There is a recipe in Hamelman's book which calls for high gluten flour. I don't use this type of flour often. Can you substitute this with bread flour?

My wife mail ordered some high gluten flour from King Arthur Flour for our anniversary a few weeks ago, and I used it to make bagels. This is the first time I've used high gluten flour and the flavour was truly wonderful. My puzzle is this: was it really the high gluten content or just the fresh flour that I tasted?  How exactly does high gluten flour contribute to the taste of the bagel? I'm not questioning the effect of the gluten on the texture of the bagel, (they were noticeably firmer) just its contribution to the taste.

I have been baking for only a short time, and things are going well.  I live near Bob's Red Mill, and am interested in using their products.  So far I have been using King Arthur Bread Flour for the high gluten part of my dough.  I am curious if anyone has had experience using the BRM Organic Unbleached flour.  They say it is very high gluten, up to 18%, but it does not have the barley flour added to it.  Does that make a difference?  I think I read that the barley gives the yeast a boost.  Does the dough rise well without the barley flour?  Thanks.

Outside of ordering online (and I really don't want to do that) any ideas on purchasing retail now hard to get high gluten flour in the Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland area?

Thanks!

Neal Lavon
Takoma Park, MD
USA

This is a new recipe I made from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, for a Parisian loaf of

I baked this very large, rustic Italian loaf (pagnotta) a couple weeks ago from Daniel Leader’s wonderful new book, Local Breads, page 197.  He states that it is to bake until almost black or charred for the most authentic loaf.  I didn’t go quite that far but you can see it developed a lot of color which I always prefer in my loaves.