OUR PARCHMENT AND PAPER PRODUCTS
Baking Parchment
Silicone-coated real parchment is needed for baking at higher temperatures, for stickier products, and for multiple re-uses. The re-use quickly makes real parchment more economical than the widely used cheaper quilon panliners. We have silicone-coated parchment in medium 27 # (44 gsm) and heavyweight 35# (60 gsm) and super heavyweight, 52# (80 gsm). We cut these papers to standard panliner size, custom sizes, squares, or circles, or die-cuts.
Greaseproof Panliner sheets
We also stock non-parchment baking papers, the standard greasepoof and grease-resistant panliners coated in quilon or silicone (GPQ or GPS). The commonplace panliner sheets are lightweight 24# (23 to 25#; 38-42 gsm) and come in white or natural (brown). We have these stocked at the standard panliner size of 16 3/8" by 24 3/8", as well as larger panliners and half-sheets and a variety of other sizes, including circles (for cakes and pies) from 4 inch to 16 inch diameters (standard sizes are 8" and 9" circles). We can do custom sizes and shapes, die-cuts, folding, or inner cuts.
Fine Art Acid-Free Parchment
We stock the finest French high-quality art parchment for stationery, printing, print-making, graphic art work, cards, mounting, books, packaging, and crafts. Made by Ahlstrom in Bousbecque and St-Séverin, France, the Virtual line has attractive unusual colors and textures, comes in extra-large sheets of various weights, as well as 6 colors of smooth sheets, and 5 textured colors: i.e. white and ivory in the Virtual Clouds® line; Nectarine, Lemon, Peach, Apple, Blueberry, and Mint in the Virtual Candy® line; and a ribbed-textured Virtual Vision® line with colors of Bluebell, Lavender, River, Sandy and Cactus. These beautiful papers have been discontinued and we have the only remaining stock.
Parchment Bags for en papillote
We have parchment paper bags for a sophisticated presentation of foods that are cooked in parchment, or "en papillote" in French. Traditionally, fish, meat, and/or vegetables are placed in a scrunched-up sheet of parchment with twisted ends and rolled edges, looking like a forlorn imitation of a bag. Our bags are made from the same high quality uncoated parchment as our sheets and can be cooked with high heat and liquids and oils.
What is basis weight and grain in paper?
What is Basis Weight?
The weight of a kind of paper (not the thickness or density but the simple weight) of a standard-size sheet is described in the USA as a basis weight, using units of pounds (#). It is a very old-fashioned measure, referring to the weight in pounds of a ream (500 sheets) of the standard-size sheet used in a certain industry, and, of course, different for each industry. So there are basically 6 groupings of usages (Bond, Text, Cover etc.) and a standard-size sheet for each (see at left). Food papers are inexplicably grouped with "Tag", thus their size used for calculations is 24" x 36", a convenient size for quick math, since it is 2 feet by 3 feet or 6 square feet. Thus 500 sheets of 6 sq feet = the "#" of the paper. Or, more simply, 1,000 sheets of 3 square feet weigh the corresponding "basis weight", like 24 pounds for 24# paper. Unfortunately, industries that use Bond paper come up with less than half the amount of paper when using their 24#; e.g. their 24# Bond is a much thinner and see-through sheet than a 24# baking paper.
The metric system is the solution to this nonsense, and that uses grams per square meter and is used in the rest of the world, and makes mistakes just not happen- everything from paper to plates of iron can all be described as how many grams does a square meter weigh?
What is Grain?
A term that comes up infrequently in the food parchment industry is grain long or short. It refers to the predominant direction of the fibers in the paper, and that affects the tearing strength of the sheet (and the ease of folding for bookmakers), but also shrinking and stretching. When making paper, the fibers form along the long direction, parallel to the sides of the roll, not cutting across the short width of the roll. Think of a bundle of sticks.
Wet paper would shrink in width when fibers are aligned side by side as they get tighter together- like a squeezed bundle of sticks tied with a rope, and also tend to curl up. But, like sticks, they would not shrink end-to-end, since those fibers (and sticks) do not want to get shorter. Therefore, if you want a long side of a rectangle to not shrink, and for that sheet to not curl top to bottom, we want long fibers running along the longer side of a rectangle, or Grain Long
If you want the fibers running horizontal across your sheet, you would cut the rectangle Grain Short: that would make the long sheet easier to fold midway since it would not be asking the fibers (or sticks) to break. So if you wanted to fold the sheets to form a typical book, you would want to cut Grain Short.
On the other hand, in the cooking world, we tend to cut rectangular sheets grain long to minimize shrinkage and curling up, and it would prevent a tightly wrapped tamale from breaking at the waist (but not stop splitting lengthwise).