Bread flour

Bakers use two primary types of white wheat flours: hard flour or strong flour and weak flour or soft flour. Hard flour, or "bread" flour, is high in gluten and so forms certain toughness which holds its shape well once baked.

This flour is strong in character, requiring prolonged fermentation to ripen, and has considerable fermentation tolerance and stability.

Hard flour may be milled from hard red winter, hard red spring or hard white wheat.

Hard flour contains 11.2-11.8% protein, 0.45-0.50% ash, 1.2% fat and 74-75% starch. The high protein found in hard flour indicates a higher level of gluten.

This type of flour is mainly used for high-structured products like yeasts products, choux pastry and puff pastries.

They are also used in commercial bread production where dough must withstand the rigors of machine handling.
Bread flour