Old flour

[Gianni5]

So this is kind of a long story but I'll try to be as brief as I can.  I own I pizzeria in the bay area and we've been open for over 40 years.  We do ny style pizza and our family has been using the same dough recipe forever.  Occasionally we have little issues with our dough but usually it's an easy fix.  For about the las 6 months our dough has been off.  More elastic, dryer, harder, more dense.  We tried every different variable except the flour.  Months ago we started getting our flour from a different vendor but it was the exact same flour(gold medal superlative flour) to save a little money.  We ended up switching the flour back to our original distributor because they came down in price.  The day we switched our dough was back to normal.  Is it possible we were given old or inferior flour.  Again same exact brand.  I asked my sales rep and he said that they don't make different grades of that type of flour but sometimes vendors will get flour that's close to expired for less.  Anyone have experience with this

[widespreadpizza]

Gianni,  Tom will chime in,  but it is possible that your new,  or now old distributor stored their flour in the refridgerated area of thier warehouse.  This can dry out the flour,  and change its absorbtion values,  and hence the final dough.  I do believe all general mills bags are dated as to production dates.  Do you happen to have any bags from the last distributor?  Even a bench flour bag by chance?  -marc