Milling and Provenance: The wheat to make Churchill needs to be of high protein strength to ensure its consistency when baking. We test all of the wheat before accepting any load into the mill. Each load is collected from one of our local Cotswold Grain Partnership farmers by Matthews and delivered direct to the mill. During harvest this can mean literally driving straight onto the field and down the hill to the Cotswold mill. The wheat is stored in our 100-year-old pine grain silos before being finely roller milled into a pure consistent strong white bread flour for home baking or professional artisan bakers around the UK.
Did you know: The flour is named “Churchill” as the wheat comes from the area between the village of Churchill 4 miles to our west and Blenheim palace 10 miles to our east once home to the great Winston Churchill. In between sits a new farmer called Jeremy who supplies some very strong high protein bread wheat we used in the grist for this Churchill strong white flour seen on “Clarkson’s Farm”. This flour is then used to make sourdough bread in the mill, surrounding local bakeries. This flour is chosen as the number 1 flour for sourdough baking by Cotswold master bakers around the country. The Cotswold Sourdough loaf is served up in the local village pub “The Chequers Churchill” , always a starter for the Matthews family during visits.
Matthews Sourdough Baking Top Tips: 1: Follow a formula of a sourdough baker like Elaine Boddy. 2: Don’t forget to feed your starter. 3: Shape your loaves properly on a large work surface, rotate 90 degrees and pull back to yourself. Try not to shape to tightly as it will lose its structure. 4: Don’t over ferment your dough to the point where it becomes wet and sticky. If you find this reduce your fermentation time. 5: For improved taste, structure, flexibility and a slower rise refrigerated proofing can work wonders. Be sure the dough is in a airtight container. Churchill has a higher water absorption than standard strong white flour you buy in the supermarket.
Flour Number: 10
Flour Type: Bread Flour
Flour Type Detail: Sourdough Strong White Bread Flour
Origin: Great Britain
Farming Method: Conventional
Grain Type: Hard Red Spring Wheat
Milling Method: Conventional
Health: Unbleached flour, no extra additives.
Wheat origin: Great Britain
Contains: Wheat
Protein: 12.8% protein
Gluten Quality: The gluten quality in Churchill flour comes from the two main proteins in bread flour “Glutenin” which creates elasticity and chewiness and “Gliadin” which creates extensibility which helps support a better rise.
Perfect for & Recipes: All bread recipes, sourdough bread recipes, sourdough starter, artisan bread recipes, bagels, no-knead bread, white bread.
