Hello Everyone - 

I am considering making a bulk purchase of stone-ground whole wheat  and sifted whole-wheat flour from Homestead Grist Mill near Waco Texas.  I've searched TFL and found several references to this mill, but no sense of what people think of this flour.  I've been in touch with them to ask some questions and found them friendly and responsive.  I'm told that their flour is not certified organic but the wehat is grown in a chemical free field in Montana.  Soon they will be sourcing their wheat locally in Texas, a factor I find important as I live in Austin and would prefer to buy local.

Any thoughts on the quality of their product?  They offer a bulk wholesale price -  $1 per pound for stone ground red whole weat -  that seems quite good.

I need one. Not too heavy on the rye...maybe 20% or so. I prefer using stone ground whole rye as much as possible as it is the easiest thing for me to get where I am.

Going to search the forums and blogs, but I figured I'd ask opinions about what recipes *you'd* use before I go about choosing one.

I've been actively experimenting with my sourdough this week, trying to come up with various sourdough sandwich breads.  This one makes the mark, I think.

I'm trying my best to try out whole grains, including rye, oats, and whole wheat. I'm trying to cut down on the purely white bread I consume, and I'm also trying my hardest to get a good amount of fiber into my diet. This bread has the benefits of being 35% whole grain flour, and has just the right tang to work for a beef or turkey sandwich.

Rye flour makes up 10% of the whole grain flour and whole wheat makes up the other 25%. For the rest of the flour I used normal King Arthur bread flour.  My hydration was somewhere between 70-80%, and the bread was impossible to knead by the normal method...I just folded. A lot. The initial rise took almost 6 hours, and the proofing went for 1.5 hours. I made two small boules.

I'm pretty happy with how the texture of both the crust and the crumb turned out on this bread. I think the oven could've pre-heated a bit more, though, to give me more crunch on the bottom, but the top is right as it should be.

The starter used was fed up as I normally feed my starter, at about 100% hydration.

If you want the recipe, I'll post it. Otherwise I'll keep working. :)

Well I guess it is time to stop lurking.  I am pretty new to this site but from what I've see it is really great!

Although my newbie question is about two sourdough loafs it is also about whole wheat bread.  Since the starter, proccess, recipe etc were all the same I THINK it was the flour that goofed me.

Using Robin Hood Whole Wheat flour, 13% protein I get a nice dough that, with a bit of work, came together well, got nice and stretchy and produced nice, airy whole wheat sourdough.  This flour had the large flecks of bran, which I believe, is indicitive of remixed industrial grinding.

 Using this flour from "Anita's Organic Mill" (a local place)...marked Stone Ground Whole Wheat flour...I get a bag of flour which is all an even sized grind and gives me incredibly dense bread.  The thing is it is supposed to be 14% protein which should give me a bigger rise, bigger wholes, chewier crust.  I got no oven spring and during the rise my carefully shaped mini boules...ruptured.  It was like they didn't have the gluten to hold shape. 

Now I might have thought this was over acidification or over proofing but while kneading the dough, it just never really came together the way white or "big fleck" whole wheat does.  It reminded me of...sugar cookie dough?  It was smooth, and would stretch (like taffy stretches) but would never window pane to any great degree.  This was after 2x the amount of kneading as with Robin flour...

 So what are peoples thoughts?  Does stoneground whole wheat not knead as well because the bran is ground in so fine?  Or...I dunno.  I am lost.

HELP