Irish flour?

Kewreeuss

Is it true that the flour for sale in the shops is all imported?
I was very surprised when someone told me that none of it was Irish grown.
Really? Where does it come from?

Tigger

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Is it true that the flour for sale in the shops is all imported?
I was very surprised when someone told me that none of it was Irish grown.
Really? Where does it come from?

i make my own bread and decided to look at my fancy whole ground flour:
its ground in Ireland but it doesn't say where its grown (so i assume its not Irish)

odlums seem to import their wheat as well
http://odlums.ie/at-school/wheat/

pedigree 6

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Is it true that the flour for sale in the shops is all imported?
I was very surprised when someone told me that none of it was Irish grown.
Really? Where does it come from?

Not sure about that statement.
http://www.ballyminanemills.com/products/uncle-aidans-flour/

Tigger

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Not sure about that statement.
http://www.ballyminanemills.com/products/uncle-aidans-flour/

says sourced locally
why not grown locally?
i've sent them a mail
this is interesting

Waffletraktor

The wheat is not to high enough spec in Ireland, you will get some bulking quality but normally Spring wheats and not realiable.

pedigree 6

Tigger wrote: »

says sourced locally
why not grown locally?

It comes from leeches in ballyhamilton house.
They are one of the largest tillage farmers in wexford.
It's grown locally on the best land in the country.

Tigger

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It comes from leeches in ballyhamilton house.
They are one of the largest tillage farmers in wexford.
It's grown locally on the best land in the country.

good, i'll try some, i had assumed Irish flour was irish grains. I wasn't trying to say that you were wrong btw i just see words like sourced and wonder why it doesn't say grown
like a different producer keeps saying they grind their flour but not where it was from

Tigger

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It comes from leeches in ballyhamilton house.
They are one of the largest tillage farmers in wexford.
It's grown locally on the best land in the country.

what are leeches?

Tigger

is this the same stuff?

https://www.aldi.ie/en/about-aldi/information/the-national-brown-bread-baking-competition/ingredients/ingredients-products-detail-page/ps/p/ballyminane-mills-wholemeal-flour-1/

pedigree 6

Tigger wrote: »

what are leeches?

Little black wriggly yokes.:D

Or the surname of the family who own ballyhamilton farms.

pedigree 6

Tigger wrote: »

is this the same stuff?

https://www.aldi.ie/en/about-aldi/information/the-national-brown-bread-baking-competition/ingredients/ingredients-products-detail-page/ps/p/ballyminane-mills-wholemeal-flour-1/

Yes. That's them.

Tigger

Waffletraktor wrote: »

The wheat is not to high enough spec in Ireland, you will get some bulking quality but normally Spring wheats and not realiable.

the Ballyminane millers got back to me already and have confirmed their product is grown and ground here and that they believe this is unusual
why is our wheat not good enough?
whats is Irish wheat used for ?

Tigger

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Little black wriggly yokes.:D

Or the surname of the family who own ballyhamilton farms.

oh i thought it was a type of land or something :P

Archibald_SM

Irish wheat is not good enough on its own to make flour. Too soft. The grist use for flour milling usually comprises of Canadian wheat (hard, high gluten content etc etc), English wheat, some French wheat and some Irish. The ratios of the above types of wheat is dependent on the required properties of the final flour. French bread flour will have different requirements to say self raising flour. In a previous life I ran one of the now closed flour mills.

Waffletraktor

Tigger wrote: »

the Ballyminane millers got back to me already and have confirmed their product is grown and ground here and that they believe this is unusual
why is our wheat not good enough?
whats is Irish wheat used for ?

Too wet.
Causes disease that produces harmful mycotoxins(Google ergot in Soviet Union in the 50s). Not enough gluten(protein) as it gets watered down in the grain yield. Excess rain causes the grain to think it has been planted which causes it to activate enzymes to eat up the starch/protein in a test called the hagberg falling number.
The millers will buy super quality from Canada or Kazakhstan and blend it with uk or poorer French wheat to make a 'rist' that goes on to be blended into flour. You have 3 main grades of wheat milling,biscuit,Feed. Irish wheat normally makes feed/biscuit and Spring wheat will occasionally make milling as its lower yielding/ matures in drier months

Base price

Tigger wrote: »

is this the same stuff?
https://www.aldi.ie/en/about-aldi/information/the-national-brown-bread-baking-competition/ingredients/ingredients-products-detail-page/ps/p/ballyminane-mills-wholemeal-flour-1/

Thanks for that link. I will keep an eye out for it in Aldi stores in September. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out - brown soda bread.

Kewreeuss

Thank you everyone for your interest.
So as I understand, if I did find Irish white flour, it would be very weak or soft.?
It would be good for pastry or fatless sponge?
It leads me to another question: If Doves sell English white flour are we buying the image rather than a decent quality?
A Polish work colleague told me the polish shops here sell three different types of white flour so I'll go along and have a look

Waffletraktor

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Thank you everyone for your interest.
So as I understand, if I did find Irish white flour, it would be very weak or soft.?
It would be good for pastry or fatless sponge?
It leads me to another question: If Doves sell English white flour are we buying the image rather than a decent quality?
A Polish work colleague told me the polish shops here sell three different types of white flour so I'll go along and have a look

I think it's more the grade of flour needed as I think the shop bagged flour is normally a lower spec for pastry etc than say Brennan's would require, I could very easily be wrong. Irish flour that makes the required grade is good it's just hard to do it due to the wetter season, English wheat will struggle to get above 13.5%protein in a normal year more so 11-12% which makes it cheaper to bulk up the grist to the required level.