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Newbie’s Guide to Flour for Bread Baking
To a lot of people who are new to baking their own bread, flour is flour; it’s a white powder you buy at the grocery store. Mix it with some other stuff and stick it in the oven and bread comes out. Maybe there’s some magic words in there somewhere.
Actually, baking bread can be almost that simple. If you don’t believe it, try this no-knead recipe (first thing we ever posted on Breadtopia).
But there are a lot of different forms of flour available and the methods you need to use to get a good loaf of bread with one or another of the types of flour really varies a lot. So if you want good results, you need to know the basics of the different types of flour that bread bakers use, what you can and can’t expect from them, and how you need to treat them differently from one another.
In this post I am going to over-simplify and gloss over a lot of detail for the sake of trying to give a newbie-friendly overview of the different kinds of flour that are available for making bread at home.
On Rolling and Stones
The first big distinction to be aware of is the type of mill that a given flour was created with. There are actually a lot of different ways to make flour, including the historically original mortar and pestle, but for our simple purposes, I’m just going to mention the two most common types of mills used today: the roller mill and the stone mill. Though you might start with the same grain as input, the flour output from these two types of mills is a very different product with very different properties for bread baking. Different enough that you can’t simply substitute one for the other in a given recipe and expect to get good results without making some critical (though relatively simple) adjustments.
Briefly (and again, over-simplifying), a grain of wheat (or “wheat kernel” or “wheat berry”) is composed of three parts; the hard outer “shell” often colored, is called the bran. Underneath that and making up the bulk of the wheat berry is the carbohydrate-rich, white endosperm. And finally, at the core of the berry is the germ (also usually colored).
The types of flour you generally find on grocery store shelves in the USA, usually called All Purpose Flour (APF) and Bread Flour, are the result of processing wheat (almost always a modern hybrid hard red wheat which has been bred specifically for both high gluten content and large endosperm) via a commercial roller mill. Roller mills smash the grains and then (and this is the critical part), separate out virtually all of the bran and the germ (which is either discarded or used to make other products) from the endosperm which becomes the entirety of the extremely fine white powder that ends up inside the bag. Because all the color in most wheat comes from the bran and the germ and because the flour that results from the process of roller milling excludes both bran and germ from the end product, roller milled flour is often commonly and generically referred to as “white flour” (not to be confused with flour made from “white wheat” which is just a type of wheat whose bran is not pigmented).
Another type of “white flour” you may see at the grocery store is Tipo 00 or doppio zero flour. This flour has been milled even more finely than all purpose and bread flours. Originating in Italy, Tipo 00 is used mainly for pizza crusts and pasta, and gives a tender but still strong texture. Tipo 00 can have different gluten strength depending on the wheat used, but all else equal, the powdery fineness makes it need less water than all purpose or bread flour.
By contrast, so-called “stone ground” flour that is made with a stone mill (either a large commercial stone mill or any of a variety of home, countertop stone mills) is wheat that has been literally ground between two stones – usually one which remains stationary and one which turns. The initial end result of that grinding is a powdered mix of all three components of the wheat grain. This is variously called “whole wheat,” “whole grain,” or “whole meal” flour.
The inclusion of the bran and germ components in stone ground, whole grain flour has a variety of effects that are important for bread bakers. I will just touch on some of the more significant ones here.
In terms of baking bread, this last point is probably the biggest deal. When bread bakers talk about the “performance” of a given flour or a given grain, this is mostly what they are talking about. How elastic is the dough, and thus how well will it rise and produce a nice, light, airy crumb.
Sifting Whole Grain Flour for High Extraction Flour
In an effort to keep more of the flavor and nutritional goodness of stone ground, whole grain flour but try to push its performance more in the direction of white flour, whole grain flour is often sifted to remove some or much of the bran and germ. The flour that results from this sifting is variously called “sifted,” “bolted,” “high extraction,” and in Europe often referred to via various numbered “types” of flour (e.g. French T80, German Type 1050, Italian Type 1).
The finer the mesh of the sifter you use, the more bran and germ you sift out of the flour, and the closer to white flour performance you get. This is somewhat counter-intuitively measured for high extraction flour by reporting the percentage of the original grain that is left over after sifting. So, for example, if you take whole grain flour and sift out 15% of it by weight, the resulting flour is called 85% high extraction flour. Roller-milled white flour is usually considered to be about equivalent to 70% – 75% high extraction flour.
Performance-wise, as you might expect, high extraction flour falls somewhere in the middle ground between white flour and un-sifted, whole grain flour. Depending on the degree of extraction (how finely it’s sifted) it might be closer to white flour (very fine) or closer to whole grain (coarser). But wherever it is on that spectrum, it’s going to be thirstier than white flour and less thirsty than whole grain. It’s going to have better gluten development than whole grain flour, but not as good as white flour. It’s going to produce a lighter, more airy and open crumb than whole grain, but not as much so as white flour.
Heritage, Ancient, and Heirloom Grains
The other major factor in how a given flour is going to perform in your bread-making endeavor is the type of grain from which it is made. As I mentioned above, most commercial or “grocery store” flour (especially white flour) is made from modern hybrid hard red wheat. This wheat variety has been bred for very specific commercial purposes which mainly have to do with maximum yield of starchy, carbohydrate rich endosperm (minimum bran and germ) that can most efficiently be roller-milled into a shelf-stable, uniform white powder with a gluten content that lends itself to bread baking. It has specifically not been bred for an interesting flavor profile or high nutritional value.
