Bread flour vs AP in sourdough, I was a doubter until last Tuesday

I always thought bread flour was a marketing scam for home bakers. Like, why pay extra when AP works fine, right? But my starter kept making these flat, dense loaves no matter what I did. My neighbor who bakes professionally kept telling me to swap flours, so I finally tried it with my usual 500g batch. The crumb was noticeably more airy and the crust got that nice crackle I was after. Anyone else had a thing they ignored for months and then felt dumb when it worked? What else am I missing in my pantry?

2 comments

2 Comments

rileyellis20d ago

Wait, you mean an actual professional baker told you this and you didn't listen for months? That's like being told the sky is blue and arguing about it until Tuesday. I had the exact same thing with my starter, I kept blaming the water temperature and my oven, turned out I was just using weak flour the whole time. The first loaf I made with bread flour was so tall I actually measured it out of shock. Now I'm side-eyeing everything else in my pantry, like maybe my salt is secretly the problem too.

kevin_dixon19d ago

Read somewhere that the gluten in bread flour is basically a whole different animal compared to all-purpose. That's why the dough can finally hold in those air bubbles and actually rise up instead of flopping sideways. I did the same thing for weeks, blamed my oven thermometer and my tap water. Turned out I was just treating my starter like it needed a pep talk when the flour was the REAL problem all along. Makes you wonder what else we're just blaming the wrong thing for.