Research by America’s Test Kitchen revealed that hard red wheat produces a more robust gluten network and is a good choice for sourdough-leavened baked goods like bread. I will not use unbleached white flour for the sourdough starter and final dough to avoid highly processed flour.
Tom C. from The Sourdough Journey has made a valiant effort to test various flours and documented that in his video. It’s long but worthwhile watching.
Softening The Bran
I am not sure yet what type of flour works best for me. Many say that high protein flour rises best, while others say that the sharp bran in whole wheat flour cuts the gluten network adversely. I have seen an online video in which the baker first sifted out the bran from the whole wheat flour and soaked just the bran for some 24 hours in hot water before incorporating the now softer bran back into the flour.
In any case, I have done well with a mix of 50% whole wheat and 50% bread flour. My early attempts were relatively flat − the boules looked more like frisbees. Since then, I have practiced shaping the dough and bought the NutriMill Artiste, a stand mixer, to incorporate the ingredients and develop the gluten structure early on. Whole wheat flour benefits from a long autolyse to soften the bran.
No Sprouted Flour
The quality of the wheat itself matters as well. If a wheat berry is allowed to germinate (or sprout), it produces an enzyme that makes dough sticky and less prone to rising. So, lots of sprouted flour is not what I am looking for, as I wish for my bread to rise high.
Stone-Ground vs. Roller-Milled Flour
Stone-ground is the old-fashioned way to grind grains. It was done manually before water and wind took care to power the grinding operations. Large millers use modern steel rollers to grind the kernels.
Fine Milled vs. Coarsely Ground Flour
The finer the flour is milled, the more it will rise. Stone-ground flour is usually more coarse than roller-milled flour. This is good to know, especially when looking at whole wheat varieties, because finely ground whole wheat will give a lighter loaf than a coarsely ground one.
What’s Best?
Stone-milled grains expertly ground fine seem to make the best flour for artisan sourdough bakes.
The Whole Wheat Flour I Have Worked With
These recommended flours are easily found in better markets or online (in no particular order).
- Bob’s Red Mill
- King Arthur Baking
- Farmer Direct Foods
- Central Milling
- Ardent Mills
Bob’s Red Mill
Whole Red Wheat Flour
Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour is 100% whole grain hard red wheat stone-ground on their cool, slow-turning quartz millstones. The high protein content of this whole wheat flour makes it especially great for whole grain loaves, rolls, pretzels, buns, and flatbreads. It’s an excellent source of dietary fiber and contains 6g protein per serving.
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Store: most any supermarket
Bob’s Red Mill
Artisan Bread Flour
Artisan unbleached, enriched Bread Flour is a premium high-protein flour milled from America’s highest quality wheat. It’s a favorite of artisan bakers due to its high gluten content, and perfect for sourdough bread, baguettes, pizza dough, dinner rolls, sandwich loaves, no-knead bread, salt-rising bread, pretzels, bagels and more. Enriched, unbleached and unbromated.
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Store: most any supermarket
King Arthur Baking
Whole White Wheat Flour
King Arthur’s unbleached Whole White Wheat Flour is milled from hard white spring wheat — a lighter-colored grain than traditional red wheat, which yields lighter, milder-tasting baked goods. Substituting this flour for up to a third of the white flour in your favorite recipes gives you all the nutrition and fiber of whole grains without compromising flavor.
Protein: medium to high at 12.2%
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Store: Target
King Arthur Baking
Whole Red Wheat Flour
Whole red wheat flour adds fiber, vitamins, and nutrients to recipes and tastes good. Milled from 100% hard red wheat, King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour has a classic robust whole wheat flavor that elevates bread. With all the nutritional benefits of whole grains, this flour is an all-star pantry: dark in color, rich in flavor, and healthy to eat.
Protein: high at 13.2%
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Store: most any supermarket
King Arthur Baking
Bread Flour
King Arthur’s higher-gluten bread flour delivers consistent, dependable results. This choice of flour makes a very big difference in bread baking — flours with a higher protein content create loftier yeasted breads. King Arthur Bread Flour has 12.7% protein — a whole point higher than other national brands. It strengthens the rise, so your breads are lofty and perfectly textured every time. Use it for artisan bread to rolls to pizza. Combine it with whole wheat flour to add extra height to dense whole grain baked goods that need a little lift.
Protein: high at 12.7%
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Store: supermarket
Central Milling
Organic Old World Bread Flour
Central Milling’s 80% high-extraction wheat flour seems promising. This blend of Hard Red Wheat flour is not entirely white flour and not quite whole wheat flour. It is a Type 80 flour milled 100% whole and sifted to an 80 ash, retaining some bran and germ. This increases the flavor and nutritional value of the loaves over plain white flour without compromising baking performance.
