Bulk Flour Co-op

We are all out of bulk flour so we are offering a group buy again. We order fifty pound bags of King Arthur brand flours through a wholesale company. The flour is high quality and manufactured in an employee owned co-operative business. This time around, we are able to get organic bread flour. Yay!

Group Buy Details

  • The flour comes in whole fifty pound bags.
  • Orders are due Tuesday June 28, 2011 at noon.
  • People who order will receive an email by 8 pm Tuesday night with their total and payment instructions.
  • Payment by paypal (preferred), cash, or check is due Saturday July 2 at noon.
  • Flour will be delivered on July 7 or 8.
  • Flour will be delivered to Sprout Soup at 4310 N High Street near Cooke and High. Quick pickup is a must.
  • In the interest of full disclosure, the price includes a small handling fee for my time organizing the group and unloading the flour sacks.

Please fill out the King Arthur Flours June 2011 Form to place your order. Email me with any questions or concerns.

About the Flours

BAKERS ORGANIC CLASSIC 50# $43.22 Milled from 100% certified organic hard red spring wheat, with similar characteristics to the King Arthur Special. The result is a flour suitable for a wide range of baked goods with excellent mixing and baking characteristics.

FLOUR SPECIAL MALTED ENRICHED 50# $27.74 Special Malted Enriched is a medium protein general purpose wheat flour.

FLOUR WHEAT WHOLE WHITE 50# $32.81 Wheat whole white is 100% whole wheat ground as white and substituted up to 100% in most recipes.  I use this for everything except pie crust, roux, and 50% bread flour in sandwich bread.

HARVEST FLOUR SIR GALAHAD 50# $25.39 Sir Galahad is an enriched flour from hard red winter wheat.

HARVEST FLOUR SIR LANCELOT 50# $35.64 Sir Lancelot is enriched hi-gluten bread flour.  Necessary for high quality bread.

King Arthur offers more detailed descriptions of the conventional and organic flours.

 

Order with the form or send questions my way. Happy baking!

 

PS. I also organize a monthly group buy of herbs and toiletries from Frontier Co-op with pickup at Sprout Soup. Email me if you are interested.

Related: How to Store Bulk Flour

How to Store Bulk Flour

I recently organized a group buy for flour.  On Wednesday I unloaded a half a ton of flour for distribution to bakers in Columbus! The flour came to us in double walled paper bags holding fifty pounds of flour each.  Fifty pounds of flour is a lot for even the most prolific home bakers so proper storage is a must.

Flour will spoil if it gets too moist.  Bugs love to nest in it.  Mice and other rodents are attracted to flour too.

The first step in flour storage is to put it in the freezer for at least two days.  It can stay right in the paper bag.  The purpose of freezing is to kill any insect eggs that might have found their way into the flour.

We are fortunate to have a deep freezer but you could do this in batches in a refrigerator freezer too.  If you don't need the storage space you can keep the flour in the freezer indefinitely.

bulk flour bins

Next, portion the flour into airtight opaque storage containers.  Keeping air and light out will retain freshness.  We use bulk bins purchased from Wasserstrom restaurant supply.  Foodsafe five gallon buckets with tight fitting lids are another good choice.

Store your bulk bins in a cool dry place.  Our basement stays dry so we keep them there.  Other alternatives include a cool closet or root cellar.

Portion a few week's worth of flour into a storage container to keep where you bake.  We keep a large scoop in the bulk bin for this purpose.  We keep about three pounds of bread flour and white whole wheat in the kitchen plus a smaller portion of all purpose.

Finally, examine the bins regularly.  Clean any spills from around the area to keep pests at bay.

Our flour has remained fresh in this manner for up to twelve months.

Bulk Flour Group Buy

We bake nearly all our own bread.  Through experimentation, we have found King Arthur to be our favorite brand of flour.  Unfortunately, we have yet to find any local flour that can match the quality and consistency of  King Arthur products.  Fortunately they are a co-operative business with values I can respect even if the wheat is not locally sourced. Last spring I organized a group buy of bulk (50 pound bags) King Arthur flours.  I am pleased to expand the offer to Columbus Ohio blog readers this time around.

Here's how the order will work:

1) Reply in the comments section or by email with your order by Tuesday, January 12 at 8 pm. 2) I will email payment instructions on Tuesday evening. 3) Payments are due by Sunday the 17th. 4) Delivery will be Wednesday the 20th or Thursday the 21st to Sprout Soup. 5) Rapid pickup is necessary.  The bags take up a huge amount of space and we want to be respectful of Sprout Soup.  If you order, please make plans to visit Sprout Soup on Thursday evening or Friday morning to pickup.

Prices and descriptions are below:

FLOUR SPECIAL MALTED ENRICHED 50# $18.49 FLOUR WHEAT WHOLE WHITE 50# $22.41 HARVEST FLOUR SIR GALAHAD 50# $15.79 HARVEST FLOUR SIR LANCELOT 50# $22.99

Special Malted Enriched is a medium protein general purpose wheat flour. Wheat whole white is 100% whole wheat ground as white and substituted up to 100% in most recipes.  I use this for everything except pie crust, roux, and 50% bread flour in sandwich bread. Sir Galahad is an enriched flour from hard red winter wheat. Sir Lancelot is enriched hi-gluten bread flour.  Necessary for high quality bread.

Here's a link to the specific properties of each flour: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/documents/BFS-Specs-Customer-Copy.pdf

Please ask any questions you have.   I'll post about bulk flour storage before the order gets here if you need some ideas about what the heck to do with 50 pounds of flour!