The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

HODGSON WHOLE RYE FLOUR SUBSTITUTE?

rccooks's picture
rccooks

HODGSON WHOLE RYE FLOUR SUBSTITUTE?

Greetings all

I would appreciate only hearing from professional bakers on this subject, especially since this is the Professional Concerns forum.

I've used Hodgson rye flour since I started baking professionally in 2010.  The entire first year all I made was Caraway Rye and sold as many as 60 loaves on any given farmer's market day.  I expanded my line with a dozen other rye breads in the first few years - to the point where I was a rye bread specialist.  Since then I've done over 60 different bread products using rye and wheat flours and 60+ pastry items using wheat.  I generally stock 500-750lbs of flour at any given time using five different flours.  All of this baking solo out of my residential kitchen with only a Hobart 20-qt mixer for commercial equipment.  The oven's a 1970's-era Whirlpool residential electric.  It's a process...especially at the age of 72.  :)

I started out doing farmer's markets and in all I tried 17 different ones in the first 5 years, sometimes as many as three per week.  They never had the traffic necessary to give me demand for what I can actually supply. I now only do a couple of farmer's markets - one in the Winter and one in the Spring.  The other nine months of the year I do 20-plus arts & crafts shows, festivals and special events throughout eastern Massachusetts.  It's a hard schedule - sometimes prepping and baking 10 days out for a single weekend event.  Off Saturdays I set up my "Roadstand" close to home to keep baking (and income) as steady as possible and recuperate.  I have never been interested in a brick and mortar retail store.  Just not in my DNA.

Now that Hodgson Mill is closed and the purchaser of the company (Hudson) has no plans to produce any flours (contrary to published information and per private information from a company employee placed high enough to know) I'd like to source another rye flour of similar composition at the same or lower price.

I've searched high and low and the only thing I've come up with so far is mixing a couple of Ardent Mills rye flours to approximate Hodgson, but it's only a substitute - not the real deal.  Hodgson's milling technique produced a flour I've never seen anywhere else - the size and shape of the granules, moisture content, etc.  Bay State Milling (headquarters about 60 miles north of me around Boston) is useless for communication.  I've tried to get their attention via email more than once with zero results (if anyone knows a direct personal contact who will actually reply I'd appreciate that information).

Are there any other professional bakers in this forum who have used Hodgson rye for years and have sourced a mill which produces anything close?  I really am only interested in 100-150lbs at a time on a regular basis with product and shipping costs in line with what I was getting (or lower) from Hodgson.  I am not interested in boutique producers who may grow or mill their own grain as a sideline - only a real, fulltime mill producing on a larger scale (so prices are within reason for a professional baker).  I want a dependable, year round, consistent supply, just like I had from Hodgson until they closed.

If anyone knows any of the actual millers from Effingham I'd love to communicate with them to determine their exact process so I can pass that information on to any prospective miller willing to try their hand at duplicating Hodgson's product.  I've reserved about 3-5 lbs. of the product (going in the freezer today, triple-bagged!) in order to supply samples to any miller willing to talk about reproducing the exact same end result.

Also, if you know of any other professional forums where I can post this information I'd appreciate a heads up.

FueledByCoffee's picture
FueledByCoffee

Well that is a coincident.  I was grabbing supplies to bake a few loaves of alsatian beer bread the other weekend on my day off and went to pick up Rye flour (typically I have used the same Hodgson Mill Rye), and literally could not find any Rye flour at three different grocery stores.  I ended up using Spelt instead and just adjusted.  I didn't realize that Hodgson was shutting down, good to know.

Bay State is pretty large company and probably wouldn't bother much to respond to such a small request.  I've gotten a dark rye flour from Ardent Mills but it is no where near the same consistency, it is milled much finer.  I haven't sourced anything that meets that same consistency but I work at a pretty large industrial bakery and that type of flour is not really what we are looking for.

One option you might try is Central Milling Company, here is a link to the Rye Flour that would probably be a fairly close comparison.  I've never used this flour but I met the son of the owner years ago and he was making some pretty great Rye breads using this flour:

https://centralmilling.com/product/organic-pumpernickel-rye-flour/

 

Hope this helps.

idaveindy's picture
idaveindy

Central Milling has a much cheaper non-organic pumpernickel rye.  But shipping from Utah may be prohibitively expensive via UPS/FedEx.  However, if ordering 150 pounds (3 bags) they might ship commercial truck/freight. Might be worth asking what their minimum is for commercial freight,

rccooks's picture
rccooks

Guys

Thanks very much for the Central Milling heads up.  I sent them an email prior to 2nd response here.  Asked for a variety of information, including prices, samples of the non-organic rye flours, complete specs (which are mostly missing from the website), shipping on 100-150lbs per order, etc.  I’ll post their response.

My ex-Hodgson contact is going to try to hook me up with anyone who was milling there.  Failing success there I plan on contacting people in the town offices - they usually know who’s doing what and who’s out of work, etc.

