It was past time to upgrade by baseline sifter, so I finally got myself a new fancy scientific grade #40 mesh sieve. This is going to replace my old cheap over-sized #50 mesh sifter (although it wasn’t truly rated, just marketed as a #50 mesh online). This #40 mesh will let flour particles smaller than 425 microns (.0165 inches) through. For comparison, my #120 mesh sieve sorts flour down to 125 microns (.0049 inches)–a lot of work but makes for an incredibly fine flour that is fun to make dough with.

Besides just for the sake of having a nice piece of equipment, this sifter is step one in my new plan to get back into bread making using straight flour. Straight flour means the whole grain with the bran and some germ removed, typically a 75% extraction. I think this #40 mesh is about right to get the extraction ratio I am looking for. A test run seems to bear this out, but I have to try with slight variations in the grind setting on the mill and different wheat berries.