If you have any questions please  e-mail me.

Thank you, Paul

 

Flour Types

Each contry has it's own way of describing and classifying their flours. Below is a list of comparisons for different countries.

There is a lot of confusion over what a flour names are telling you. The numbers in the chart refer to the amount of ash that is left when 100 grams of flour is burnt. The lower the ash number  the whiter flour is. It also relates to the amount of white flour that is extracted from the wheat. The more bran left in, the higher the ash number.

Just knowing how white a flour is does not tell you how strong the flour is. You need to know if it is high in gluten or not. Flour milled with the same wheat grist will be stronger the whiter it is, but if you use stronger wheat you can achieve the same without making the flour whiter.

You can have an Italian Type 00 that is weak for buiscuits or strong for bread and pizza, just asking for "00" flour is not clear enough.

To use flour in baking you need to know how strong it is and were it comes from. If you make two loaves, one from French Bread Flour  and one form English Strong White Bread flour. You will get two very diffent loaves. The English one will have used a very strong wheat and have a close dense crumb structure. The French uses a weaker wheat and so can not create the fine structure of the English loaf as the gluten can not hold the gas in.