Bread Making Basics: My Haphazard Intro & Decade-Long Journey Into to Flour

Let’s talk about bread ingredients, specifically wheat flours in an Australian and international context:

I live in Australia, and despite being a dry, inhospitable nation of continental size, with farmers lacking better things to do than literally watching grass grow, (I lived on a farm, so I know, and wheat is a merely a productive grass, sometimes we even watched livestock roam on top too for extra excitement)... Anywho, we grow an insanely disproportionate amount of wheat for our tiny population. :~)

What do you mean by disproportionate?

Australia is definitely not in China’s, Russia’s, or India’s “90 million tons or more each year” club… Yet, in good years, our total production is comparable to each of the U.S./France/Canada’s total wheat production at roughly 40 million metric tons. On average, the land “Oz-traya” (as pronounced by many locals here), ranks about fifth in the world for sheer wheat volume. This is even more impressive when you think that Australia has such a highly urbanised population. (87% in 2025) which means roughly 3 million people produce all our 40 million tons of wheat, along with all of our other cereal crops, legumes, cotton, wool, our insane amount of beef, lamb, chicken, wine, fruit, vegetables, and much, much more.

While wheat is a major crop in Australia's agricultural sector, the combined might of all the other products dwarfs wheat. Which makes it's all the more impressive when factoring production per farming capita.

I started simply, like most people. I went to the local supermarket, bought some "bread flour" and at the time, I was acutally using a 30 year old bread maker with the squeakiest, squealiest paddles you've ever heard. It was fresh bread, it was healthy, but it wasn't what I'd call professional. I don't blame the bread maker, I blame my beginner bread baker status at the time.

Note: If you're looking to get a bread making machine, there are lots donated to various charity stores when they sit unused. An older bread maker can often do everything the newer ones do (except perhaps integrating with smart phones)... and you can often get them at a tiny fraction of a new model.

Just check to see if it works before leaving the store, and most stores will happily accommodate that.

In case you're wondering...

Why didn't I oil the bread maker? Because I didn't know how to do that without putting it into my bread. So we lived with that for a few... years. While the machine remained unchanged, my flour sources definitely evolved.

Back to the flour:

At first, I centred around what was most easily available at the time. Which in Australia, usually involved Laucke branded flours and "bread mixes". They came in small cardboard boxes of 1Kg or so. However, paying top dollar for tiny boutique flour mixes quickly got expensive.

Pretty soon, we ramped up to Lauke's "Crusty White Bread Flour" which came in a 5Kg calico bag. We started making more and more bread until it was clear that the bread maker had become a limiting feature. I didn't have the room to store multiple bread makers, so I started to make bread by hand. Unfortunately, with advanced RSI that a (then) 30-something IT professional and former gamer that had seldom had "ergonomic" anything for much of his life.. that wasn't exactly fun. Interesting, sometimes messy, but oh so painful at times.

Swapping a bread maker for a shiny stand mixer..

So we got a stand mixer to significantly increase the volume and power of our equipment.... and that's when the flour really started to ramp up. At the same time, I had read about French bread, so I bought a lot of French flour... our initial attempts improved things. It was good, but I struggled to make my bread "pop". That was a skill limitation, not an equipment or flour based one.

It wasn't until I started going back to absolute basics... I forsook the stand mixer, and even the humble spoon and mixed the flour with my bare hands that things truly improved. This immediately reduced the pain, and gave me a tactile sensation to "feel" the dough. This really helped when I started mixing different flours together.

Fast forward some years.... there's no "middle road" in my strategies.

So now I'm a bread baker of two opposing extremes. I use either my bare hands, with tiny dabblings of using a dough whisk, or I'll use all stand mixer. I'm never going back to spoon or spatula if I can help it. Naturally, the approach I use, depends on the flour, as much as the recipe.

So where did I buy Aussie flour along the way?

You really can't go wrong with the local health food shops. They've got a lot of pre-milled flours made from various grains to base a dough on... and other types to add to your doughs for additional flavour/texture.

I've also used "The Source" (a whole-foods chain here in Oz) with great (albeit expensive) results, and even bought local flour mixes in bulk from the same baking suppliers that I bought my French/German/Italian flours from. This taught me that as long as you approach your flour with the right recipes/techniques, you can get bread from flours most people would not recommend... or even believe.

Other sources include flours directly from the farmer at several markets, sometimes I've ordered online from specific farmers or commercial mills located around the country. Of course, there's the usual online stores that specialise in organic/heirloom/rustic/traditional products... some offer great value... others... not so much. So shop around.

