December 29, 2014 - 9:33am
Sam's and Costco bread flour?
As per my other topic right below this, I was at Sam's and Costco to look for bulk bread yeast. But while I was there, I was amused to find some good deals on flour. Sam's has "Peter Pan Bread Flour", $11/25#. I believe WalMart may carry that as well. Costco has "Con Agra Harvest Bread Flour", $13.39/50#. Anyone have any experience with these flours? Are they any good? I believe they are enriched, bleached, maybe bromated?, and all that (probably GM too), but I'm easy about that stuff. Anyone know what the protein content of these flours are?
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In the midwest, I can buy Dakota Maid unbleached flour at Sam's Club for ~$8/25lbs. It is not bromated and it is nice flour. Check with Whole Foods Coops in your area. Our local coop will special order 50 lb bags of King Arthur Flours (various types) for around $30 to $35. I had access to a warehouse type store that supplied restaurants but also sold to the public and could get good unbleached flour there until the shop went out of business. Maybe their prices were TOO good. If you are near a major city, I am sure you can find stores that supply restaurants. Perhaps even stop in at a local bakery or pizzeria and inquiry as to their source.
As to the Costco and Sam's brands that you found, you can email Con-Agra for protein levels on their various products or find statistics on their website.
I certainly recommend finding good quality flour and avoiding the bleached/bromated flours. A large part of why I bake bread at home is to produce a healthier food than what I can buy in the grocery store for a few bucks. Best of luck in your searching and in your baking!
GM wheat flours in the USA or anywhere else in the world either. Almost all the corn and rice in the world is GM though. Also no one has ever been harmed by any GM food in any way to date so no worries.
The Costco's around Phoenix have some good flour available now and again but they change their suppliers all the time and the brands are short lived it seems.
You may want to take a look here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/monsanto-gmo-wheat-found-in-montana-as-oregon-probe-ends.html
Thanks. Actually, in Texas, our HEB grocery chain carries 5# bags of KA for $3.35. Their house brand of bread flour is unbromated, unbleached, and quite good, for $2.80. So the Peter Pan at Sam's is really not a whole lot cheaper, and I think it's bromated and bleached to boot. I can take bleaching, but no one should be eating bromine salts.
The only bread flour brand at our Sam's was Peter Pan.
The ConAgra at Costco is markedly cheaper, and it's not clear if it is bromated, but Costco is not really an option for me, because I don't have a Costco account. With Sam's you can do their 1-day guest account.
You want to make the best bread you need to use good ingredients. King Arthur is the Cadillac of flour. The best I believe is available. Costco flour? Think YUGO. It will get you there. But Then the tentacles of that monster called ConAgra suck the life out of you Leaving a husk where once walked a person who had free choice.
It took me a few years to accept the KA thing but once I did, many other pieces fell into place. Also consider: How much is your time worth in relation to the flour?
Have you actually used Costco flour? That is, are you judging by name or by performance? With all due regard to the ConAgra monster, let's be honest.
I've used both KA and our local grocery (HEB) brand of bread flour -- "Bakers Scoop". The latter is very significantly cheaper. KA might be a bit better, but the latter is quite serviceable. Yes, I subscribe to the "you usually get what you pay for" theory, but I also subscribe to the "sometimes you pay more than you should" theory. It would be interesting to see an analysis of the Costco flour in order to speculate why it is so cheap. Might be just all-purpose low protein stuff relabeled as bread flour. Might also be the ground up husks of people who once had free choice!
Trying to be honest yes, my judgment is based on eperience and I thought it was evident from KA giving a better crust look and a better crumb.
I could see room for a taste test of "loaf A and loaf B" the difference is not so night and day not so obvious unless you have a running head of steam in a tri weekly bread making rythm and run out of the ConAgra and start into in the KA. That is what I did.
I think it is cheaper partly because the qty-buying 50# bags, I wish KA would offer the larger sizes to retail in chicago but you have to have a Restaraunt to qualify. I did see 25 lb bags of KA in New England. I was for a time getting 50# bags of Ceresota for real cheap but the big bags got too messy. I liked the Ceresota flour -plus the mill is a shorter semi trailer ride from Ohio than the King Arthur.
Trying to be honest yes, my judgment is based on eperience and I thought it was evident from KA giving a better crust look and a better crumb.
I could see room for a taste test of "loaf A and loaf B" the difference is not so night and day not so obvious unless you have a running head of steam in a tri weekly bread making rythm and run out of the ConAgra and start into in the KA. That is what I did.