The two Ardent rye flours I’ve blended to approximate Hodgson are Dark Rye and Rye Meal Pumpernickel.  Despite the mixed flours hand-feeling and looking different the end result was pretty close to what I’ve always baked.  That said, I’d still rather have a single flour that I don’t have to blend at 90-100lbs per delivery and has all the same characteristics in my finished products.

In case you checked my bio and didn’t find anything - I’ve just completed that.

FueledByCoffee's picture
FueledByCoffee

Not a problem, I didn't see their non-organic line up at a glance.  Hope you get a good response and that it is a viable option.  Seems like you have a pretty interesting back story and have had some a fun journey through life!  Would love to see some of the breads you are making.

rccooks's picture
rccooks

Fueled - The information on this page is very outdated (actually, at last count I’ve done over 140 different products) http://mahoneysgarden.com/portfolio_page/vendor-spotlight-reins-real-baking/  but you get the idea and can see some of the things I do as well as some I’ve done (but don’t do anymore - not First Tier products - not enough demand).  If you follow the Yelp link you’ll see a few more photos (with explanatory captions).  All are from me except the ones my daughter posted.  I send her a care package every once in a while and that time she took photos of the contents of the package as well as how she used the breads.  That’s my granddaughter goofing for the camera.  :)

 

FueledByCoffee's picture
FueledByCoffee

Very cool, that's quite the effort to make all that bread out of a home oven.  I've thought about doing a cottage food style bread baking business but I think I would invest in at least a small professional oven.  I'm still young enough so maybe I'll get there some day!  Also, croissants at home are a pain in the butt :) I've come to the conclusion that the only way I'm making croissants is if I have a sheeter.  I've had some okay home results but it's so much easier in a professional setting to attain consistency.

Thanks for sharing!  Let me know what you end up doing for your Rye flour needs!

rccooks's picture
rccooks

Another oven takes up more room.  My oven does double duty, plus when I started I didn’t have the cash or know-how to figure out which small oven I’d get.  In the end I realized I could get more done faster with my existing oven.  It’ll hold 8 rye/ww loaves at a time or 12 ciabatta loaves.

My croissants are very consistent - it takes a lot of practice to get it down, there are so many variables.  I’ve looked at small sheeters but they’re beyond my price range.  I’ve even toyed with the idea of using one my manual pasta machines, but in the end I don’t really have much trouble rolling out pretty evenly.

FueledByCoffee's picture
FueledByCoffee

Makes sense, professional equipment can be expensive and take up a lot of space.  Having worked in so many bakeries I cant imagine trying to bake quantity out of a home oven.  When I bake at home its typically only 2 to 4 loaves and I use a cloche.  I think I'd get frustrated too easily baking 8 loaves at a time ?.  There was a restaurant I worked at a while back and our limit was 18 at a time and that was annoying enough to me!  

 

rccooks's picture
rccooks

Loading 4 loaves at a time - 4 loaves go in first on top shelf.  Halfway through the cycle move them to lower shelf and load 4 more on top shelf.  From then on it’s a cycle until the end.  My record is 144 loaves per day, 2 days in a row.  A VERY hard 2-day’s work, considering the dough is made afternoon of Day 1, retarded overnight, then Day 2 bake off morning, then make/retard more dough afternoon, then bake off morning Day 3.  Then there’s all the portioning prior to mixing, cutting/packaging/labeling end of Day 1 and 2.  The dough is made downstairs and retarded in mini-fridges, then carried upstairs to bake/process, then back downstairs on flats to stage prior to loading out for tranport.  I get a lot of exercise just up/down stairs with full 4.25gal buckets of dough, then full flats of heavy bread (I like to say I sell bread, not air).  The good thing is, my kitchen is extremely efficient - 2-3 steps from one side to the other so minimal distances between functions, with speed rack and folding table set up on open side.  The negative is setup/breakdown/cleanup times involved to get my kitchen back to home kitchen status, but that’s just part of the trade-of  Of course I’d rather have executed my dream commercially-equipped kitchen downstairs so I could have loaded much more dough at one time and had quite a bit higher level of productivity, but this is what I could afford for the first few years and what makes sense for me now at this stage in my life.

suave's picture
suave

Hmm, customer support person I contacted a while back swore up and down that it is coming back, although I did have my doubts - their website clearly suggests that they are into selling other kinds of stuff.  I kind of expected that if it ever came back it would be organic and cost $2/lb. 

Our Crumb's picture
Our Crumb

If you’re in eastern MA you might want to consult Varda Haimo who runs the operation in the subject line above, out of Waltham. She was a regular contributor here until she turned pro. Varda knows rye. One of her specialties is tzitzel.  Just google Bread Obsession.  

Or Central Milling? I’m a big fan of their grains, but as a home miller, I don’t know their flours as well. 

Good luck. 

Tom