Bread flour typically contains 12-14% protein content, which is higher than all-purpose flour. This higher protein content leads to more gluten development during kneading, resulting in better structure, chewier texture, and higher rise in your bread. This makes it ideal for yeasted breads, especially those requiring significant kneading or long fermentation times.
<aside> đź’µ
I like “Dakota Maid” because it's good and cheap bread flour! My local grocery has excellent prices on flour at around $0.51/pound on sale.
</aside>
All-purpose flour, with its moderate protein content of 10-12%, is more versatile and can be used in a wider range of baking applications. While it can produce decent bread, it's better suited for cakes, cookies, and pastries where a softer texture is desired. I keep both types on hand, using bread flour for my weekly bread baking and all-purpose for general baking needs and for “dusting” my loaves. It's cheaper and can be purchased for about $9/25# at Costco.
Weevils in flour are a thing. They’re essentially impossible to fully avoid due to manufacturing processes. They’re not harmful but it’s not fun making things with bugs in it and can mess up your shelf life.
<aside> 🥶
When you bring flour home from the store. you should freeze it in your freezer for 48 hours.
</aside>
If you live in a cold climate, don’t have a chest freezer, maybe buy your years worth of flour and freeze it outside in January!
Part of why I like doing this, is I can create a lot of my main staple food myself. I like having things in stock in my pantry so I always keep a stored amount, then cycle through it as I use it. When stored properly, flour has an amazing shelf life, you should have no problem keeping a few months worth of flour on hand.
I get mine from Menards for about $8. Worth every penny. I like to keep 50 pounds of bread flour on hand (one to use and one for when that runs out) 25 pounds of all purpose flour (it’s cheaper usually) and another bucket for the actual making of bread.
25 pounds of flour fits almost perfectly into a 5 gallon bucket. I like having at least 2 on hand for when 10# is cheaper per pound than the 25# bag which is an odd but frequent occurrence at my grocery store.
Make sure to label what kind of flour it is on both the bucket and the lid.
These lids are a huge hit with the “prepper” community, really good seal. They take considerable force to get on to the bucket. Maybe ask for help doing it at Menards if you have any trouble with your hands. You need a gamma lid for each storage bucket.
You’ll need this for your production bucket. easy to get on, easy to get off (especially as we won’t fully seal this.
You could optionally install a air vent bubbler to this like you see in some fermentation areas like beer making. Not super neccesary.
Gamma Lid on 5 Gallon Bucket
My 4 Buckets - Two for Bread Flour, One for All Purpose Flour (APF) and one for mixing dough
If you want do do more single loaf baking, instead of a 5 gallon bucket for mixing I would recommend using a 1 gallon ice cream pail. It's almost perfect for single loaf experimentation. Additionally, if you don't have a decent cool spot to ferment, this may be more practical to keep in the fridge. I would still recommend a bucket over a bowl. Plus you may get to eat ice cream.
Mid-production, mixing bucket next to flour bucket
Sometimes in my recipes I will make “Flour” out of various grains or whatever. Essentially, if it is very dry and not too oily, you can food process many things into “Flour”.
If you see a spare coffee grinder at a thrift store, it’s nice to use one of those for making flours. Would not recommend using your actual coffee grinder though.
Things I have tried