First Street Bread Flour
I make a lot of bread.
I believe that in the last 2 years I’ve gone through 3 25 lb bags and 1 50 lb bag of flour. It’s time to start taking better notes. Here we go!
I just added the “Bread” Category to this blog. I have retroactively put all my bready posts into this category.
I just finished a 25 pound bag of First Street Bread Flour from Smart and Final. It was about $12. Standard loaves come out a bit softer and sweeter than with the previous Hotel all-purpose flour (I forget the exact name, it’s from Smart and Final and has the word “hotel” in it). I like it.
I just made some focaccia with it and it was very easy to flatten out. The Hotel flour has a strong tendency to spring back.
A 25-lb bag of First Street Bread Flour was on sale today for $7.59 – a very good deal considering a 5-lb bag of bread flour is about $5 at supermarkets. I think the Hotel all-purpose flour is Gold Medal (in a brown bag) – it was also on sale for $7+.
Veronica, wow, thanks. I went by Smart and Final today and got 25 lbs of First Street bread flour for $7.49 on sale like you said. And I picked up 25 lbs of La Romanella High Gluten flour for $10.49 to try out and because I like flour too much. :-)
And yup, the “Hotel” flour is Gold Medal Hotel and Restaurant flour.
Just picked up a 25# bag of First Street bread flour for $7.29 here in El Cajon CA. Nothing but the best from Smart and Final!
I recently purchased First Street Bread. There is no mention on the package as to where it is made, nor any contact information. After purchasing the bread, I looked at the ingreedients and found that there is high fructose and soy flour, and other soy ingredients, which is a genetically modified food and extremely bad for the human body as is high fructose and I am appalled that you are using such bad ingredients for this bread. I will no longer buy First Street products nor will my family and friends, until you start using better ingredients.
Lydia, do you know where you left your comment? I am not First Street Bread.
Lee I think Lydia was informing you and all reading your blog of the poison inside the bread flour of your choice. That most just don’t know about. But why the cocky response? She sounds very intelligent and I am sure is aware of where she is posting. People just don’t know what they don’t know, and Im sure she was trying to be informative. I know I sure am grateful someone shared it with me. These ingredients are directly related to 90% of disease today, particularly diabetes which effects every family in one way or the other. My 11 and 12 yr old were being pricked for cholesterol for three years in a row and were borderline diabetic and told they would have to go on medication. After going organic and removing gmo’s or anything processed. An changing our lifestyle in 30 days their bloodwork came back COMPLETELY NORMAL! Pretty life changing and definitely worth sharing. Your on a blog that reaches ppl all over the place. If you can recommend a bleached and enriched bag of flour that is filled with harmful chemicals, to many who are unaware of the huge epidemic in our food supply (like i was), at least they have the right to know what it is. At least now the have the knowledge to make their own choice. And just like you asked Lydia, who was just being informative, if she knew where she left her comment? (So rude and unnecessary ) maybe you need to be reminded that you put yourself on a public platform, on the Internet where ppl anywhere around the world who have Internet service can see and comment. And the clincher is, IT’S A BLOG AT THAT. You pushed that door wide open. Prime example of you are what you eat! And if your eating crap, apparently you spew it.
The last bag I bought of this flour yielded a lot of failed loafs. It feels like the flour is practically gluten free. I had to add 10% gluten to get it to behave well.
I think above Lydia criticism describes ingredients in that loaf of “bread” that she bought and not the actual raw flour as sold in the bag, which does not include those harmful high fructose and or soy flour additives.
I believe the flour itself as sold in the bag is not at all bad for you. The confusion here is comparing the finished bread with additives to the raw flour which again does not contain those ingredients unless a bakery/baker adds them.
And yes buyer beware always read the label to suit your needs.
Does anyone no the gluten percentage?
I’ve been using this flour for the past few weeks. My usual go to flour company is King Arther, and sometimes Gold Medal. But, flour is a hot commodity nowadays. So, I went with the 25 lb bag. My thoughts:
Initially, I thought the smell of my doughs and the taste of the finished product was off. I have bought a lot of First Street products, but nowadays, I tend to stay away from their product line, as I’ve had mixed experiences (food that had mold from the get-go). But, after a few weeks using it, I kinda like their flour. It has a ton of gluten in it. I do a lot of sourdoughs, and I use preferments in all of my loafs and pizzas. The preferment is about 200grams (1:1 ratio), and after a day of rising, I mix it into the bread recipe’s water to break it up. I often find large masses of pure gluten blobs just hanging in the water. With AP flour, I get much less of that, and most of it just dissolves right into the water.
Anyways, I’m looking at now trying out their high gluten flour. Will let you know how it goes.
I’m glad to find this discussion. I bought my first 25-lb bag of First Street High Gluten Flour last week and have noticed nothing about it to raise any concerns. I bake one loaf of sourdough every day, yesterday was #166, so I’m still relatively new at this. I did not see when I bought that I was getting bleached. I’ll look for unbleached next time. I did look up its percentage protein and saw that it was slightly higher than King Arthur.
April and Lydia are both completely out of context. This discussion is about discount flour, not bread and both were incredibly rude.
In any case, I appreciate Lee’s and MSG’s comment as I’m looking for alternatives and flour is way too expensive as is. A King Arthur 5 pounder is almost $6 here in cali!
As for the actual bread quality itself, based on what individuals were saying in another thread on the freshloaf, the bread flour seems to work decent but there are definitely variations between it and king arthur.
I’m heading out to s&f today and will try a tangzhong recipe.