July 16, 2014 - 8:35am
Flour MESS everytime. Any way to be neat with flour?
This is always a mess everytime bread is made or starter is fed. Is there a neat and tidy way (or maybe pourable container system) for working with messy dusty flour?
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Flour MESS everytime. Any way to be neat with flour?
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I simply scoop mine from the container, weigh or measure it into a bowl and add it from there. Keep a bench knife, or pastry scraper, by you at all times - easy cleanup - and don't use too much flour all at once.
I use a glass cheese shaker bottle with a perforated lid. I use a lot less flour that way, making less of a mess.
http://www.amazon.com/Cheese-Shaker-Pepper-Perforated-Stainless/dp/B007T40P28/
The tips given are as good as it gets. Bread making is messy. Cleaning up the flour is the easy part. Much easier then getting the sticky mess off the wooden spoon. It is all attitude, let it fly and have fun.
Bench flour makes a mess and changes the recipe flour amounts quite drastically and really messes up proper shaping. The only time I add flour to the bench is after 8 minutes of slap and folds if the dough is still sticking to the counter but only enough to get it to quit sticking and all is incorporated into the dough. Easy clan up there.
If you mill your own flour there is nothing you can do as some of the weight in the berries just disappears into thin air getting over everything. Trying to get flour out of the mill bin is also a mess and cleaning the mill makes a mess too. Thankfully, the only thing that can be caused with all of this mess is probably some kind of mesothelioma.due to inhaling flour dust - coming soon from an ambulance chasing lawyer commercial near you :-)
Happy Baking
Have you or a loved one been injured by airborne flour particles generated by your mill?
Do you or a loved one mill your own flour and suffer from asthma, dry eyes, dry skin?
Have you or a loved one been injured as a result of milling your own flour?
If so, DON'T WAIT. Send me a private message and protect your rights!*
Reading the description of the clean up, I am glad that my mill dumps the flour right into the bowl. I usually have the water and dispersed levain in the bowl and then mill right into the water, stirring it up as it goes along. I figure it warms up the dough nicely when using room temperature water and warm fresh flour.
*The above was said, tongue in cheek. I don't want to hear about your milling injuries. I don't practice in that area and have nothing of any value to say to anybody who has hurt themselves milling flour.
In my kitchen flour is a controlled substance.
If you mix by hand, as I do, I use a wide deep bowl and with fingers and palm made into a curved shovel, I scoop the dough from bottom to top with one hand and use the other hand to rotate the bowl. This is, of course, only for initial incorporation of the ingredients.
When you need to flour the bench, it pays to practice the method of spraying a thin layer of flour across the portion of the bench where you want the flour to land. My preferred method is to cup a small handful of flour in the palm of the hand with the middle, ring and pinky fingers loosely closed around the flour. Using a partialy opened thumb and index and finger along with knuckles face down / palm up, flick of the wrist. My right hand flicks toward the left and the open fingers guide the distribution of the flour on the bench.
try it for a while before you need to really employ it. It works! There are probably videos on the web that demonstrate the flick method.
Here is how I handle all the flour mess.
First for my breathing and skin protection:
Next for all the airborne flour dust control:
Now to insure good bench dusting I just fill the hopper and crank:
I am not making fun of anybody…. But like one of the posters wrote….."it's messy, just have fun!!!!" Or something like that… (oh, I keep david esq's card handy just in case…. grin!!!)
use for my otherwiise unused shop vac :-)
Plastic dough scrapers are great for doing a first pass on the kneading mat and countertop. I find that a fast but thorough scrape gets most of the flour corralled and scooped up. Then I can spray the surface with water mist from a mister and clean up with a paper towel.
Admittedly I am also willing to live with more flour in the odd corner than other family members think is best. I figure there's just going to be more there in a few days ;-)
sPh
I have my flours in containers, scoop and weigh out what I need, no mess.
For dusting the workspace with flour I have a small ball jar, made some holes in the lid and us that, cheap and effective , no mess.
My Flour containers are like boxes so I can get in easy with the scoop and that helps with less or no mess:)
1) If you do it all in a large bowl there's less mess.
2) And if the bread allows, prevent sticking with water rather than flour. (Under hydrate the dough and use wet hands to prevent sticking.) .
some of the other replies may be tongue in cheek. Errant "bench" flour all over the place is not a good thing. It throws off the formula of your dough and can give it a raw taste if dry flour is incorporated at the last minute. When I make baguettes, I have virtually no flour left anywhere once they are shaped and transferred to couche. Other preps are more forgiving, but a zero tolerance policy for bench flour is something to work toward.
Sometimes , when very sticky and still sticks after 8-10 minutes French kneading, I put some flour on my kitchen counter , that is why I have the jar with the holes in the lid so that only a tiny bit comes out , and work it in until all absorbed and the dough does not stick anymore.
Of course NO flour on the counter is what we should aim for, just, sometimes it just can not be helped.
the dough with sprouted flour was so wet I had t do exactly what you do. IF it is too wet after 8 minutes of slap and folds and still sticking to the counter, I weigh out 50 g of flour for the shaker and lightly add it while continuing the 2nd set of slap and folds after a 20 minute rest,slap. Once i am done with the 3 sets of slap and folds and the stretch and folds begin I weigh the flour left in the shaker so that i know exactly how much flour was used and the exact hydration the formula ended up being.
This is one of the nice things watching him (or another seasoned pro) in action. He will pick up a small handful of flour and toss it on the work area so it somehow spreads out instead of landing in a small area as it would if you or I did it.