All things flour!!! ... Which is your favorite flour? Where to get it? Can/do you buy it in bulk... 10kg sacks?

It sounds like your recent loaf may not have contained enough water to be properly hydrated. Different whole wheat flours will vary in their capacity to absorb water. It's a live and learn kind of thing as we adjust to using different flours. Have you tried using a soaker for your whole wheat loaves? I find that soaking the whole wheat flour intended for a loaf at the hydration level of the final product helps bring about a subtle sweetness even with our hard red winter wheat here in the US. I've also had success with whole wheat flours when I used a 20-30 autolyse at the beginning of mixing. Doing so may mean I have to add an extra 10 ml of water or so but I've never had the Bread Police break down my front door for that action. Try those two things if you haven't already done so, they've worked for a lot of folks.

As for flour favorites, I'm all over the map these days. I use Wheat Montana's Prairie Gold quite a bit, have home milled bags of Montana Millings hard red winter wheat and hard white spring wheat, Dakota Maid Bread Flour, Hodgson Mill's Whole Rye, and some Heartland Mill Spelt as my current popular flours. I have a few other types as well just because I can buy them and did but they aren't "faves" at the present. Using different flours is like an artist using different colors from his palette the outcome for me being that I'm neither rich nor famous for my efforts, merely eccentric.

Hello Blueladder

Welcome to TFL, there are quite a few UK-based bakers around and about the forum.

I'm based in the UK and buy the majority of my flours from Shipton Mill http://www.shipton-mill.com/Home.html .  They do a good mail order service and delivery is free if you order enough (£30 worth).  I buy 16kg of their No4 Organic unbleached white flour about every 4 to 6 months and I like their (wholemeal and white) spelt.  They also do rye flours, 00 and French style T55 amonst many others.

Hello Jemar

I am too far from Shipton Mill to make collection worthwhile (although my daughter did collect for me once when she was visiting a friend in the village where the mill is located) so I try to order all my flours when I need a large bag on No4 white.  I get 4 months, or thereabouts, worth of spelt (I bake a spelt bread every week for my breakfast toast) as well as T55 for my baguettes and dark rye flour.  I then add some other flours as I fancy - but my stock control on these is not so good so I have some old ones that I really should get rid of :) .

As for storage, I keep them in my kitchen - which is quite large - in their original bags.  I really should buy some bins for the bulk flour that I have but I baulk at the cost ;) .  Generally, I use my bulk flour within 6 months maximum - I use Shipton Mill No4 as a part of the recipe in a lot of my breads and to maintain my wheat flour sourdough starters so I don't get many problems.  It is only the 1kg bags of more unusual (for me) flours that I buy "on impulse" that cause problems.  Wholemeal can go rancid quite quickly so I wouldn't recommend buying this in bulk unless you will use it within 3 to 4 months.  I, too, don't have the freezer space to store flour so it is not an option. 

I think the key is to buy no more than you can use within 6 months maximum.  Happy Baking.