The point is, that there's a lot of good flours here in Australia. A lot of them, with the right recipe, can make amazing breads reminiscent of those found elsewhere, if that's what you want. You don't have to buy international flours... that said, using foreign flours can help with the right recipes, or make you cry because they've been wasted in others.

Why import flour into Australia when we have so much of it?

With roughly the same amount of wheat as France, and 50% more wheat than Germany, it might seem weird to import flours from those countries… ostensibly of the same or similar type, right?

I do it for two main reasons:

1. The Australian climate is different on average to other countries. Even our specific growing seasons can be significantly different. So each of Australia’s wheat crop offerings has its own characteristics.
2. Australia's milling processess are done differently to other countries. French and German mills aim to please their respective regional tastes. We're no different. That said, there's a great deal of history overseas that influences their culture and tastes... that Australia just doesn't have as a young country.

Back when Italian, German, & French flours were cheaper, I baked with them a lot. I still add a little here and there when I find some in the back of the freezer. I’ve compared several varieties of wheat grown in Australia as well… and In some ways, I think our flours work extremely well for many of the breads that I’ve made. That said, there are definitely recipes out there that almost beg to be used with regional varieties of flour… just not our particular region.

What does switching flour from different regions do for the final bread?

I don’t know how to describe it.. I think our flour is “in the ball park” most of the time… but… depending on the recipe, flavour can shift, the savouriness (or “umami”) can be more noticeable in the crumb, but not the crust… (or vice versa), the rise might be somewhat more or less than expected, the crumb might be a little heavier, and the crust might be a little less crunchy or a little more chewy. Sometimes I can't tell which bread is made with what (in blind tests) and at other times the differences… well… it’s a obvious.

It really depends on the recipe, and of course which type(s) of flour, and all the other variables in making bread. That said, I’ve never had bad bread with Aussie flour, in fact it gets practically inhaled in my home… it's just not quite the flavour/texture a true French/Italian/German/whatever might expect at home. As anyone who remembers how their mother made their favourite meal as a child, versus a still-lovely-but-only-similar-ish meal... it's like that.

So I have to get some authentic foreign flours?

Not necessarily. It's helpful for sure if sticking to "true" French/German/Italian bread is somehow important, but traditional doesn't always mean better. Developments in food science, regenerative farming/biodynamics, the cross-breeding of new grains as well as the resurrection of old ones are leading to new and very tasty baking opportunities with Aussie flours (or local flours wherever you may be). You can absolutely make amazing bread with these local flours! I expect the same to be true wherever you may live, dear reader!

However, as a hobbyist, you might want to branch out into some heirloom grain varieties that might get you closer to international flours... but you're probably going to have to reach out and find them.

Unfortunately, flour is graded under the varying systems put in place by the governments of varying countries, and it's far from standardised. This leads to a good news, bad news situation:

The bad news:

Now, I'm not going to tell you that all flour with the same (or equivalent) ratings are equal between countries, or even batches milled at the same place. There are exceptions at every level. I can only speak in "general guidelines" at best here.

The good news:

While international flours aren't precisely equivalent from one system to another. They're usually close enough to get great tasting bread. Don't stress about being "perfect"... because you're never going to get that.

Avoiding issues before you buy exotic flours.

The whole truth about going beyond wholewheat flours...

Whether you're baking French, German, Italian, or whoever's bread... don't assume flour behaves the same way across the entire rating scale.

Wholewheat varieties and other healthy flours beyond T80 can be very challenging to make bread from... if that's all you use in your dough recipe. They're not usually designed to be used that way.

While flours of certain ratings (say France's T45-65, or equivalent in other countries) can be used exclusively to make bread. Many higher rated flours (T80 and beyond for example) are typically used with a predominantly T55/T65 flour base and a sub-30% addition by total flour weight of higher rated flours. That way, you get the easier-to-bake benefits of a T45-65, but get the flavour and texture from the higher flours. I tried to use a pure T130 in the beginning. Don't get me wrong, used properly, it's fantastic. However, it's a extremely hard flour to make good bread from in pure form. I got a really dense (almost no rise), dry-ish slab, that just wasn't pleasant to eat. Then I dialed it back to 15-30% of the flour volume and everything got better. Rustic flavour has it's limits, and can come at a price, no matter how healthy or traditional the flour may be.

Making sense of international flour types, across multiple countries, and multiple purposes.