I think it is cheaper partly because the qty-buying 50# bags, I wish KA would offer the larger sizes to retail in chicago but you have to have a Restaraunt to qualify. I did see 25 lb bags of KA in New England. I was for a time getting 50# bags of Ceresota for real cheap but the big bags got too messy. I liked the Ceresota flour -plus the mill is a shorter semi trailer ride from Ohio than the King Arthur.
That's helpful, if you actually used the Costco flour. Thank you. That conforms to the "get what you pay for". Yes, I agree that the low cost is partly buying in large bags, but $.26/lb is pretty low for any commercial volume. That's what Costco was selling this stuff for. KA in the stores in 5# sacks is almost three times as expensive. So I have to suspect there is something "not right" about that Costco flour. Would still be interesting to see something analytical about it, like the protein content.
I'm actually looking forward to trying the Trader Joe house brand bread flour. Heard good things about it, and it may actually be quite inexpensive.
Hi again, Tommy and dlassiter. My local Whole Food Coop gets KA 50 lb bags for me and I am not a restaurant. If that store can do it, I would think others can as well. The cost of 50 lbs of KA Sir Gallahad or Sir Lancelot flours has ranged from $28 to $32. Not bad for excellent quality flour. Searching for sources of flour is something I have spent time doing since I am 200 miles from a major metropolitan area, but there are sources out there. For Tommy in Chicago, check out www.clnf.org ……it is a wholesale food company in Michigan that delivers to the Chicago area and with a $400 order, delivery is free. Lots of folks form "buying groups" to take advantage of their truck deliveries. They sell 50 lb bags of Wheat Montana white, whole wheat and white whole wheat….plus several other flours. Their prices are good and Wheat Montana products are excellent. Happy New Year!
Thanks for the tips, buddy.
It's cool, I have settled into the frequent 5pound bag routine. The 50's where just too much trouble, what I saved in cash I spent in time messing around transferring from the big bags, great clouds of flour dust frequently irritating civilians in the vicinity of my operations. There is a store in a middle eastern neighborhood here that I buy from that cracks open the big bags of duram and semolina flour and sells them in five pound units. can't really make bread anymore without 10 or 20% at least of the duram or semolina.
I can get 50 lb KA Bread flour for 16 dollars at a local bakery supply store here in Western New York State. Check the yellow pages in your area for bakery supply.
I buy my bread flour from Costco here in Victoria, BC (Canada). Here the brand is Rogers Silver Star bread flour, which is milled in Armstrong BC. I'm pretty happy with it, and the price is about the best I've found so far. However, if anyone in my neighbourhood can steer me towards a better quality, but still affordable 'local' flour, I'd be very happy to try it out!
Canuck flour. Agreeing with Lazy Loafer that Rogers flour (available most places in BC) is a good flour for bread. I use the unbleached all-purpose and it gives slightly better results than Robin Hood. If you're using volume measurement, I have found that starting with a half a cup less of Canuck flour prevents problems as the protein content is generally higher than our neighbours south of the 49'th. If you're going by weight and hydration, everything seem to work tickety-boo. I also use Superstore's unbleached all purpose flour, or Walmart's, whatever. Good yeast is more important to me, and here in #YVR the best place to get it is at Bosa's. I was one of two customers panicking when I didn't see the Saf vacuum pack on the shelf but they had lots more in the back. Whew!
The Silver Star flour is one of Rogers' commercial bread flours; not usually available in grocery stores. I haven't tried their AP flour for bread. The big 20 kg bags of the bread flour and their whole milled whole wheat are a good deal at Costco if you do a lot of baking (and I do!).
mc janine
Just lurking, but I have to say, yet another example of two (or more) countries divided by a common language. I've never heard that expression before, but I will add it to my list. The meaning is clear.
Thank you,
dobie (States side)
Thanks to all. These are good ideas. Unfortunately, I'm not in BC (though I grew up in the Pacific Northwest), and I'm not a Costco member (though I can go in and look around). I'm not familiar with Whole Food Coops. Those aren't associated with Whole Foods, are they? No Wincos in my area. Cheap 50# bags of flour are findable, but one has to be a little skeptical about no-name brands unless there are real bread makers who can vouch for them. If I'm going to get 50# of flour, I'd rather it not turn out to be crappy flour. I'll keep an eye out for these recommended brand names..