It is a long way from you but I bought a 20 Kg  bag of very good Unbleached Hearth Bread Flour made by Dover Flour in Waterloo, Ontario.  They call it Olympus Unbleached.  Dover Flour has mills in Acton, Ontario, Cambridge, Ontario, Halifax Nova Scotia, Montreal, Oubec and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.   This is a high protein flour and makes very good bread.  It is very strong at 14 precent.  For some bread you might need to mix it with a lower percentage flour like Robin Hood, unbleached AP flour.  While Dover Flour is a national brand, I think they are selling mostly to bakeries etc.  My normal flour has been KAF Bread Flour but I like this one better.  As far as I know I can't get this Dover Flour here in the states.

I happen to find it at a bulk food store in Waterloo because I have a son, his wife and two grandkids that live there.  He teaches at the University of Waterloo.

Dover Flour's website is    www.dovergrp.com 

Good luck with your search for a  good bread flour, you should have it somewhere -- since Canada has some of the best wheat in the world.

Dave

I buy Weston's unbleached all-purpose when I can afford it, but lately I've been getting the store brand unbleached all-purpose.  It's Canadian and therefore has to come up to the standards set by the Canadian Wheat Board and makes super bread.  Five Roses makes unbleached bread flour as well; you should be able to find that, and there's also Rogers Flour, though I've never tried that.  I'm in Montreal.

Welcome to the island, Tim! Rogers bread flour is unbleached and sold in most grocery stores. Double-check the Robin Hood brand. To my knowledge, they don't sell a bleached bread flour, only bleached all purpose. Anita's flours are all organic. Their all purpose works reasonably well for bread. Starting to be available in groc stores, but for sure at Lifestyle Markets on Douglas. Don't overlook Millstream flour products. I especially like their stoneground wholewheat, sold in small bags at Thrifty Foods. Nunweiller's hammer-milled products from Sask. also sold locally. http://www.nunweilersflour.com/

Have you found the Real Canadian Wholesale store yet? 545 Viewfield Rd. in Esquimalt. They carry some of the above in regular sizes and have discount prices on most foodstuffs. Flour and other baking ingredients in bulk sizes. In bread flour, they sadly do not carry the 20K bags of Robin Hood Keynote 45, which is probably what you want for KA equivalent. But they do have Keynote 39, which is great for pizza.

I'm not affiliated with Real Cdn, btw. They're pretty much the only game in town with decent prices for regular retail sales and small food business needs. Check out suppliers in Vancouver or Seattle when you visit there.

I really appreciate the info. I'll check out Real Canadian Wholesale next time I go over to the Fol Epi bakery.

I've been going to the For Good Measure bulk food store that seems to cary a decent selection. I've asked them to see what's available from their suppliers.

Thanks again,

Tim

Smuckers Canada, from what I've been able to find, currently owns

• Robin Hood Flour (at least the retail brand)
• Five Roses Flour
• Monarch Flour

so in effect three of the top brands in Canada. Monopoly, anyone?

I've written to Dover 10 days ago now,( dovergrp.com/flour.htm - their site leaves a lot to be desired) asking where one can get their "King" unbleached bread flour but I have not received a reply. I sent another message today. Their headquarters are literally just a couple of streets over so if all else fails, I'll go knocking at their door.

Update: I finally got in touch with Dover and they said they stopped selling their flour retail in early 2009. A few places do order in bulk then offer it for retail, however. Costco in my area has their bread and AP flour but only the bleached variety. There is also a baking supply store in Hamilton (Traynor's) which supposedly sells it by the bag. I haven't been yet, I'll be in the area next week and will drop over to check. 

So in the meantime, I'm stuck with grocery stores and their high retail prices as resources for unbleached flour. 

I did see their bleached AP at Costco's for the first time a week or so ago. I had  previously only seen 20k sized bags of the Robin Hood brand "Baker's Flour" and AP (both types are bleached).

Yes, welcome to Victoria Tim! As for organic flour, Anita's is also in Thrifty's. And if you ever travel up-island, there is a bakery in Cowichan Bay (True Grain Bread) that sells Red Fife Wheat (http://www.truegrain.ca/bread/). It's about 1.5 hours from Victoria. As you may know that's what Cliff at Fol Epi uses (and Wild Fire too).

apprentice - thanks for the good info. I have been using RH Unbleached All-Purpose, which I thought was around 13.3% protein as labeled (4g/30g). Their White Bread flour is marked with the same numbers, and I couldn't understand why the AP would have such a high protein percentage. I wrote them recently to find out the actual difference between the AP and Bread (other than flour type), and they replied that both the AP and White Bread are 12.2% protein! But according to the specs in your link, the AP is actually 11.9%. Even better! And the specs for the AP Unbleached state, "top patent flour especially designed for applications where long sponge or brew type fermentations." I suppose this is why my bread comes out nice :) My guess is that the retail Bread flour is 13% as labeled, since all the ones listed in the above link are also 13%. I never knew RH produced such a variety of bread flours, for the commercial end, in addition to Durum and Organic Wheat. Shame we can't get ahold of them. I've also been curious to try baking with Rogers, since Costco has 20lb bags. But I'll have to check your other store suggestions.  

Thanks again!

Tatiana

Although we do grow some of the best wheat in the world, our actual flour choices in Canada are quite limited.  There just aren't as many small mills around as in the US.  We grow tons of Durham, but try to get it.

In the Toronto area, I get very good hard, unbleached bread flour (13%) from Grain Process Enterprises in Scarborough, also Durham flour.  They do have a retail outlet.  Olympic in Whitby is another good source for Saskatchewan and Erie area flours; wholesale only.

Dan Leader gets a lot of his flour in Montreal.  Finally found the source:

http://www.lamilanaise.com/anglais/produitsboulanger_en.html .

Check out the "Baker's Corner" section about labelling; very complete and informative, finally!  Even ash ratio.  Looks like they use Continental French flour designations, including T55, finally!  They do sell grains as well; home millers take note.

I've got some flour coming here, and I'll post results.

CJ

Just got some Milanaise bread and six grain flour, and very nice it is to work with.  It seems that the mill in Quebec does not yet have the resources to market their flours on a retail level in Ontario, except for cities near the provincial border, like Ottawa.  With a friend, I'm considering trying to get the smaller bags (2 kg, 1kg) into the Toronto area (I'm in the country, north and east of the city), but it would really depend on demand.  If I could get some idea of interest, we could see if it would be worthwhile to do it.  These flours also come in 20 kg bags.

CJ