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

Making bread with rye flour

Rye is a cereal grass that is second only to wheat on world popularity for bread baking. It has a storing, hearty flavor in bread and as a cereal.

Rye flour is commercially ground to a range of colors and particles sizes. It is a gluten containing flour, although it is lower in gluten than wheat. Commercial rye four generally with rye-flour from the centre of the endosperm; cream or light rye flour includes the next layer; and dark rye flour includes the outside of the endosperm.

rye bread

Light rye: The lightest is nearly white. It has a very fine texture and high percentage of starch, with little protein.

Dark rye: Like clear flour milled from wheat, dark rye comes from the part of the rye grain closest to the bran. Thus, it is darker than other rye flours and has a lower percentage of fine starch particles.

Rye flour makes delicious robust bread. It does not however, respond favorably to commercial yeast, so some wheat flour must be added to dough to enable the yeast to develop. Typical formulas call for 25 to 40% rye flour and 60 to 75% hard wheat four.
Making bread with rye flour 

Wheat flour: hard and soft

The vast majority of today's flour consumption is wheat flour. Wheat varieties are typically known as "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content, and "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low.

The term ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ as applied to wheat are descriptions of the texture of the wheat kernel. Their textures are also appropriate to their wheat class designation.

Hard flour, or "bread" flour, is high in gluten and so forms certain toughness which holds its shape well once baked.

Hard wheat flour may be milled from either winter or spring wheat varieties.

Those with highest protein content, characterized by their capacity to develop the strongest gluten, are used in commercial bread production where dough must withstand the rigors of machine handling.

Soft wheat differs from hard wheat in kernel softness, a basic genetic characteristics that is directly inherited.

Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and so results in a finer texture. Soft flour is usually divided into "cake" flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and "pastry" flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.

The finer particle size and lower protein of soft wheat flour gives the soft and elastic bite and smooth surface desired for Japanese white salted noodles.

One the other hand, the higher protein content of hard wheat flour gives the springiness and firmness desired for yellow alkaline noodles.
Wheat flour: hard and soft