Bread

no worries! im a bit of a nerd with flour talk haha.
Poncy flour is genuinely worth the added cost (not in the case of Wildfarmed tho), it’s surprising how much difference it makes to taste. I’m sure they’ve got some good local Spanish stuff but can’t say I’ve ever had to look into it

This company supposedly pretty good, and all UK, Organic, stoneground (straight to the Guardian readers thread)

https://gilchesters.com/

Actually relatively competitive for wholemeal and rye, but annoyingly more expensive than Shipton mill for White (which is blended by Shipton), and then factor in shipping and it ends up being quite a bit more

yeah I know some people getting good results with Gilchesters commercially, the owners are meant to be nice and ethical, at least on the PR side anyway haha

We had someone come in from Wildfarmed when I was working a couple of years ago.

No idea how they are keeping their principles whilst also supplying supermarkets. (Well, I have an idea but ...)

My local is a Tesco extra and never seen Marriages in it. I have lower standards than most so Marriages + cheapo whole wheat flour is good enough for tasty bread for me (prioritising cost-efficiency; a 5-pack of Marriages off Amazon for 12 quid comes in at cheaper per kg than pretty much all the branded flours in Tesco).

it was a mixture of organic t65 and then some freshly home stone milled grain - einkorn, emmer, rye, spelt etc, these additions weaken the protein/gluten but add so much more flavour.

but given the weakness of my current sack of t65 i am now mixing the t65 with Marriages strong Canadian flour but also including freshly ground grain too (approx 30% of the total flour)

also freshly milled grain is far more biologically active so makes for a much more active starter

Thanks all. Need to try a few different kinds I think and see what works

Well it's integral, harimsa is the brand if you want to look it up.

it really does go on and on.
I'm all for trying to keep it simple but what would turn me on is light/white rye, gluten hit so 20%-40% ish with strong white, but also as 50%starter with spelt.
And leftfeild - rice flour crust coating

this batch is much better - i reduced the rye flour content to about 7% and swapped some of the "100% wholemeal" for "organic stone-ground strong wholemeal flour (209)".

Shipton have so many different flours, it's pretty confusing....

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I think you've won biggest loaves

Yeah I'll try a bunch of stuff untill I find something I like. But I feel it's time to refresh my loaves. They've been the same for 2 years and they're great but now I want to look for better and different.

Looked online and seems that neither Sainsbury's and Tesco no longer stock marriages.

Thinking about it, I've not bought bread flour in the UK since pre pandemic. Durring pandemic I was buying sacs of bread flour to deliver.

Want a few pdf bread books?

This is interesting, as I’m adding ancient grains to my loaves 60/40 strong white and whole grain (currently emmer which googling says is easier to work with than einkorn or khorasan), but would be interested in changing up the strong white as well.

My missus has an account with Cotswolds so I may get her to put some of their strong white in her next order to compare/contrast..

khorasan is excellent, although I did just ended up using it for gravy, then doves stopped production (or sales from the shop)

Lots of the ancient grain crops have been hit hard by the weather variability over the past few years. Am finding it harder to find companies selling grain especially when they can charge even more once it is milled into flour.

Checked my started this morning, it’s risen by about half.

So enough unmppphhh to bake

Fed again last night and we have lift off

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I've got Tartine but sure thanks.

Boom

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Nice one!

Crust looks good but that one massive bubble in the middle annoys me

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Looks amazing, loving how quickly you’ve gone from no starter to turning out a decent looking loaf. Slightly jealous of how good your first time loaf looks vs how my loaves turn out.
Strong work.

Looking at photos looks like you didn’t score the loaf before baking. Might be the issue. No place for the air to move to, push crust to, so produces big hole in center.
Others with more baking knowledge may be able to confirm or deny my query..