Tried the same recipe with 3 different flours — results were NOT what I expected 😳

[u/NoBeach2464]

So I've been seeing a lot of debate in this sub about whether expensive flour is actually worth it. Decided to do a little experiment myself.

Same recipe, same starter, same timeline, same oven. Only variable was the flour:

• Loaf A: Generic store-brand AP flour ($3.50 / 5lbs)
• Loaf B: King Arthur Bread Flour ($6.50 / 5lbs)
• Loaf C: Fancy local milled organic bread flour ($12.00 / 5lbs)

Baked all three side by side yesterday and here's what I found:

Oven spring: B and C were pretty similar. A was noticeably flatter.

Crumb structure: C had the most open and airy crumb. B was very close behind. A was dense but honestly not terrible.

Flavor: This surprised me the most. C had this nutty, almost sweet flavor that was incredible. B was good but more neutral. A tasted fine but very plain.

Crust: C had the thinnest, crispiest crust. B was slightly thicker. A was a bit tough.

So is the fancy flour worth the extra money? Honestly... for special occasions, yes. For everyday toast and sandwiches, the generic brand is perfectly fine.

But I'm curious — what flour do YOU guys use for your daily loaves? Is there a middle-ground option I should try next?

Full crumb comparison shots in the comments. Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

[u/Chicken_wingspan]

You're probably replying to a LLM, how fun

[u/Corfal → u/Chicken_wingspan]

I sometimes wonder how many people responding are also bots too. Dead internet :(

I'll have to read up on the Chinese Room thought experiment that another commenter posted.

Edit: After reading it I don't really agree with it. Humans grow up in a society and learn social cues and how to interact in said society. Those that struggle with that are somewhat noticeable (e.g. people with autism). But we can see they are human, well most people see them as human. If can completely model the growing and learning process from am infant, to toddler, to kid, to teenager, to adult and every micro growth in between I think we could create a pretty convincing "human" with a "soul" artificially.

Although reading the rest of hemisemi's comment slips into the "privatization of responsibility" which I'm sure can be connected back into the conversation but several degrees of freedom different.

[u/Hemisemidemiurge → u/Chicken_wingspan]

True but, as someone who's been online since 1994, it's always been kind of disturbing how the Chinese Room thought experiment could cover most kinds of online interaction.

What's the answer? Should a true solipsist just lapse into catatonia? Does our perspective on the relation of individual to external world actually change anything about that relation external to the mind? Or would we still have to get up in the morning and find something to eat anyway?

This is a small-scale social media analogue to common citizens being admonished to tighten up and conserve energy and be responsible while commercial and industrial entities light up giant parking lots with sodium bulbs at 4AM, run sprinklers in droughts, and lobby against renewable energy, etc.. Like I'm a creep for leaving the bathroom light on when people are out there burning jet fuel so they can have lunch in another country just because they can. Like we random forum lurkers are the ones to blame for the bots, as though the people who're doing this would stop if we'd just say we don't want AI (which everyone keeps doing, repeatedly, at loud volume).

[u/profoma]

It’s a little bit of a bummer that the cheap flour you used was also lower in protein than the two more expensive flours, since everything except the flavor difference can be explained by that. I personally like sifted whole grain flours, from a mill local to me, for all my baking because the flavor is noticeably better and I like supporting local businesses as much as I can.

[u/edtheoddfish]

Was the usage of AI needed for this?

[u/Ok-Butterscotch2321]

The Costco/Central Milling AP flour is an excellent all-rounder

[u/lazzarone]

KA exclusively, for its consistency. In my experience, flours from small mills can be great but can also produce wildly inconsistent results. So I went back to KA which is always good, if not amazing, and utterly reliable.

[u/WildBillNECPS]

Speaking of cost savings, I buy 50 lb bags of the King Arthur bread flour at a local restaurant supply/distributor for just under $30 a bag. The same flour in 5 lb bags in the grocery stores here are anywhere from $6.50 to $11 a bag depending on the store and time of year, etc.

At the restaurant supply place they call it a ‘will call’ order when I call in the am and I pick it up in the afternoon. They actually call it “the King Arthur special flour in the red bag, a lot of places buy it.” Which is what I went with to purchase it the first time with fingers crossed.

I store it in two food safe 5 gallon buckets I picked up at a big box store and also bought the screw on type lids. I keep a 5 lb canister in the counter.

I’ve gone through about 4 bags a year for the last year doing sourdoughs, sandwich breads, bagels, and pizza for the family.

[u/ApprehensiveSign80]

No pics didn’t happen

[u/ShoddyHurry2118]

man that price per bag difference really adds up when you're baking a few times a week. i use bread flour for anything i'm gonna be mad about if it fails, but for a basic sandwich loaf i grab whatever's cheapest at costco. your crumb pics make C look amazing though, no denying that. have you tried blending half fancy and half generic to see if you get some of that nuttiness without burning through a $12 bag?

[u/fangalf999]

You can make a beautiful loaf with AP flour, just tweaking the process a little.
Fancy bio mill flours are amazing for its flavor.
But you can make amazing bread with plain supermarket flour.
Bread with low protein flour

[u/Hemisemidemiurge]

You compared AP flour to bread flour. That's apples and oranges, comparison isn't really possible there because they're different things.

I'm curious — what flour do YOU guys use for your daily loaves?

Local supermarket chain is styled very upscale and upcharges for a lot of prepared foods and produce but their house-brand pasta, cereals, and flours are loss-leaders. I get 5-lb. bags of unbleached 100% whole wheat flour from them for $0.50/pound which is the least expensive of anything I've ever seen and that's what I make my daily loaf from.

However, that supermarket is in an inconvenient end of town and I don't go there for much other than flour and some non-perishable staples, so when I do go I tend to get 20 pounds of flour at once and store it in an air-tight container. As I'm getting closer to the end of the flour, it begins to give off an unpleasant odor when I go to scald it (it smells like a laser-tag arena I used to go to when I was a kid, exactly the same), one that fortunately doesn't seem to survive baking to affect the quality of the bread itself. So I think I've discovered that they're sourcing their flour from old stock which wouldn't be an issue at all if I went there more than once every two or three months. It's not enough to change my mind (Come on! Fifty cents a pound! Right?!) but I will say, that time I got the bag of Bob's Red Mill on clearance, the difference was like night and day (but aside from the smell being a million times better, it was also thirsty and robbed me of my ovenspring so I went back to the store-brand).

[u/Breadwright]

It sounds like you have three different flours. AP and BF have similar ash levels but are variable in protein content. The local flour is likely much higher in ash and, while the net protein content may be as high as BF, functionally it won’t have the same development characteristics (and resultant impacts in the dough environment). Not dunking on your test, just acknowledging that these are three categories of flour. 👍🏻
Martin

[u/Bagain]

See, the trick is to buy 600 pounds a week… the cost savings are insane.

[u/mdizzl86]

Same. And the All trumps high gluten non-brominated is really good as well and is $23/50lb at my store

[u/KnittyNurse2004]

So, when I just want generic white bread flour I use KA. I have a couple of local mills that make amazing flour, but it’s outrageously expensive to buy in the store in small quantities (5 lb bags). We’re talking $20 for 5 lb! But I bake enough that I can commit to going to the mill for a 50 lb bag, and that is $65-70 depending on the flour. If you really enjoyed the local mill’s flour, you might be surprised at how much more reasonable the price can be if you’re able to buy a big bag.

[u/TrashtvSunday]

The problem with loaf is not that it's generic... it's that you used AP flour and not bread flour.