Lalitha- Sorry, I don't have any experience with, or information about, the mills you are inquiring about. One rule-of-thumb I can share: stones grind finer than steel burrs, and an impact mill the finest flour of all, and that's about all I can help you with; other than a great respect for German workmanship and they are indeed very handsome mills. The price would be my biggest deterrent. Even though I have a couple stone mills, I also keep extra stones for the mills because they can chip, flake and break (check for stones and grit in your grains/seeds/beans before adding them to the mill hopper), or glaze over from too much moisture in your grains/seeds/beans. The stones are also made from a variety of things, including man-made "stone". When using a stone mill, you may need to mill the grain on a coarse setting, and then run the flour through again on a finer setting in order to get the fine flour (especially necessary for making cakes and a fine-crumb for yeast/naturally-leavened breads. How an impact mill works: "Impact grinders use rows of 'blades' placed in circular rows on metal wheels. One wheel turns and the other wheel is stationary, like the stone grinder. But this is where the similarity ends. The two wheels are aligned so that the rows of blades intermesh, running extremely close, yet never touching the blades on the opposite wheel. The rotating wheel turns at several thousand RPM. As grain is fed into the center of the fixed wheel, the interaction between the two wheels `impacts' the grain and pulverizes it [Grainlady note: the grain "explodes" rather than being crushed] into fine flour as the grain works its way to the outside of the wheels." For REAL sandwich bread--- I would suggest purchasing a Pullman (Pain de Mie) Pan (a square pan with a lid). This pan will allow you to make that crustless, close-grained bread that will help you transition from commercial sandwich bread to homemade. A close-grain crumb is what you want in order to be able to cut thin slices, hold moist spreads (without dripping through a hole), and still be able to hold together to eat out-of-hand. That's the more-or-less "technical" characteristics for sandwich bread. A more open crumb is best used for toast. All those lovely places to hold melted butter and jam. I have a 1-pound Pullman Pan (perfect for hubby and me), and a 2-pound for when the house is full of family visiting. Another tip for making a fine-crumb bread is to add the fat early during mixing. The fat coats the gluten, similar to making short-crust pastry. If you want a more open crumb (as well as more loft), add the fat late in mixing, after the gluten has developed. For making 100% whole wheat bread (or multi-grain where one of the grains is wheat), I suggest using hard (spring or winter) white wheat over red wheat. White wheat flour has a mild flavor and lighter color and is less acidic-tasting than the flavor associated with "whole wheat bread" made with red wheat varieties. White wheat has the same plant traits and nutrition as red wheat varieties, it's just missing the genes for the bran color. There are three genes that make up the bran color. Early varieties of red wheat (such as Turkey Red) had all three genes and are very dark in color (bran, flour and finished product) and a strong "whole wheat" taste. Most of today's varieties of red wheat have one or two of those genes, while white wheat has none. I use and store both red and white varieties of wheat. Step back a generation or two and use a sponge method over the quicker straight (or direct) dough method. You'll find you get a finer texture. The "wait" gives the bran in the wholegrain flour time to soften (the hard sharp shreds of bran can actually cut the gluten strands), and you'll get a high-rising loaf of bread. According to "CookWise": "Researchers suggest that an ideal standing period is 2-1/2 hours." I typically use an overnight sponge with 100% wholegrain flour works well to lighten the bread. If I'm in a hurry, I use a 2-1/2 hour sponge with good results. I also add 1/4 t. ascorbic acid per loaf to counteract the negative effects from Glutathione (found in wheat germ) on gluten-development. This will help prevent baking those squatty loaves of 100% whole wheat bread. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur Flour - Pullman Pan

Oh, no! Bad sentence on my part. Southern California. We had a wonderful Syrian bakery that made brilliant pita. I still miss them. My heart breaks for what has happened there, but I've never been to Syria. You haven't said why you're eschewing "enriched flour" and don't need to, but white flour products are required by law to use vitamin enriched flour, and even most home baking white flour (bleached or unbleached) is enriched and has a little malted barley flour in it as well, which has a lot of an enzyme that's needed for rising. Unless you have a specific problem with one or more of the vitamins or the barley, the enrichment shouldn't be a problem. Maybe you're just concerned that there's white flour in there. White flour is often added to whole wheat flour to make the rise spongier. Sometimes vital wheat gluten is added to strengthen the gluten (the bran in the whole wheat can weaken or cut it). Wheat gluten can be isolated by hand by washing the wheat and kneading out the starch, and has been done for centuries, so it's not a weird industrial product. Anything that's made with white flour in the U.S. uses enriched flour. There may be some places that mill and sift their own flours that do not, but that's an extremely rare exception. Therefore, I would guarantee that the Lebanese pita are made with enriched flour. The thinner thing is probably a lack of leavening. Even in the Middle East, nowadays, the pita have leavening and are a bit spongy. That's not traditional. :) I haven't seen Kontos, and I'd guess it's an East Coast brand. I don't doubt that it's good! Whole Foods might be a better place to get 100% whole wheat, however, unless you can find a Middle Eastern or halal store where people are into the "new" kind of dietary laws (no white flour, pasture raise livestock, etc.). Maybe try stores near the colleges? College kids tend to be into better eating. Turlock is from California. I know they freeze to ship it to avoid preservatives, so you might find it there, but more likely the Whole Foods have something local. Good luck on your quest.

