steaming. The vents were blocked for the first 20 minutes then opened for another 45 minutes. As you see, the crust is quite boldly baked. The areas of expansion are a lovely golden color. The singing is quite pronounced as would be expected with such a well colored loaf.

I think the next time I make this bread, I'll scale it up to 2kilo's as David suggested and shape it more oval. My dough weighed 1240 grams before baking and just 1002 grams after cooling for 30 minutes. The internal temperature was 205F when I pulled it from the stone. Normally I would dry out the crust by opening the door slightly after the oven had been shut down. In this case I thought the 65 minute bake was ample time in the oven to harden the crust.

I'm waiting for later in the day to slice this bread with dinner. Hopefully it will pare well with chicken piccata as bruchetta. I'll try to post a crumb shot later.

ADDED CRUMB SHOT AND COMMENTS:

First I have to say this bread has taken me to a place I have not been before. Such simple ingredients are blended with time and careful handling to create a most wonderful eating experience. This is one of those times where the sum is greater than the parts. I believe David mentioned thinking that he thought the deep flavor was coming from the crust but in fact the soft, chewy crumb has this flavor all on its own. I don't profess to understand why the addition of a small amount of toasted wheat germ makes this flavor so unique (I'm guessing that's it) but I'm sold. Everyone loved the rich flavor of the crumb. The crust was shattering as I cut it, pieces flying everywhere even after 6 hours of cooling. My wife was not as fond of the crispy, crunchy crust on her teeth but the dog was happy to relieve her of the trimmed edges. I had made some dark turkey broth earlier in which I dunked some chunks of this miche. A perfect melding of flavors if I do say so. Just wonderful!

We ate the bread with dinner of chicken piccata and a tomato and onion salad with my custom dressing of abundant Gorgonzola cheese and spices. The salad is a bold side dish but believe me the bread held its own with the lemon from the piccata and also the garlic/onion/cheese dressing. A wonderful meal.

I might like to try this slightly less boldly baked for the general public. I do think the over all awesomeness (is that a word?) of this bread will be enhanced by baking as a larger loaf. I would love to make a huge 8 pounder. If only I can find a way to bake it. Hmmmm.

This will probably be my last post for awhile at FreshLoaf. The days are ticking away and before I know it I will be in a little town in southern France in the foot hills of the Maritime Alps. I will be starting a blog, and those of you who are so inclined will be able to follow my adventures in search of regional breads and their bakers, the trials of a Victory Garden, the building of a wood oven (I hope!) and daily life in a small mountain town.

Now back to the Gerard's Pain Levain. For this bake I have taken MC's thorough description of  Levain "a la Gerard", Shiao Ping's and David's bake and tossed them all together and did what the dough wanted me to. The overall formula was not changed from the original posting.

• The Levain I have developed for the last several bakes is a little work horse. I have been using it quite a bit so it has remained strong and I have found it only requires a two-build process to triple in size, even with the addition of a pinch of salt. Throughout the whole process I maintained a warm environment for the beasties to flourish.
• I allowed one hour for a good autolyse at my ddt of 82*. A good gluten structure started to develop.
• The mixing was with a KA on low for the entire mix. To maintain the constant temperature of 82* I went as far as to preheat the mixing bowl with warm water. The air temp of my house is a chilly 64*. After the autolyse, I mixed for one minute, added diluted starter (with a small protion of the formula water) and salt, and mixed for an additional 2 minutes, then let it rest in a nice warm environment in the proofing cabinet.
• Two gentle folds were done an hour apart. 
• After an hour's rest, the dough was gently turned onto a floured surface. The dough at this point still needed some gentle encouragement to maintain it shape. I used the technique that Gerard described to MC, a stretch to the North and South, wait ten minutes and then a  stretch to the East and West, etc.  The 8 extra folds did the trick (considering it was 80% hydration.)
• The shaping was done with the mantra in mind of "GENTLE... and Deliberate" as shown on MC's great video. I was taken by something that Gerard said when shaping the batards, about moving the air in the dough around ... and that is what it felt like. The dough was filled with air pockets that you could actually redistribute. I need some more practice controlling the batard with wet dough.
• I like to start at 500*, add steam, load loaves,add more steam turn the oven down to 460*

The crumb has a nutty,creamy and very, very mild sourdough taste was detectable. I was very surprised with the crust of this bread the last two bakes. I think by not retarding the shaped loaves, it developed a crust that was a thin as an egg shell.

                                                                                      Levain in Proofer

                                                                                              Final folds

                                                                                                Divide

This is being sent to eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%53%75%73%61%6e%40%57%69%6c%64%79%65%61%73%74%2e%63%6f%6e%22%3e%53%75%73%61%6e%40%57%69%6c%64%79%65%61%73%74%2e%63%6f%6e%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')) for this weeks Yeastspotting....Thanks Susan

I want to make a Pointe-a-Calliere Miche from Hamelman's book, so I need some high-extraction flour, and decided to try and make some from KA whole wheat flour.

 We have a couple of sifters in our kitchen, so I tried one with a large sifting bowl first.  That one didn't sift out anything.  Then I tried a smaller one and it sifted out about 7/8ths of an ounce of reddish looking stuff from one pound of whole wheat flour.  I then sifted another ounce so that I would end up with a full pound of flour.  Does that process sound about right?  Am I where I want to be?

Colin

Below is a photo of my third attempt at home milling and sifting, which resulted in a flour very similar to my favorite "high extraction flour", Heartland Mills Golden Buffalo flour. The processes used on my second and third tries are explained further below. Additional photos of the process have been posted.

I'm posting this recipe for discussion as we have been talking about it on the Glezer firm starter thread.  I have made this bread often with variations because I did not have the high-extraction flour yet.  I recently purchased the Golden Buffalo flour from Heartland Mill in Kansas and it was superb.  I didn’t take photos of those so will next time I make it.