Western, non-Euro countries (Australia/US for example) approach things differently to our European counterparts.

There are many systems to grade flour. Counties like the U.S. and Australia tend to be rather "imprecise". We have self-raising flour, plain flour, wholemeal flour, and even rye flour. There's also semolina, corn flour (or Maize flour). The term "Bread flour" is often described as a flour with higher protein count... but it's misleading because you can make bread with low protein flours. It's arguable then, that there's no such thing as "bread flour". That said, if you're aiming tall fluffy baguettes... starting with flours that have higher protein and gluten content (over 10%), will make life much easier.

Enter the European countries...

Dissatisified by vague hand-wavy terms which are arguably misleading. France and Germany took a more scientific approach. By scientific, I mean the burn their flour, and weigh what's left.

You see, when you burn it, the moisture and oils are evaporated/burned. Only the minerals remain. So if they set fire to 5 grams of flour, and it has just 0.55g of weight left... that gets a T55 designation. More refined flours (white all purpose flour) is pulverised into submission, so there's less minerals left, thus having lower T scores. The flours that are less... "refined" or "more rustic" leave more of the original grain in the flour, and as such have more ash remaining. Usually, this garners higher T scores. If a rye leaves 1.3g of the original 5g after burning, that get's T130 in France. Things got a bit complex for the darker rye flours (T1150 doesn't work this way) so they were given an extra digit for presumably bureaucratic reasons... it didn't suddenly leave 11.5g from a mere 5g of original flour :~) (Fire doesn't make fuel... obviously). Germany uses the same burning process, but uses a 3 or 4 digit "Type" designation for extra precision (so German, right?). Italy does things with a completely different system which uses numbers in the refined end, then switches to the Aussie/U.S. system of words pretty quickly after that (naturally, the words are Italian but often directly translate into English).

Here's my rough table to depict equivalent flour ratings across several countries. This is not exact, just a starting point.

Should I buy international flour?

That depends, especially with all the tarriff nonsense coming out of the U.S., on top of the perennial issues like supply-chain costs, market forces, even quarantine/customs. It really depends where you are, what you're trying to get, and how much money you're willing to spend.

Before you order the flours mentioned in YouTube videos...

The online world constantly talks about U.S.-centric flour brands like “King Arthur” and “Bob’s Red Mill”, or European offerings like the fancy “Farine de Blé Noir de Bretagne” (that’s French for special buckwheat from Brittany) or “Gofio Canario” (a mix of toasted cereals like millet and wheat, with a dash of salt in there, lovingly grown in the volcanic soils and somewhat milder Mediterranean-ish climate of the Canary Islands, and carefully made to regional tastes)…

Honestly, it can be hard for humble non-US/Euro bread bakers to source such ingredients, or even vaguely guess the flavours that they’re aiming for if trying to immitate such goods. This makes it hard to judge if paying insane shipping and import fees is actually worthwhile. That’s assuming you can find someone willing to ship it to you… and that’s not always the case.

The trouble with imports, even when they're authentic, or made conveniently more accessible by local resellers.

Naturally, when ordering flours from overseas… it’s hard to know just how long they’ve been sitting in a warehouse, then shipped, and whether that packaging was “up to the task” of preserving as much “goodness” as possible.

This is especially true when local resellers might break the huge 25/40/50Kg bakery-sized flour bags into 1Kg hobbyist-friendly vacuum-sealed packages. None of the original packaging, batch numbers, or even use-by dates are delivered to the end point. I'm not saying the dates are misrepresented, but there's no guarantee that they're always accurate either. Conditions in container ships may shorten shelf life... the manufacturer doesn't know where a bag of flour will end up, and the reseller doesn't know what the products have experienced on the way either unless there's an obvious problem.

This is the harsh reality of international logistics, and I don't want to demonise anyone unfairly.

I’ve ordered both the huge bags, and broken-down options from my hard-working cohorts at Basic Ingredients, (an Australian baking supplier). While I can verify the big bags are indeed of French origin. I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the smaller bags, as they produce identical results, given the same recipe of course.

Yet there’s some other undeniable issues in both finding and affording these days. Things have changed a lot in the past 10+ years that I’ve been baking.

Getting international flours/wheats imported to Australia used to command a respectable, but manageable premium. Now, it is harder to get so it's often out of stock or just more expensive.

Is importing flour worth it, now that things are getting expensive?

