Question about buying expensive bread flour - is it really worth it?

I dropped $60 on a 50lb bag of King Arthur sir Lancelot high gluten flour last month thinking it would fix my bagel texture issues, but honestly I can't tell much difference from the $25 generic brand I used to grab at Restaurant Depot. My bagels still came out chewy but not dramatically better, and now I'm stuck with a massive bag taking up half my pantry. Has anyone else shelled out for premium flour and regretted it or did I just get a bad batch?

2 comments

2 Comments

drewr1514d agoMost Upvoted

You know I actually just watched this video from a bread science guy on YouTube that explained it pretty well. He said the protein content matters more than the brand name honestly. If your generic flour is already hitting like 12-14% protein you're probably fine for bagels. King Arthur's stuff is like 14.2% which is great but if your old flour was already up there you might not see a huge jump. The guy also tested a bunch of flours blind and most people couldn't tell the difference in chew once the protein numbers were close. A 50lb bag is a lot to work through though, maybe try splitting it with a friend next time or freezing part of it so it doesn't go stale on you.

stella_taylor14d ago

Flour is just one of those things where the law of diminishing returns hits hard after a certain point, kinda like how expensive headphones sound the same as decent ones once you're not an audiophile.