Ultra unifine flour from Azure Standard

We grind our own flours from whole grains but when it comes to certain cookies, like Steve's Springerles  https://permies.com/t/43740/Springerles-cookies-wooden-molds  we compromise with organic unbleached white.

This year we are going to try ultra unifine unbleached whole wheat pastry flour from Azure Standard.  https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/product/food/flour/white/wheat/unbleached-pastry-flour-ultra-unifine-organic/20264
Has anyone used flour from this process?

Azure’s heritage bran and flour is milled at our Unifine mill in Dufur, Ore., one of only four such mills in the country.

The name Unifine comes from the milling process itself. It means the process takes just one step, not two, and it produces a very fine, uniform grind. Not only that, Unifine milling preserves more of the natural nutrients of the grain.

All commercial milling processes, other than Unifine, utilize some form of grinding or rolling that produces heat that degrades or destroys the oils in the grain. It’s the oils that contain all the vitamins and nutrients.

“Many manufacturers imply that ‘stone-ground’ is a product benefit,” Stelzer said. “But it’s not really. It’s better than steel rollers, but it’s not nearly as good as the Unifine process.”

Steel roller mills can make whole-wheat flour, but only by separating the grain’s constituent parts, adding water, and then forcing them back together. It’s an extremely inefficient process, and the stamping, crushing, squeezing, hydrating, and rolling compromises the nutrition and the flavor of the flour. That’s where “enriched” flour comes from; the big manufacturers have to add vitamins and minerals back in.

In Azure’s Unifine process, the entire bran, germ and endosperm of the grain are processed into a nutritious whole grain flour in one step. Instead of crushing or cutting the grain like a typical commercial roller mill, the Unifine process uses a high-speed rotor to instantly pulverize the kernels of grains, leaving the oils undamaged by heat. And there’s no added water, so the flour has a longer shelf life.

“With the Unifine process, the oil molecules are left whole,” Stelzer said. “That’s the main reason we have longer shelf life, better flavor and more nutrition.”

Compare the nutritional information, head-to-head, and you’ll see that Unifine flour is far superior to other milled flour in every category: almost four times as much dietary fiber, more than twice as much potassium and three times as much magnesium.

Organic
Non-GMO
Kosher
This Unifine flour has had about 12% of the bran and germ removed.

First batch of Steve's Springerles came out excelent with this flour!
https://permies.com/t/43740/Springerles-cookies-wooden-molds#2778699

It's such a relief to be able to use a whole wheat flour rather than white for our cookies.

I'm guessing it will work equally well for others who prefer the fineness of a white flour for their baked goods...even Paul's 'polydough' as Azure has both hard red winter wheat and the soft white wheat we bought milled in this manner.

This flour has been wonderful.
We still grind wheat berries fresh weekly for our regular baking  but for cookies and other things where we might ordinarily buy some unbleached white flour this is excellent.

Judith -

For the grain you grind fresh, have you also been sourcing it through Azure Standard?

There is an Azure drop location near me, but I haven't ordered through them, at least not yet.

I have bought wheat berries from my local co-op grocery store in bulk (by the pound - also rye), and ordered Palouse brand through my just-down-the-road grocery store.  Both of those sources are about the same as Amazon prices (not that I've ordered through Amazon, just price checked).  Both the bulk wheat from the co-op and the Palouse hard white and red wheat berries were fine (better than my still-developing baking skills!) - no troubles with taste or baking quality.  I do need to spend some more time re-reading Scott and Wing ("The Bread Builders") and maybe Tom Jaine, too.  I don't get as much oven spring as I'd like in the whole meal bread, and I know I need to let it bake longer than for white, as well.  Baking it in a pre-heated dutch oven did help.  All part of the learning, which is half the fun.

Azure Standard is significantly cheaper than any other major source I've found in the US, if I use their drop location to save on shipping.  Actually, sometimes a local(-ish) farmer will advertise very competitive prices on Craigslist or FB Marketplace, but if they're too far away, that is less help to me.  Not to mention, FB Messenger no longer works for me, which has really cramped my used stuff scrounging!  And, the locals are often a bring-you-own-bucket sort of operation.  You've got to store it somewhere, so that's not necessarily a problem, but at $10 or $11 per 5-gallon bucket, including lid, that adds to the initial cost, as well, though the buckets will get re-used one way or another.  I can get almost any reasonable quantity of hydraulic oil or sheet rock mud buckets from my brother (the supply is practically endless, for my purposes), but I don't think I want to store food in them, even if they've been well cleaned.  It's probably safe, but I don't want to take a chance on contaminating my stash.

Someday, Sepp Holzer or Sangaste rye and Marc Bonfils wheat.  But for now, I'll buy from the market.

Anyway, curious if you are ordering wheat berries from Azure Standard, and if so, what has your experience been?

Thanks,

Kevin

 Anyway, curious if you are ordering wheat berries from Azure Standard, and if so, what has your experience been?

Kevin, we order all of our organic bulk wheat, rice, buckwheat, beans from them plus many other things....a monthly order delivered less than a mile from our house and divied up right off the semi.
We usually get the soft wheat as it's easier to grind and most of what we make is iron skillet stove top breads and it even works fine for sourdough and sprouts....and planted in the garden.

Their prices are good, shipping excellent and it's reminescent for us from early seventies food coop 'People's Food' in Illinois.  

Judith -

Thanks for the report/review of Azure Standard.  I have mostly been making slow fermented sourdough style bread, but only during the winter time.  I am still playing with it, despite this being the fourth winter (this time around - I'd played with it previously, a few years back, also), so am far from an accomplished baker.  But, it's mostly been edible and nourishing!

The drop location nearest me is a couple or three miles from me.  I haven't actually clocked it, but it's pretty close.  I'll give them a try this winter, and maybe, based on your recommendation, try a small amount of the soft wheat, too.  That might be easier on my Family Grain Mill/Messerschmidt Jupiter flour mill than the hard wheat.

I do want to try growing winter wheat in the Marc Bonfils style and winter rye, also.  I also have some Morton winter lentils to try, bred to survive winters on the Canadian Plains.  But, I have been hesitant to do this in my side yard, because a sewer line runs through there.  They've dug it up at least 6 times in the past few years, including cutting a full trench (about 100 feet) to rerun the line in plastic pipe (but they've still been in there at least twice since then), so nothing is really safe there.  It needs to get sorted out properly (i.e. the properties using that line should abandon it and use the sewer hookups at their front doors, though that's my preferred solution, and would cost everyone else money, and save me grief).  Anyway, I'm on the lookout for somewhere else to do my trials.  It needs to be a place with long term prospects, because it reportedly takes several years to see the beneficial results of the deepening soil profile due to the extensive root mass.  Maybe my nephew will let me use a small corner of his garden lots...

Thanks again,

Kevin