From what I’ve tried with those flours, I’ve learned that you have to be careful about how you use the exotic flours. Sometimes using fancy flours doesn’t make a difference, (or put another way, local flours are just as good) and other times.. it really does make sense to use a European flour.

While I still love the folks who’ve supplied me with proper French/German/Italian flours in the past, the availability has dropped considerably in recent years, all while the costs risen. As a humble hobbyist, I can’t justify the bulk ordering requirements to get those prices back down. I just can’t store that much flour. Let alone use it before it goes off....

...Plus I always like to try new flours or use underrated flours in new and hopefully beneficial ways. :-)

Local flour substitutes for foreign flours.

Interestingly, local suppliers are now selling Australian flours, but with European ratings… I assume that means they are in fact, at least equivalent when tested in the lab somewhere. Whether that translates to the same flavour/texture and other overall bread results… I cannot say because I haven’t personally tried it. (I only just found out about it).

The only problem with this, is that… in my (amateur bread baking) view… paying $7-$10 per kilogram for what is effectively, domestic flour that’s trying to be the equivalent of true imported flour, that only costs $3 per kilogram in the same store here in Australia… seems at some level… counter-intuitive. I’ve carefully scoured the product descriptions.

There’s no “certified organic” or “biodynamic” or other “eco-friendly” labels on either product. No “premium” capabilities or features to indicate what makes flour that’s travelled less more expensive.

However, one would assume (hopefully reasonably) that the grain that’s travelled less is at least, more likely to be fresher than flour that was milled overseas, shipped over weeks to the other side of the world, and hopefully sold in a reasonable time frame.

Curiously, the same supplier offers a “freshly milled flour” which sells for about $10/Kg. Which, when milled freshly, and “to specification” makes sense, even when using local varieties. But that got me thinking….

If "freshness" and "to spec" (I assume fineness or coarseness of the grind) commands a higher price than importing flour, or approximating imported flour with local wheat.... that's got to be an indication that freshness really matters!

So, what can a humble bread baker do?

Grind your own flour!

My strategy is simple: Find a suitable grinder to do that. Yet that was "easier said than done". What a range! and wow were the pricier home-mill options... exclusive!

My mill requirements were simple:

• Small as possible: We don’t have a lot of spare kitchen space, and I’m not going to mill 10Kg of flour at a time.
• Value for money. Screaming down the premium $1000+ Mock Mills is not appropriate for us, nor do we know for sure that we’ll use it that much. Let’s aim for a modest initial investment.. we can always upgrade later. If there are any sales to take advantage of, I’m happy to wait.
• Not plastic rubbish. Metal construction, serviceable parts, simple construction, decent warranty.
• Easy enough to use, but I am willing to put more effort in for a commensurately lower price point.
• Take opportunities to use whatever kitchen gear I have or augment them.

Choosing a flour mill.

In the end, since I have a stand mixer, I chose to go down the “mill attachment” route. It packs away, it’s much cheaper than most of the stand alone devices, and there’s very little that can feasibly go wrong with them… if you get a good one.

Initially, I looked at the AliExpress “All metal” options. Most were priced between $62-130 Australian with about 20-40 dollars of shipping… but there were a lot of low-star reviews, if there were any reviews at all. So I looked into the official Kitchen Aid attachment, it usually sold around $229, and the Mock Mill Kitchen Aid attachment sold for $399. This was in my "dipping my toe into flour milling" budget.

Kitchen Aid Vs. Mock Mill Attachment

Is more expensive better? Let's look at the Mock Mill Attachment:

The pricier Mock Mill attachment claims to work exactly the same way as MockMill’s stand alone grinders. It uses the same corundum/ceramic milling stones.

Note: It fits almost every Kitchen Aid mixer, except (perhaps?) the “Artisan Mini”. All the others are fine, regardless of whether that’s a normal Artisan tilt-head, and all the bigger “Professional” bowl-lift models. There are even Mock Mill attachments for other brands of stand mixers if they have compatible mount points (check this before buying). Listed brands of compatible stand mixers include KitchenAid, Electrolux, AEG, and Kenmore.

Be careful what you grind though, this attachment expects DRY grains (<15% by weight, water). Oily beans like coffee, or oily seeds like flax, sesame, and poppy, and oily nuts such as peanuts must not be used.