AH, the art of cake making... For a tender cake you'll always benefit from choosing a low-protein flour like cake flour, pastry flour or Southern all-purpose. Not only the low-gluten (protein) level, but it's also a much smaller particle. The fine-grind helps produce better texture. Cake flour is typically bleached (something I avoid if at all possible), but King Arthur Flour has unbleached cake flour (see link below). But saying that, there ARE some benefits from using bleached cake flour... (source: CookWise by Shirley O. Corriher) -Bleached flour is slightly acid. -The acidity causes the cake to set slightly sooner in the oven, which produces cakes with a finer texture. -Rose Levy Beranbaum points out that lower-pH (more acid) batters produce a sweeter, more aromatic quality in cakes. -Clorination (bleaching) enhances the starches ability to absorb water. -Fat sticks to chlorinated starch but not to starch from the same wheat that has not been chlorinated. Since all the air bubbles are in the fat, this leads to a more even distribution of the bubbles, which produces a finer texture. Cake flour is milled from soft wheat varieties (low-protein varieties), while all-purpose flour is milled from a mixture of hard and soft wheat. Therefore, "all-purpose" flour is designed for all purposes. Just enough hard wheat flour to make a fairly good loaf of yeast bread, and enough soft flour to use for pastry, quick breads, etc. Unfortunately, it's actually not optimal for most things it's used for. Bread flour is milled from hard wheat varieties which have higher gluten/protein levels needed for high-rising yeast breads. I mill my own flour and use a 3:1 mixture of soft white wheat and oat groats or spelt and mill it very fine for a low gluten, wholegrain cake flour that will work for light cakes like chiffon and angel food. I compensate for using unbleached flour by increasing the sugar slightly. You will also find using a Southern All-Purpose flour like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band, will work better in recipes where you don't want a lot of gluten-development (cakes, pastry, biscuits, quick breads, etc...) than using National brands of all-purpose (Gold Medal, Pillsbury). If you normally use King Arthur or Robin Hood all-purpose, they have even more protein than National Brands of all-purpose and I'd avoid using them for baked goods you don't want a lot of gluten-development. If you MUST use these high-protein flours for things like pastry or biscuits, you can compensate by adding more fat, which coats the flour and prevents it from developing when the liquid is added. It's also beneficial to keep mixing to a minimum when making a cake to avoid over-developing the gluten. Mixing methods produce different kinds of cakes. If lightness is what you are looking for, take extreme care on the creaming. You want your butter to be between 65-70°F (take the temperature with an instant read thermometer). You may even want to chill the bowl and the beaters before starting the creaming to keep the temperature on the cold side. While one "expert" recommends creaming for 4 to 5 minutes, another for 6 to 10 minutes, it's a very important step. If you use a stand mixer it will take less time than if you use a hand-held mixer. Make sure your eggs are room temperature. The volume of the cake can be reduced just by adding cold eggs. It may sound old-fashioned and extra work, but sifting the dry ingredients together several times will help to evenly distribute the ingredients and improve the finished product. Don't forget to add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately. I like to add a lot of the dry ingredients in the first addition to the creamed ingredients because the fat will coat the flour to prevent gluten formation. Add about 1/3 of the liquid and mix, more flour, etc. Keep mixing to a bare minimum to prevent gluten-development. I use a Danish Dough Whisk for mixing batters of any kind to avoid over-developing the gluten. -Grainlady

If you can get King Arthur flour, that works better than anything else. Buttermilk Biscuits 2 1/2 cups self rising flour (I use King Arthur) 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 cup PLAIN Crisco (not butter) 1 cup whole milk buttermilk Preheat oven to 425*. Cut Crisco into flour with a pastry cutter or fork until well mixed. Add buttermilk and stir. Turn out onto floured surface and pat out, turn in half, flip, pat out, and turn bottom half over. Pat out and cut with biscuit cutter. Place in pan sprayed with Pam. Reform leftover dough and cut rest of biscuits. I form the last biscuit by hand. You can do them all by hand if no cutter. Bake about 10 to 15 minutes. 1. You can cut recipe in half. You can also take out of oven after they are just done, but not brown, and freeze after they are cool. 2. To use regular flour, 2 1/2 cup plain flour, 2 tablespoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt. 3. We like to butter our biscuits after they are cooked and do not like butter in the dough. If you want butter in the dough, use 1/2 cup unsalted butter, omit Crisco. 4. The lard you get in the grocery stores now is not the same as old fashioned lard. If you have a source for real fresh lard, you can use 1/2 cup lard instead of Crisco or butter. 5. Keep your hands well floured and also dust a small amount on top of dough and under dough as you turn. Keep a light hand, you are not kneading yeast dough. Dust the cutter with flour, also. The first biscuits after I got married in 1970, you could of used for hockey pucks, lol. He ate them anyway!