Hi I’m new to Breadtopia and am enjoying it! What an excellent resource for bread nerds!
I have been baking sourdough for a few years and have worked at few bakeries. And I am now just getting into grinding my own flour with our vitamix.
I am now attempting to make my own white bread flour by sifting the fresh ground whole wheat flour. The sifter I have seems to be not fine enough because all the flour went right through it.
Can somebody help me figure out what sifter I need to get?
I cannot tell you from experience and perhaps others will chime in … BUT, I am just now ordering the 40 and 50 mesh sifters from Breadtopia store and will be using my Vitamix. I’ve not ground my own wheat at all, so this will be first try for me. I’m going by the info in the store that the 40 sifter will remove some of the bran and a second pass in the 50 sifter will make a "fine/super fine flour.
Ok thankyou, please let me know how it goes.
@Lukethelaoch and @anon66425146, I have the 40 mesh sifter that I got from here on Breadtopia. For my needs it’s a wonderful sifter. Yes, it removes SOME of the bran. If you are looking to have more of the bran removed then I agree you probably would need to resift using the 50 mush sifter the second time.
Leah
Ok cool thankyou. That answers that question. My new question is now:
Should bother getting both sifters, or should I just get the 50?
@Lukethelaoch, depending on what recipe you’re making you may not want to remove most or nearly all of the bran. IMHO, you may want to invest in both sifters if that’s financially feasible for you. Because the 50 mesh is so much finer, using it as your only sifter will be more time consuming as it will take more effort to effectively sift the flour. Another action to consider, one that I’ve think I’ve read other bakers here on the forum have done, is to gather the bran that has been left behind in the sifter and run it through your mill again. Apparently it will be ground finer than the first time around and in some recipes can be reintroduced into the flour, if I’ve read the information correctly. For using the sifted bran without running it through the mill again, the resulting bran can certainly be gathered, stored in the refrigerator or freezer and used for sprinkling on your basket for your doughs second rise.
Leah
Ya I think I’ll ending up wanting both.@Leah1 Thankyou so much. You have been very helpful
Btw I am going to be working my way through the ancient grains section of Chad Robertson’s book: “Tartine No. 3”. I would love some input from anyone
Have both the 40 and 50 but yet to use the 50. You can get all the bran out with the 40 but you have to set your mill a little coarser than normal. Sift the bran out and then run the endo and germ through the mill again at a lower setting if you want real fine flour. As all mills are different you will have to play with it. If it is too coarse you will find bits of endo and germ left in the sifter, then just reduce the setting a bit until just the bran comes out.
So … the original poster (and me, also) do not have mills. We are “grinding” in Vitamix blenders. From my reading, the Vitamix tends to grind more coarse than a mill, although I guess that depends on the mill settings.
At any rate, today, I received my Breadtopia order of a 40 and 50 sifter as well as Einkorn berries and Buckwheat groats. I will be experimenting 
…. but I expect it will be several weeks before I have enough Vitamix berry grinding, sifting and baking experience to share any details. And ultimately @Lukethelaoch there is some personal preference. As to Tartine3… I know of it and my basic recipe is a Tartine adaptation originally on TheKitchn (Emma Christensen’s Tartine adaptation recipe) I am not a follower of any particular baker … except maybe @homebreadbaker, @Fermentada
After several tries with Einkorn and White Sonora … the best sifting (and there is another thread: Using a 40 mesh sifter) was with the 40 on to parchment paper. I tried the 50 (after the 40) and do not have the patience.
The Einkorn is much softer than the White Sonora and I had no issues using it unsifted. The White Sonora I felt needed to be sifted. Again tried 40 and then 50 and didn’t get much through the 50.
Baking results were fine with both although the first time I used the White Sonora, I added extra flour thinking it was too wet and after sitting, the flour absorbed the moisture and ended up too dry - my error and I should have known better!
Overall, though, I am going to let Breadtopia grind my flour. I am in the minority, at least on this site, but the grinding process, even without sifting … I don’t enjoy it at all. And I think the Vitamix is faster than a mill and contains more of the dust (I’m only going from videos I’ve watched) … still am happier working with the ground flour I get from Breadtopia.
***I did a lot of reading about “milling” with Vitamix so if you enjoy the process and want more info from sources who like milling, google “grinding flour with Vitamix”. Lots of posts and information specific to Vitamix.