Here’s a list of the “approved millable foods”, from the Mock Mill attachment manual:

The Mockmill stone burr is only designed for use with the following substances, which must be under 15% (by weight) water content:

• Common dry grains including wheat (either hard or soft types), oat groats (dehulled oats), rice, triticale, khorosan (Kamut), spelt, buck-wheat, barley, rye, millet, teff, quinoa, amaranth, sorghum, field corn (but not popcorn), dry lentils, dry beans (such as pinto, red, navy and kidney) and dry spices. Milling of any substance not listed here may void your warranty. There are exceptions, so please contact us if you have any doubts or questions as to what may be milled.

Interestingly, I wondered:

“If the Mock Mill is nearly twice the price, and has all these exclusions…. just how limited is the Kitchen Aid?”

Let's look at the Kitchen Aid:

So this is the excerpt from the Kitchenaid mill attachment manual:

Suggested grains:

Wheat, corn, rye, oats, rice, buckwheat, barley and millet.

Warnings:

• Do not grind coffee beans in your grain mill; their high oil content can damage the grinding mechanism. Coffee beans may be ground with the KitchenAid Artisan Burr Grinder. (not this attachment)
• Do not grind grains or nuts with high moisture or oil content, such as peanuts, sunflower seeds, and soybeans. These can also damage the grinding mechanism.

Does that seem… remarkably familiar… albeit worded differently?

A "head to head" comparison:

Now, I suspect that despite the limitations, the Mock Mills grinding mechanism will possibly do a slightly finer grinding job.. but I don’t think the difference will be commensurate with the additional price difference.

That said, a lot of YouTube videos and online reviews later, the people who had used both said that the Mock Mill was their preference, despite both doing a "good job". Some reviewers had owned the KitchenAid model for upwards of 10 or even 15 years, and used the MockMill more often for varying reasons such as:

• The KitchenAid needed to be adjusted on a "case by case" basis, whereas the Mock Mill was slightly less fussy.
• The Mock Mill was slightly less noisy on the recommended high speed setting.
• Convenience of the Mock Mill's chute that guides the flour into the stand mixer bowl. (All manner of improvised setups have been used to capture the flour from the KitchenAid attachment.
• The Mock Mill's slightly finer grind at the fine end.
• No metal on metal sqeaking, due to the design using grinding stones.

So why did I choose the KitchenAid?

The tipping point for me was the sale price that dropped the Kitchen Aid attachment down to $149, delivered. Suddenly in order to justify the Mock Mill attachment, I’d have to increase the price by 165% I can get a hefty amount of wheat for that! I’m pretty sure the minor differences will be less bothersome given the 63% (nearly two thirds) reduction in price from the Mock Mill attachment.

YOUR MILEAGE AND PRIORITIES MAY VARY!

If you don’t have a compatible stand mixer, attachment mills are not going to work for you. You either need a stand-alone mill, or if you have a high end and powerful blender (Vitamix/Blendtec) you can do it (in painfully slow batches) .. but many people discourage this online.. I think because the blenders heat the grain up too much… which reduces the benefits of milling your own flour.

Thinking about "low tech" options?

I’ve even seen my grandmother crush it in a mortar and pestle by hand, then sifting it through varying degrees of sieves to ensure consistency… but that was a tedious process.

Once you’ve figured out what device will do the milling, you have to consider its capabilities and limitation (like those listed above). Removing the motor doesn't change much at the "milling end". That said, there's a hand-crank milling option for everything out there... just don't expect to save all that much money. Because more capable hand-cranked mills are generally larger in order to provide better leverage, so there's more material to pay for.

My initial milling strategy:

Start small by buying specific grains (rather than mixes), and milling my own flour from scratch, this will no doubt help the baking. However, instead of replacing all my old commercially-milled flour varieties, I’ll mix about 20-30% the home-milled stuff with 70-80% of my usual commercial flours to develop a baseline while saving some cash.

Once I’m more confident, and have a vague understanding, of what I like and don’t… I’ll probably tweak the ratios in 5% increments, and of course, experiment with other grains too.

Actually, I really like it on several fronts!

Does it save money?

I managed to find a 20Kg bag of organic hard wheat berries for $60 (with a shipping fee of $40) This puts it at roughly $5/Kg. That's half of "milled to spec" price. So I've just saved myself $100... perhaps even $140 (that $10 per kilo price does not include shipping here). Want to know something?... that's basically my mill attachment cost covered in the first bag alone! I usually aim for $4-7 per kilo for my commercially milled flours so it's on the lower end of that range. Interestingly, the ryes are a bit more expensive so this should reduce costs about 20-40%, and more exotic flours by as much as 60%

My experiences with using the KitchenAid attachment so far...

Let's talk about milling speed.

