January 15, 2013 - 1:04pm
Flour Quality UK - Cost - Confused
I am newish to bread baking and in all honesty started to bake my own to save cash. Since them it seems to have become an edible hobby. Still, the cost of flour I shall consder in the future. I notice a big difference between flour prices and can't see the reason for this. Please help. If I am to consider say perhaps the difference between Allinson flours and Doves farm and Hovis and to take this further, organic also, what is the difference and in particular when using white flours. Is the difference in cost worth it. Also, what about the store labeled flours from Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda? Are these good?
Share
I am not in the UK, so I can't speak specifically to those types of flours that you have available to you. Here in the U.S., I have found a difference between flours with respect to how they behave in recipes, how consistent they are batch to batch, and, most of all, taste. I tend to buy the ones that produce the most flavorful breads. There are others on this forum that can elaborate on the different methods of milling the grain, which can influence the final bread result you get. I think, for example, stone milled flours tend to keep the grains cooler during the process, keeping more of the flavor compounds intact.
-Brad
Hi,
I live in the UK.
Lidl's bread flour perfporms very well - it's easier to make baguettes with it, for example. And the price is extremely good.
However, I find that the stonemilled organic flours from Shipton or Bacheldre produce a more tasty loaf. I order in bulk (25Kg sacks) - Shipton have an online shop, Bacheldre via Amazon. The price per Kg is around GBP 1, including shipping.
I also like Waitrose's range of flours
Juergen
I also live in UK. I can't claim I'm an expert on UK flours, but I do think it does make a difference, both on flavour/aroma of the resultant bread and in performance of the dough.
I'd been using Shipton's flour for a few years VERY happily because of its taste and reliability, performance-wise....until one day I had a really terrible flour-bug problem. Since then, I've been using the flour that I can easily buy from my local source (like, supermarkets....:p) in a small quantity. My regular wheat flour is from Waitrose, Strong flour and Plain flour from their Leckford Estate range and Waitrose Organic Wholewheat flour. I also use their Very Strong Canadian Flour for bagels and other bread that needs high-gluten flour. I temporarily switched to Waitrose Organic White Strong flour, thinking organic flour could be better for sourdough, but it didn't make much difference in that department and also found Leckford flour produced bread with better aroma, so I switched back to it quite soon.
I also use Dove's strong flour, which I like, too. But it's slightly weaker flour than Waitrose's ones, so you'd need to develop gluten a bit more carefully with it. I've used Marriage's organic flour once, too, by a recommendation by someone, but I found it is slightly more brand than Waitrose's Leckford's. Actually Marriage's Mill has been milling all the Waitrose's own bland flour for several years now, as well as their own, so I rang them a while ago to ask how they are different/similar. The miller told me the specs of flour for both are very, very similar, almost identical, but I still found Leckford's flour have slightly better flavour and aroma, so maybe it's to do with different kinds of wheat they use. (Leckford's wheat is grown on their own estate and it's flour blended with Canadian wheat for improved strength)
I've also been lucky to get my hands on several kinds of flour from some small-scale, independent mills, thanks to my very generous and kind friends (including Juergen above. :). Each one of them tasted, smelled and performed differently.
...... not sure if it helped you at all (or managed to confuse you even more...?;), but it's just my 2 pence. I do think which flour to use make a difference. You'd just need to try many brand and find the one you like.
May I thank all the above for their comments and I can see that much is to do with personal opinion. As I mentioned above, I'm relatively new to bread baking on a regular basis where TFL has been very helpful if not confusing on occasions. I had no idea how much was involved though I sure I'm learning well.
So far I have used Hovis and Allinson, both white bread flours and now those that a labelled strong. In the case of Hovis, My results were poor, though I'm sure, this was due to my lack of ability.
I suspect that in some cases, cost is to do with name and also, quality will come into it to some degree. At this time I am left with the feeling that good tasting bread is much more to do with how the loaf is made. In my case, sticking with the same flour, results have been very varied depending on my technique. As of late, all are edible and I'm sure that the real secret is practice or so than the actual flour.
I think that given time and a greater understand of each flour type, will aid in my overall understanding of various breads in general. Thank you TFL members.
Waitrose branded flours make very nice bread - the extra strong Canadian white and wholemeal are really good and are inexpensive.
I've not tried other supermarket branded flours. Allinson's I've found to be OK.
Like others, I can recommend Shipton Mill. Flour Bin sells some nice flours too.
The thing is really just to find something you like and use that.
It's been a while since there was any discussion on this thread, but I thought I would upload a picture of the basic white sourdough loaf that I made today using Lidl white bread flour from my local store in London. Perhaps it might taste better had I used an expensive stoneground, organic flour, but I'm very pleased with the results, both in look and in taste! So surely technique is the greater part of the solution if you can assume a basic base level of quality in the flour?