Bread flour

beadgirl87

Hi,

I have started to make my own bread and thought I would see what types of flour people use.
I have made 2 loaves so far using Hovis Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour (yellow packet) I like this, but do generally perfer granary bread, should I buy granary flour or a packet of seeds and add to normal flour?

the main brands appear to be Hovis, Allinsons, Dove Farm, Sainsburys, Asda Chosen by you. Anyone have a favorite brand?



What is the difference between 'brown bread flour' and 'wholemeal flour'?
Strong and very stong?
Stoneground?

sonastin

I use supermarkets own brand flours. Usually keep both white and wholemeal and mix-and-match depending on what sort of bread I fancy. Sometimes make seeded loaves with (any or all of) sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, poppy and linseeds. I've used Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Lidl flour so far with no discernable difference - down to which shop is more convenient when I'm running out rather than anything more complex. At the moment Lidl is selling white flour for 59p for 1.5kg and everyone else is charging 60p round here. The 1p doesn't make it worth a special trip but as Lidl is on my way home from work, I'm trying to make those pennies count!

andygb

I am also quite happy to use Lidl flour, because we quite often get a few things there every week.
I would say, that when using wholemeal flour, you can use less flour (increase the water to flour ratio), because the bread will become dense and heavy.

Callie22

'Granary' flour is usually white flour that has whole grains and malt added - the malt is what makes it brown coloured and gives it that bitter-sweet taste. 'Granary' is the Hovis tradename for that kind of flour, so you'll get the same thing if you buy any of the malted wholegrain flours that are out there. Harvester is another trade name for it (from Allied Mills, I think).

Unfortunately you need the malt to get the 'granary' flavour. If you add seeds to wholemeal flour you'll get seeded wholemeal bread, not granary

beadgirl87

Thank you,
that has given me alot to think about. Popped into asda on the way home from work and bought own brand. Lidl is oppoiste end of town, but I'll get some when I'm passing.
I think I will look into experimenting with some malt and adding seeds etc.

BitterAndTwisted

Pay attention to the protein-content on the labels. The higher the protein-content the more gluten there is in it. Some value/own brands of plain white flour don't have enough gluten to get a decent rise out of it. That's most of the reason why wholemeal flour doesn't rise as well as white.

Before I got my hands on ten kilos of wholemeal flour for £1.49 I was using a variety of different cheap flours and mixed them 50/50 with L!dl's strong white bread flour and didn't notice much of a difference between any of my loaves.

peachyprice

I bought some Asda own brand a few weeks ago and it was absolutley bloody awful stuff, never again.

I have a very basic, fool-proof recipe that I have been using for years with perfect results every time, but with Asda flour it came out barely edible. It just didn't form into proper rolls, had kind of pock marks all over the outside and a very hard crust. It also seemed to shrink when it was put in the oven. I made two batches of rolls, threw the first one as they were awful, second was a little better but the dough was very very sticky, I didn't bother using the rest of the bag, flung it in the bin.

I didn't have alot of luck with Tesco's either, but it wa still better than Asda.

I usually get Sainsbury's own, but also get Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, Hovis, Allinsons or Doves Farm, depending what is on offer

Oliver14

I find the better quality the flour the better quality the bread (I know obvious really). I use dove but we have a local mill that grinds locally grown wheat and barley so I buy from there also.

s_b

if you have an aldi handy try their flour
we find it good for bread and it made perfect yorkshire puddings last night

I_luv_cats

I use 200g Supermarket own Strong White Flour (purchase 1.5kg bags) AND 400g Hovis Granary Flour or Allison Multi-grain in the absence of Granary (purchase 1kg bags)



I bought some when Tesco had 3 for 2 deals. Sometimes I buy other makes of White flour if on offer.

Bennifred

My favourite bread flour is from Waitrose - it is very strong Canadian flour in white or wholemeal. Very strong, as opposed to strong, flour had higher protein content, and in my experience rises better and gives a better texture to the loaf. Canadian flour also contains much higher levels of selenium (important for good health) than British flour, as their soil is not depleted to the degree Britsh soil is.

I make loaves with varying ratios of wholemeal/white flour according to whim, and also add seeds, etc if I feel like it. Sometimes I buy granary flour and use that as a proportion of the loaf, mixed with the Canadian very strong flour.