Wheat flourInformation taken from here:
🔗Two important consumer characteristics of wheat flour are ash content and gluten content. It is they who, in the main, determine the grade of flour. Ash content is the amount of dry matter remaining after burning 100 g of flour. Since non-combustible minerals are found mainly in the outer layers of grain, ash content is an indicator of the bran content in flour, i.e. the lower the ash content, the whiter the flour. Typical ash content ranges from 0.5% for premium flour to 1.80% for wallpaper flour. It is important to remember that ash content in Europe and America is defined differently, in America, as the ratio of the weight of ash to the total weight of flour, and in Europe, including Russia, as the proportion of ash in the dry weight of flour. That is, the Russian or French ash content of 0.5% is slightly less than the American ash content of 0.5%. Gluten content is regulated differently in Russia and in the West. Russian standards give norms for the content of raw gluten, other countries are guided by the content of dry. The coefficient for converting dry gluten to wet is 2.65.
Russian flourIn Russia, wheat flour is subdivided into three classes - bakery flour, general purpose flour and durum flour. GOSTs define the following grades of bread flour,
Extra... Color: white or white with a cream shade, ash content 0.45, gluten content not less than 28%. This is a new kind of flour, it was not in the Soviet standards.
Top grade... Color: white or white with a cream shade, ash content 0.55, gluten content not less than 28%.
Krupchatka... Color: white or cream with a yellowish tinge, ash content 0.60, gluten content not less than 30%. The size of the flour grains is 0.16-0.20 mm. This variety is present in the standard, but, as far as I know, such flour is not actually produced. In Poland, a similar flour, krupczatka or typ 500, is quite common.
First grade... Color: white or white with a yellowish tinge, ash content 0.75, gluten content not less than 30%.
Second grade... Color: white or white with a yellowish or grayish tinge, ash content 1.25, gluten content not less than 25%.
Wallpaper. Color: white with a yellowish or grayish tint with visible particles of grain shells, ash content not more than 2.0, gluten content not less than 20%.
General purpose flour does not have its own names and is indicated by an alphanumeric code, for example MK 55-23, which means "Coarse wheat flour with an ash content of 0.55% and a gluten content of 23%".
Durum wheat flour is divided into three grades, two of which, semifrags and grains, are not actually flour, they are really small grains.
Top grade (grits)... Color: light cream with a yellow tint, ash content 0.90, gluten content at least 26%. Grain size up to 0.56 mm
First grade (semi-fragile)... Color: light cream, ash content 1.20, gluten content not less than 28%. Grain size up to 0.39 mm
Second grade. Color: creamy with a yellowish tinge, ash content 1.90, gluten content not less than 25%. The grain size is 0.18-0.27 mm, i.e. it is very similar to the caliber of semolina.
American flour
In the USA there are no standards for flour, American flour is classified (conventionally) by gluten content and type of wheat. Wheat is usually classified into winter and spring wheat, red and white, according to the color of the shell, and hard and soft, according to the gluten content.It is important to understand that American hard wheat is not at all the same as Russian durum wheat, which in English is always called durum wheat, but wheat with a high gluten content. There is usually no data for regular store-bought flour, all you can do is estimate the gluten content from the nutrient table. For more expensive varieties, branded and professional, that is, by my definition, those that are packed in quantities of 25, often 50, pounds, as a rule, you can find a detailed specification.
semolina flour, all-purpose flour, bread flour, first clear flour, white whole wheat flour, whole wheat flour.
High-gluten flour, flour is high in gluten. Professional durum red spring wheat flour with 14% gluten content. Typical uses are pizza and bagels. The regular varieties - Sir Lancelot and All Trumps - are easily found online in pound 3-5 pounds.
Bread flour, bread flour. This flour is made from winter and spring durum wheat and usually contains about 13% gluten. This flour is widely sold and is the strongest widely available. The best varieties are King Arthur Bread Flour and Better for Bread.
All-purpose flour, general purpose flour. Ordinary wheat flour, an analogue of Russian premium flour, is the most popular and cheapest, the gluten content in such flour is usually 10-11%, but sometimes, for example, in King Arthur Flour flour, it can reach 12-13%. The difference arises from the fact that such flour is obtained by mixing flour from durum and soft wheat, their proportion determines the strength of the flour.
Whole wheat flour... Whole grain flour. There are several varieties of whole grain flour, and not all of them are suitable for baking bread. Bread varieties are ground from white and red spring wheat, such flour usually has an ash content of 1.6-1.8% and contains about 14% gluten. White whole grain flour, white whole wheat flour, is a rarer product, but it is rapidly gaining popularity, since the addition of up to 50% of such flour to regular white flour is almost invisible.
First clear flour... Varietal grinding, which in the old Soviet literature is called "clear" or "first clear", is obtained by grinding only the outer part of the grain. This flour has a high gluten content of 13-14% and an ash content of 0.8-0.9%. Usually such flour is used for baking rye bread and is rare. The only easy way to buy it in small quantities is through the King Arthur Flour catalog.
High extraction flour, high yield flour. This flour is somewhere in between white and whole grain. 14% gluten, ash content about 1.1%. A rare variety, very popular with some home bakers. As a rule, they order it in bags or do it yourself.
Durum flour, semolina, durum and semolina. These flours are made from durum or durum wheat. Durum flour usually refers to fine flour. Semolina is usually called a fine flour, but under this name a fairly fine flour can also be sold, which in this case is often called semolina flour. This flour is packaged by the famous Bob's Red Mill and is therefore not uncommon. With the exception of one case, semolina is not semolina, and semolina is not semolina.
semolina and semolina
Pastry flour, cake flour, confectionery flour. This flour has a low gluten content, 8-9% for pastry flour, 6-8% for cake flour, and a low ash content, 0.35-0.45%, since this flour is made from the inside of the endosperm. They differ from each other in that the latter is bleached, and the former is not. In general, they are not suitable for yeast baked goods.
