The subject mater herein relates to coal mills and, more particularly, inferential pulverized fuel flow sensing and manipulation within a coal mill. Various embodiments provide systems, methods, and software to manipulate a primary air flow rate and a coal feed rate into a coal mill to produce a target pulverized fuel flow. Some embodiments include sensing a differential pressure between two or more locations within a coal mill to estimate a recirculated load of coal at one or more stages within the coal mill.