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Sifter mesh sizes for semolina and bread flour

gattu_marrudu's picture
gattu_marrudu

Sifter mesh sizes for semolina and bread flour

Hi there,

After years of baking my own bread I decided to start milling my own flour, primarily for economy and freshness, but also because recently it's been hard to find durum semolina in my area.

I got a vintage Mil-Rite that looks quite impressive and ordered some different types of grains. I think the only thing I'm missing are the right size sifters.

I'm planning to make bread flour from wheat and ancient grains, as well as durum semolina. My Central Milling semolina seems to have about 0.4-0.6mm grains.

I have been looking at sifters from different sources but I'm confused by what to buy and where. Breadtopia has #40 and #50, but probably #50 is too fine for my taste, and I'm still missing a coarser mesh for semolina.

What do y'all suggest? Ideally I'd get not more than 2 sizes (I like having few tools). Is #30 OK for semolina and #40 for bread?

Also, what is a comfortable size for a sifter? I plan to make about 2-2.5 punds of flour at a time. Many "fine mesh" sifters I see are 6-9" diameter which seems a bit small.

Thanks,
gm

GaryBishop's picture
GaryBishop

I got great service from bakedeco.com and you can find mesh # to micron conversion here.

charbono's picture
charbono

I have a Mil-Rite, but I've not ground durum.

According to Cereal Technology by Matz, AVI Pub 1970, semolina has the following granulation:

on #30, 4%;

on #50, 20-40%;

on #70, 20-30%;

on #100, 10-20%.

I would certainly get a #30. Either re-mill what rides or find another use for it, such as scald, pancakes, muffin, or starter food.

To set the finer bound for semolina, it depends on whether you will sift by hand or automate. #50 is already pretty fine for hand sifting. Otherwise go with #60 or #70. According to the book, durum flour that falls through is used for noodles.

The book also says to lightly temper for a coarser product.

8-inch sieves aren't very big and progress is slow. The mining classifiers that fit into 5-gal buckets are a little bigger and are inexpensive. Test sieves are commonly in 8-inch diameter, but can be found in pricier 12-inch size. Screens from bakery supply houses are large diameter, but mesh selection is limited.

It may not be intuitive, but sifting goes faster using the finer sieve first.

 

gattu_marrudu's picture
gattu_marrudu

Thank you! Those Vollum sifters look pretty well made and are large enough. They come in #30 and #50, there is no #40, so I'll start with those two sizes.

I guess if I'm doing the fine pass first I'll get a larger #50.

OklahomaHudson's picture
OklahomaHudson

Test sifters can be tricky - as you know by this post...

 

Standard in my usage is generally 8" - so you are in the right neighborhood on the size.  Generally, I used industrial test sieves with metal wire mesh - like these: ( www.bwire.com OR www.newarkwire.com )

Would you consider doubling them up and running through a few different sieving processes?  I would call one of the places that make these sieves, and ask them what is generally used for sanitary bread purposes.