Because of this, forward-thinking grain farmers and artisan bakers all over the world have turned to heritage, ancient, and heirloom wheat varieties in an effort to produce healthy, delicious, and interesting breads rather than generic, unhealthy, grocery store “wonder” breads.
These alternative grains each have their own flavor, nutrition, and performance properties and as a baker, it’s useful to learn about those differences if you want to use them successfully.
Below is a non-exhaustive, general rundown of some of the wheat varieties we sell here at Breadtopia. You can search for recipes that use a particular flour here. In this article on home milling, you’ll find a list of recipes using these flours in their whole grain form.
Note that the sprouted version of a wheat flour will be slightly sweeter, ferments faster, and the bread will stale slower. You can learn more about sprouted wheat here.
The hard red wheats tend to have the most gluten strength which makes it easier to produce a well-risen, airy loaf of bread. Some people perceive a slight bitterness to the bran of some red wheats, especially if they’re used exclusively in a dough. Wheat varieties in this category, in order of gluten strength, are:
Hard White Spring Wheat doesn’t have the red pigment in the bran and is softer in flavor, but has fairly strong gluten strength, maybe a notch below hard red spring wheat. It’s used for artisan breads, and whole grain pastry that needs more gluten strength, such as these strawberry-rhubarb pop tarts.
Spelt and Sprouted Spelt have a nutty flavor and a unique gluten profile that makes the dough very stretchy or “extensible,” and best managed at a low hydration. The genetics of spelt are also somewhat different from the above wheats, and it makes a lovely whole spelt bread.
Khorasan / Kamut and Durum are also different from other wheats genetically, and somewhat similar to one another. They have a golden colored bran and a lot of protein, but not the composition that makes for strong gluten. A whole grain bread made entirely of flour from these wheats can be somewhat dense and low profile unless baked in a loaf pan. In my experience, one cup of khorasan / Kamut flour is heavier than other flours of the same volume. These wheats are similarly buttery in flavor though not identical. They are delicious for pasta and pizza, and traditional Italian altamura style sourdough bread. Durum in particular is used for most commercial pasta. As high extraction flour, khorasan wheat makes a tall, airy artisan-style bread. Semolina flour is made from durum wheat but via a specific processing where only the middlings of the durum grain are milled into flour.
Emmer (also called Farro) is an ancestor of durum wheat. It’s on the sweet side, with caramel notes, and it has low gluten strength. An emmer dough needs to be stiff to not spread, and the resulting bread will have a soft dense interior. Pasta and cookies are delicious with emmer, but do need more water if substituting for all purpose flour.
Rye is a more distant member of the wheat family and quite different in performance and flavor from conventional wheat. Both Rye and Sprouted Rye are earthy and grassy in flavor, and don’t have much gluten strength. Serafino Rye is a little darker and thirstier than standard rye, while Bono Rye is our softest-flavor rye, more floral than earthy. Both Serafino and Bono have been bred to perform well in drought conditions and to resist disease (ergot). Rye dough is quite sticky at any hydration and benefits from acidic fermentation conditions i.e. sourdough rather than yeast. Rye bread should rest 24 hours before being cut to allow the interior of the bread to set. The inclusion of rye flour in bread is believed to help it resist staling, and rye flour seems to make sourdough starter peak the fastest. Although you can make a freestanding 100% whole grain rye bread with a stiffer dough, you can also use a loaf pan to support a wetter rye dough.
Einkorn is believed to be the oldest cultivated wheat. It has a nutty and slightly sweet flavor. Similar to rye, einkorn flour makes a sticky dough and doesn’t have strong gluten, but an aerated einkorn bread can be achieved through good fermentation. Use a loaf pan to support a dough made exclusively of einkorn flour. Unlike other wheat varieties, whole grain einkorn flour isn’t more thirsty than all purpose flour. This wheat variety can also be delicious in baked goods, though it is more suited to cakes and cookies than flaky pastry that requires gluten.
White Sonora Wheat, Pima Club Wheat, Soft White Wheat These soft wheats are delicious and creamy-flavorful. They can be used in artisan style bread dough at about 60% of the total flour weight or less, adding softness to the crumb texture. Similar to rye, emmer, einkorn, kamut, and durum; a dough made with only whole grain flour from these wheats benefits from a loaf pan for side support. These wheats are fantastic for cookies, cakes, cornbread, muffins with a 1:1 substitution for all purpose flour as they are not particularly thirsty. They have more flavor, aroma, and nutrition than refined flour, but the texture of the final baked good is still fluffy. They are also well suited to pie crust and other pastry, though sifted or bolted makes the dough easier to roll out (or making a 50:50 blend with all purpose flour).
For further reading, see this article on Baking Bread with Low Gluten Wheat. It explains a method for testing the strength of different flours at home and gives strategies for baking bread with low gluten wheat.
[Thanks to both Melissa @fermentada and Paul @homebreadbaker for their contributions to this post.]
Newbie’s Guide to Flour for Bread Baking