The KitchenAid mill attachment is not going to win any speed awards. However for a hobbyist it's more than enough.

Personally, I find it no imposition to run the mill at the stand mixer's slowest speed (despite being told to run it on high) and just take our time. I do this because it's way quieter than the stand alone mills, and I can prepare other meals while it's grinding.

I don't recommend leaving it unattended while grinding, particularly at finer grind settings because if there's a problem, the short gap between parts can be closed and grinding metal-on-metal noises aren't good for grinder longevity. I also don't recommend unattended use at higher speeds since they can loosen the entire attachment from the stand mixer... and that's a solid metal device that's heavy enough to damage tiled floors if it comes loose. It hasn't happened yet, but I've seen it strain against the locking screw more than once. If you need to leave simply stop the stand mixer and start again when you come back.

Yeah, but how fast is it on "slow"?

I can mill 1Kg of wheat berries in a single-pass, second-from-finest-setting (on the mill) grade of flour in under 30 minutes. That's enough to make three 1Kg loaves with a 30% fresh milled-wheat ratio. I don't know how much bread you use, but that is about 7-10 days of bread for our household.

Making the flour "on the day" is about as fresh as it gets. However, I've had no noticeable difference if I grind it the day before and seal it up into an air-tight container and sticking it in the fridge.

Most of the time, I literally start the mill an hour before making my doughs.... perhaps as I make/eat breakfast and drink a tea, and get my other bread baking paraphernalia sorted.

I don't feel a need, the need for speed....

If you're the sort of person who's making good breads, you're used to doing things slowly... or at least, ahead of time. This mill is not going to intrude on that. You can easily fit a milling into your timeline if you're using a preferment like a biga, a poolish or pâté fermentée, or using make ahead recipes. I can't understand why people are prioritizing the milling rate so heavily when the "fineness" of the grind is glossed over entirely in most spec sheets, and even if it is, it doesn't tell you that you're probably not going to get as fine as most commercial flour.

How fine is the finest setting?

Like I said, as it comes straight out of the mill, note it's not as fine as commercial flour, but a lot of goodness had to be extracted from commercial flours to get to that point. It's definitely a little grittier if you rub it between your fingers, but in a 70:30 (commercial/home milled) ratio that tiny bit of texture is not going to cause anyone issues. Even if you leave all the bran-like bits in. (Also known as "Full retention").

If you really want it to be finer, you can pass the flour through a second time, (full retention is maintained) or sift the milled flour through whatever sieve you have, and extract most of the grit that way.. (low retention) or you can choose to add back a portion of the bran (partial retention) as a compromise after the fact if you wish.

Grit isn't bad!

That grit though does have a corresponding uptick in both health benefits, natural yeasts, and of course, rustic flavours. So, please keep this in mind before sifting all of it out.

How's the bread? Is it worth it?

Ok, I've baked bread for over a decade, and honestly the difference between using freshly milled flour and just using commercial stuff... is immediately noticeable. The bread flavours you're used do are to summarize, amplified. Bread is no longer just subtle flavour behind those of your sandwich fillings, it stands alongside them, and on simpler meals like buttered dinner rolls, you don't necessarily need more than that! Ciabatta's made with fresh flours need little more than olive oil, and when delightfully toasted, it adds a dellightful crunch and flavour to any sandwich. I made the strongest ciabatta garlic pizza while sick last week, and I still appreciated the bread's flavour under 14 tablespoons of freshly minced garlic. (Did I mention I hate being sick.. I'll carpet bomb myself with garlic if it reduces my sickness by so much as 5 minutes).

Why not go 100% fresh flour?

Now, I still recommend a predominantly commercial mix because it's going to give you most of the benefits without messing your existing recipes up or causing much shaping issues. Fresh flours are great, but they do change things... drastically at times.. and those times usually involve shaping, and fermentation.

Conclusion:

In short, there's nothing wrong with using commercial flour. I still use it for the majority of my loaves. That said, I love adding fresh flours and it has absolutely taken my bread to a new level. I look forward to seeing where new grains and mixes thereof will take me. I'll post a few pics when I'm not sick (because of children being happy little incubators, not my bread) or covered in dough.

There's a whole world of flours out there. Don't be afraid to try something new, or foreign. That said, don't ever let anyone say you can't make good bread with whatever flour you have available. Even if you have specific dietary requirements, or are limited in time/money, a fresh home-made loaf will always be something that makes a meal a little more special.

All the best in your bread baking journey!

Ham.