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Kamut, Khorasan, and Durum Wheats Comparison
Khorasan (Kamut®) and durum are two wheat varieties that I’ve used interchangeably in pasta, breads, and pizza dough. I know they are related and look similar — in the photo above, durum is the smaller grain on the right — and they supposedly behave similarly. In this experiment, I set out to actually test how similar they are, using a slurry test and baking breads with them. Initially I planned to simply test khorasan and durum, but then decided to add Kamut, which is a trademarked version of khorasan. This means I compared two wheats for terroir or growing location and season differences against another wheat of a different species and terroir. The quick summary is that there seemed to be more terroir difference than species difference in the loaf appearance, and my taste testers didn’t have consistent opinions about the flavors of all three breads. Some found durum more buttery, others found khorasan and Kamut more buttery. Same with sweetness.
Durum wheat is a descendent of emmer wheat, which is the second-oldest wheat after einkorn. Khorasan wheat is believed to be a hybrid of durum and Triticum polonicum. All of these wheats have 28 chromosomes. For reference, Einkorn has 14 chromosomes, and modern and heirloom red and white wheats have 42 chromosomes. In terms of macro nutrient profiles, khorasan has a little more protein and a little less fat than durum.
While durum and khorasan have similar color and genetics, they have quite different historical reach and use. Durum has been widely cultivated for thousands of years throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, and is currently used for almost all consumer pasta products. Semolina, a flour made from the middlings of durum wheat berries, is used in breads and many savory and sweet dishes from Italy and North Africa through the Middle East into Russia and India.
Khorasan, in contrast, is a less known wheat with a fraction of durum’s annual production. It likely originated in the Khorasan region of Iran, and it traveled to the U.S. from Egypt with an airman returning home after WWII. A few decades later, Bob Quinn began cultivating khorasan and trademarked it as Kamut®, eventually founding Montana Grains and Flour to commercially distribute the trademarked grain. Khorasan flour is favored by people with gluten sensitivity for various baked goods, and the extra large grains make attractive pilaf dishes.
Slurry Test
My first step in looking at these flours was to do a slurry test to assess their hydration needs, gluten strength, and enzymatic activity. I mixed the flours with the same amount of water, then handled the dough to feel its texture and stretchiness just after mixing and at 30, 60, and 90 minutes to note how water uptake and gluten strength changed over time. A final evaluation was done about 18 hours later to determine if/how much each dough had broken down due to the particular wheat’s enzymatic activity.
50 grams flour
Mixed with 40 grams water (80% hydration), same dough-feel. Khorasan looks more orange.
Stretching at 30 minutes, khorasan tore.
Stretching at 60 minutes, khorasan tore on both ends.
In this short video at 90 minutes, Kamut tore rather than stretched.
The next day, about 18 hours after mixing, none of the doughs felt as though they’d had gluten breakdown, though durum maybe felt a little stronger, specifically more elastic.
Conclusions: Overall the flours behaved very similarly. Khorasan took a little longer to build strength but caught up to durum, while Kamut lagged a bit in strength after having the most initial cohesiveness. The next day durum seemed to be a little more elastic than the other two. I was surprised by how similar the khorasan and Kamut flours were to durum in terms of thirstiness, and also how different khorasan and Kamut were from each other in color and strength at 90 minutes. Since they’re the same genetic wheat species, I’m guessing terroir (the specific farm / location / season) is mainly responsible for these differences.
Baking Test Results
Khorasan and durum wheats are both described as buttery or nutty with just a hint of sweetness, and it’s also said they have high protein content but not the ideal composition of the protein sub-categories glutenin and gliadin for making an airy bread.
To test these descriptions, I baked breads with these flours to look at the loaf characteristics and flavor. The dough formula was the same for all the breads, and the process was as close to identical as I can manage in a home kitchen: all-in mixing, two rounds of stretching and folding, 75% expansion during first rise, shaped into a boule, proofed at room temperature, and baked after the same amount of expansion in the baskets.
400 grams Kamut / khorasan / durum whole grain flour (3 cups, heaping)
300 grams water (1 1/4 cups)
75 grams sourdough starter, fed all purpose flour (1/4 cup)
8 grams salt (1 1/2 tsp)
Kamut produced the tallest bread with the tightest and most yellow crumb. This tighter crumb likely had to do with hydration because as this dough bulk fermented, it became more domed than the others, indicating it had a dryer texture. This was unexpected given how similar all three flours felt during the slurry test.
The khorasan bread expanded the most in all directions and had a comparably open crumb with a more tan-yellow color.
The durum bread was flatter than the other two and had a open crumb like the khorasan bread. The color was between the Kamut and the khorasan shades.
Taste testers perceived differences in the flavors of the breads, but there was no consensus. Some felt khorasan and Kamut were sweeter and some felt durum was sweeter. Likewise with butteriness vs. more traditional wheat flavor.
My final conclusion is that these wheats are indeed very substitutable and differences exist, but they may stem just as much from the particular farm growing the wheat or even the individual harvest as from the wheat’s species classification.
Shopping List
Durum Berries
Durum Whole Grain Flour
$8.30 – $68.65Khorasan Wheat Berries
$12.70 – $87.00Khorasan Whole Grain Flour
Kamut® Wheat Berries
Kamut® Whole Grain Flour
Kamut, Khorasan, and Durum Wheats Comparison