January 19, 2013 - 9:48pm
Need help with flour sifter
Hi. I new to bread making and new to this forum. First of all I guess I need to figure out if there is an advanced search function?
My question is this (I'm sure it's been discussed before but I am having trouble with the searches...)
I would like to know about flour sifters. I just want an ordinary metal sifter with a crank on the side like my mother used to have. I just received the one I ordered today and when I put a scoop of flour in it the flour fell right through the holes--all of it.
I've seen online that there are different grades of mesh but only the industrial sifters will list the squares per inch on their models. How can I find a regular sifter with a fine mesh?
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Very fine mesh sifters and flour sieves are commonly sold in restaurant supply stores. They usually indicate the number for their mesh spacing. Example: 16 mesh wire flour sifter
http://www.hubert.com/pres308942/Stainless-Steel-Flour-Sieve%2C-Sifter-and-Pastry-Blender.html
or this, mesh spacing 0.79mm
http://www.culinarydepotinc.com/p-45723-winco-siv-10-sieve.aspx
Also, my grain mill comes with an attachment that sifts through screens with different sizes of holes. It's electrical, so sifting happens very quickly, I love it. More commonly I simply pull out my large flour sieve with fine mesh from a restaurant supply store and sift by hand into a large bowl.
You are mixing up two very different things - household crank sifter is meant to break up clumps in flour, make it "aerated" so to speak, this is beneficial for some pastry applications, but doesn't do much for bread baking. Sieves are meant for separation of fractions of flour - for white flour they are pretty much the same as crank sifter, except messier, but when applied to whole grain flour they will/may separate some portion of bran depending on mesh and grind.
I'm not sure I understand Suave. My mother's sifter was a metal hand cranked thing. You would put the flour in and turn the crank and the flour would be finely sifted. I bought one that looks just like it except the mesh is too wide. When I put a scoop of flour into it the flour just fell right through. I want to find a hand cranked one like my mother had. Is it called something different then?
Well, your sifter, if it is a good proper sifter, is supposed to have several layers of mesh and the agitator is supposed be between the layers. Sort of like the one in the picture. I don't see how flour would just drop through it.
Ok. Yes, I've seen those. The one I bought just has a single screen. My mother's only had a single screen too but the mesh must've been finer. I'm not even sure what I would use the one I have now for. It seems useless.