What happened to all the Flour?

[Uncle Gizmo]

Suggest you stop digging a hole...

I'm not doing that sort of digging.

 

[Minty]

Is it like kneading?

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Is it like kneading?

The language could get flowery

 

[isladogs]

A serious response this time...
I regularly make my own sourdough bread using flour I buy at my local community shop where I'm a volunteer.
It still has white bread flour but nothing else because the suppliers can't get hold of anything else,
I know as I've asked.

Without trying to be big-headed, my sourdough is as good as anything I can buy.
There's something very satisfying about the whole process.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

There's something very satisfying about the whole process.

I wanted to try making that at one time. When I read how lengthy the process is, I gave up on the idea of making my own.

 

[isladogs]

Just needs a bit of advance planning
Start it one day by feeding the sourdough starter.
Mix the ingredients the next day and leave it overnight.
Finish it the next day.
Overall preparation time about the same as any other home bread making.
However the end results are definitely worth the effort.

Getting hold of sourdough starter 'kit' might be a bit tricky at the moment though...

 

[Gasman]

I wanted to try making that at one time. When I read how lengthy the process is, I gave up on the idea of making my own.

I'm the same with beer

 

[isladogs]

Now with homebrew (beer or wine), I can definitely say that what I can make is nowhere near as good as anything I can buy. So I no longer bother

 

[Gasman]

Now with homebrew (beer or wine), I can definitely say that what I can make is nowhere near as good as anything I can buy. So I no longer bother

I used to make wine out of kits. When one on my employers was having an open day, he asked me to bring some as backup, in case they ran out of the 'good stuff'

Turned out one nosy person discovered my bottles, had a taste of one and then proceeded to tell everyone, with the result that my wine was all gone, with the good stuff still remaining.

Beer, I could never get it as nice as you get in a bottle/keg. Drinkable, but not as nice.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

Overall preparation time about the same as any other home bread making.

That doesn't sound anything like the process I read about. Are you sure we're talking about the same thing? From what I've read it's an on-going process that requires initial germination (if that's the correct term) and blending partially fermented batches with more ingredients until several days later, you actually have something you can work with - plus other partially processed batches that you may or may not have any use for.

 

[isladogs]

You need to obtain or make a sourdough starter that you then use for all future batches of bread.
The starter contains 'natural yeasts' e.g. from fermenting apples. Once it is active, it is stored in the fridge until needed.
The idea is you never use all of the starter.
The day before you want to make some bread, you 'feed' the starter with additional flour and water to double the volume then return to the fridge.
The next day use half the starter to make your dough and return the rest to the fridge.
This link has more info: https://www.hobbshousebakery.co.uk/blogs/recipes/tagged/sourdough

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Well I'm still not 100% sure, I would like to talk to the horses mouth

Someone we won't name on this forum suggested I was the other end of the horse. Will you take MY word for it?

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

My point is the supermarkets have not had any flour for several weeks, however stocks of other staples have recovered.

This excellent article and brings to light my suspicion that there is more to it than people just hording/baking.

Why there's still no flour as supermarket shelves fill back up

It's down to consumers to be practical and unselfish

inews.co.uk

About 10% of flour normally goes to the domestic consumer in small bags.

The initial shortage due to a doubling in demand caused by home baking and hording has been exasperated by the difficulty of changing the production lines over from production for industrial use to domestic use. So as I suspected, the lack of flour in the supermarkets isn't due to hoarding/baking, it is due to the problem in making the change in the production technique.

Factories can't supply bulk and retail at the same time, and production lines can't switch easily between the two.

I would still like to find a horse because I reckon there is still more to it than this.

 

[Deleted member 147267]

So as I suspected, the lack of flour in the supermarkets isn't due to hoarding/baking

Think about that for a sec. If so many people weren't baking, there'd be no need for the producers to do anything different in terms of normal production methods that supply either consumer chain. The root cause is the pandemic IMHO. The fact that producers and/or the supply chain can't manage specific market segment demands is secondary.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Think about that for a sec.

I did, the problem is there's no flour in Tesco's. I know this because my son works their every day. There's never been any flour, so there's nobody buying flour because there isn't any, that's the point.

How can you hord it if you can't buy it?

 

[isladogs]

Your 'excellent article' is largely restating points already made in this thread more than once.
There is no conspiracy which seems to be what you are suggesting.

The retail supply is in smaller bags which have been purchased at a greater rate in recent weeks.
Retail suppliers haven't been able to increase supply to meet the increased demand.
There is still plenty of flour around but it is in the larger bags as supplied to bakeries etc by different suppliers.
At some point production will be modified sufficiently to cope with the increased retail demand

 

[AccessBlaster]

There's never been any flour, so there's nobody buying flour because there isn't any, that's the point.

Lol @ uncle

 

[Deleted member 147267]

that's the point.

The point here is that there is no point here other than yours.
Ciao!

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Retail suppliers haven't been able to increase supply to meet the increased demand.

Exactly! So the notion that the current lack of flour in the supermarkets is caused by people hoarding/home baking doesn't hold up because you can't hoard something if you can't buy it.

 

[Darrell]

Now with homebrew (beer or wine), I can definitely say that what I can make is nowhere near as good as anything I can buy. So I no longer bother

If these were from kits then that is understandable, they've come a long way but most kits are still terrible.

I make both (mostly beer now though) and whilst relatively easy to make something as good or better than commercial, you do need a bit of specialised equipment which can be rather painful on the wallet.