Protein: medium to high at 12.5%
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Store: online, ships to Petaluma
| 5 LB Bag (2.26 KG) — $9.94Available for online order pick-up inPetaluma, CA 25 LB Bag (11.34 KG) — $30.26Available for online order pick-up inPetaluma, CA 50 LB Bag (22.68 KG) — $53.45Available for online order pick-up inPetaluma, CA |
Central Milling
Organic Bread Flour
This unbleached malted organic bread flour – a blend of organic hard red winter wheat – has been designed specifically for artisan bread baking. The addition of malt increases enzymatic activity during fermentation. This yields bread with greater volume without diminishing the integrity of the open crumb. It also increases the depth of color in your crust. This is the best malted organic bread flour for baguettes and sourdough breads of any shape and size. This organic flour also works very well in laminated doughs and quick doughs.
Protein: medium at 11.5%
Ash: 0.60%
Treatment: malted with Organic Malted Barley Flour
Store: Nuggets
Central Milling
Organic Whole Wheat Flour
Central Milling’s Organic Whole Wheat Hi-Pro Fine is finely milled on a short-flow roller mill where the bran and germ are not separated during the milling process. Short-flow roller mills are gentler on the wheat kernel, and the milling process generates much less heat. The fine granulation of this flour makes for a super smooth dough, while the high-protein content will yield bread with tons of volume.
Protein: high at 13.5%
Ash: 1.60%
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Store: Nuggets
Farmer Direct
Whole White Wheat Flour
Farmer Direct Foods’ Whole White Wheat Flour is 100% whole grain and stone-ground to provide the natural nutrition of traditional whole wheat with the taste and texture of flour from hard white whole wheat. It has a sweeter and milder flavor than red whole wheat flour.
Protein: medium at >10%
Ash: 1.4-1.8%
Moisture: 14% max
Treatment:
Store: Smart & Final
Farmer Direct
Whole Red Wheat Flour
This stone-ground flour is 100% red whole grain and 100% stone-ground to retain the natural nutrition of the grain, making it a great choice for bakers looking for a healthy and flavorful flour option.
Protein: high at 12.5-13.5%
Ash: 1.4 to 1.8%
Moisture: 14% max
Treatment:
Store: Smart & Final
Ardent Mills
Kyrol Premium High Gluten Flour
Ardent Mills Premium High Gluten Flour is the not-so-secret ingredient to high-rising breads with crispy crusts and hearty interior textures. Set apart by its superior dough strength, this flour boasts a high fermentation tolerance, machinability, and absorption. Kyrol is the perfect choice for European crusty bread, hard rolls, kaiser rolls, or thin-crust pizza
Protein: high at 13.7-14.3%
Ash: 0.51 – 0.57
Granulation: various
Moisture: 14.3% max
Store: Costco, WinCo
Ardent Mills
Ultragrain® Hard White Whole Wheat Flour
UltraGrain® is the first 100% whole wheat flour that offers whole grain nutrition with white flour’s taste, texture, and appearance. It’s made with specially selected white wheat that’s naturally milder, sweeter, and lighter in color than red whole wheat and milled using a unique method that retains all of the whole grain nutrition while achieving the consistency of white flour.
Protein: medium/high at 11.5-14.5%
Ash: 1.30 – 1.60%
Granulation: various
Moisture: 13.0% max
Store: WinCo?
Bob’s Red Mill
Dark Rye Flour
Organic Dark Rye Flour is a flavorful, 100% whole grain flour complete with all the nutritious bran and germ. At Bob’s Red Mill, rye is freshly ground on quartz-stone mills from organic dark, plump rye berries. Mixing rye flour with other flours adds its delicious and unmistakable flavor. However, rye flour’s proteins do not aid in forming a gluten network.
Protein: very low
Store: most any supermarket
Some Miller
Some Flour
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Buying Bulk Flour
https://www.azurestandard.com/
More on Flour
Type 80 and Type 85 flour are flour sifted from whole wheat, reducing most of the large bran particles that may impede gluten development. These flours are in vogue with bakers and consumers alike for their ‘white flour’ baking qualities, tastes, and retained nutrition.
These flours seem to be unavailable at local markets here in Sacramento. However, T85 flour can be approximated by mixing 50% whole wheat and 50% bread flour. Perhaps T80 flour would be 45% whole wheat and 55% bread flour?
I have not found Central Milling’s Organic Old World Bread Flour, a Type 80 flour, here in Sacramento, either. However, I have blended, all at 50/50 percent respectively, Central Milling’s Organic Whole Wheat Flour and Organic Bread Flour, King Arthur’s Whole Wheat Flour and Bread Flour, and Ardent Mill’s Kyrol Flour and Ultragrain® Hard White Whole Wheat Flour, making for some lovely loaves.