The famous White Lily is a typical representative of such flour. Founded in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1883, White Lily produces a soft winter flour that has been an integral part of southern cuisine for over a century. It is believed that the famous bisquits cannot be prepared without it. In 2008, White Lily was acquired by J. M. Smucker Company, a well-known American jams and peanut butter manufacturer. The mill in Knoxville was closed and production moved somewhere in the Midwest - J. M. Smucker owns Pillsbury, one of our major flour brands, and apparently already has enough capacity. As a plus, now flour has become available not only in the South, but throughout the country, even in our northern wilderness. As a minus, they say that the quality suffered a little.The new owners swear that the new flour is no worse than the previous ones, "not to be distinguished", but experienced southern chefs claim that there is a difference and not in favor of the remake. White Lily is bleached with chlorine, but not to the same extent as cake flour.
Interchangeability of Russian and American flour
Most of American flour can be easily replaced with Russian and vice versa:
Flour in. from. = All-purpose flour, but although they are one to one similar, I prefer a sliced loaf made from a mixture of such flour with bread.
Flour 1 s. = All-purpose flour or 90% All-purpose flour + 10% Whole wheat flour for when you want the result to be slightly rougher than with just white flour.
Flour 2 s. I don't have a definite answer here. One option is 50% All-purpose flour + 50% Whole wheat flour, which gives the correct ash content and works great in rye breads where second-grade flour is required. But I am not at all happy with the way wheat bread made from such a mixture comes out, in such cases I prefer to reduce the amount of whole grain flour to 30%, this gives the correct fiber content and a more true-to-truth color.
Whole wheat flour
The only difficulty is bread flour, today I do not know a Russian variety strong enough to serve as an exact analogue, the American bread flour. This does not mean that he does not exist, I just do not know him.
European flourFlour in France is classified by ash content and marked as Type XX (X) or TXX (X). For example, Farine de blé Т55 is wheat flour with an ash content of 0.55%. Common grades - T45, T55, T65, T80, T110, T150.
The situation is similar with German flour - the classification is based on ash content. Weizenmehl Type 550 is wheat flour with an ash content of 0.55%. German standards, unlike Russian ones, do not determine the maximum ash content, but the range of permissible values, and it is interesting that the name of the variety does not give any information about this range, i.e. 550 is not the limiting and not the average ash content for this variety. There are grades 405, 550, 812, 1050 and 1600, that is, translated into Russian, approximately extra, higher, first and second grade, and wallpaper flour.
Premium flour
A source:
🔗I have long been interested in what exactly Russian flour is. Especially the premium flour, because it is with it that those who want to repeat what I bake usually have to deal with in Russia. Therefore, when the dearest Shtarker gave me 5 kilos of such flour, I immediately realized that it was time to experiment.
I made three recipes, baguettes, sourdough bread and regular sliced loaf, all twice. What can I say?
1. Strength. It is clear that the premium flour is relatively weak. This follows from the GOST, which defines the minimum gluten content at about 10.5%, and is confirmed by the label promising 10.3% protein. And in my opinion this is normal, just right, for flour, which, due to its extreme prevalence, goes into a wide variety of baked goods. Note that our all-purpose flour has a similar gluten content.
Is the weakness of flour an obstacle to good bread? Not at all. The high gluten content of flour does not guarantee a perfect result. And vice versa. As it was said, "... but you know how to handle her."
2. Fermentation... According to my observations, flour is here. from. is no different from the American one - both the yeast dough, and the leaven, and the dough rise at the same speed and just as well.
3. Water absorption. It seemed to me that when kneading the dough on flour c. from. looks a little denser than what I'm used to, other things being equal, but then it quickly looses
4. Caramelization. I often see pictures of very pale bread, go to any forum where there is a bread branch and you will not have to search for a long time. I have always thought that this is due to some internal property of Russian flour. In the United States, a little malt is added to flour to increase the enzyme activity of the flour and improve the fermentation of quick dough. In the USSR, this approach was considered incorrect and the definition and optimization of the baking qualities of flour was the work of the bakery laboratory, which left the retail flour in a random state.So my working theory was that American flour fermented produces more sugars and caramelizes better. I have to completely abandon this theory and propose a new one - if the bread came out too pale - it is not baked.
5. Others. Not enough flour in a kilogram bag of 35 grams, gentlemen, is no longer a body kit, but a fraud on a large scale.
6. Examples.Baguettes. The dough comes out noticeably softer and weaker, it is slightly more sticky and a little more difficult to shape. When molding, I wrapped the baguettes one more time, but they still spread somewhat, which, however, did not affect either the crumb structure or taste. By repeating the recipe, I reduced the moisture content of the dough by 1%, without noticeable effect.
The sourdough bread came out perfectly, I couldn't have expected a better result.
Both times the sliced loaf turned out to be ugly, but with an absolutely authentic taste and crumb. I thought about doing it again - for photographs, but in the end I decided to put it off until later.
Thanks to Author crucide for providing a flour review.
GOST R 52189-2003 Wheat flour. General specificationsApproved by: Gosstandart of Russia, 29.12.2003
Scope: The standard applies to
wheat flour produced from soft wheat or with the addition of up to 20% of durum wheat (durum) to it, intended for the production of bread, bakery, flour confectionery and culinary products.
