Flour made of wheat

By NIKOLA PARASKEVA
Food Technologist AUTH MSc in Food Science

 

Flour is a fine powder produced by grinding cereals or other starchy plants. It is usually produced by wheat but it can also be made of corn, rye, barley and rice. Moreover, we can produce flour from legumes, soybeans, potatoes, almonds and tree nuts. Flour is produced in a roller mill and less frequently in a traditional stone mill. Both in the production of bread and bakery products we use flour mostly from two different types of wheat, the soft wheat (Triticum aestivum) and the hard wheat (Τriticum durum). From the soft wheat we get the white flour and from the hard wheat the yellow one. The quality of the Greek hard wheat is good comparing to the quality of the soft wheat which is not so good. The Greek wheat production, especially the soft one, cannot meet the needs and for this reason we have many imports.

The grain of wheat consists of:
a)The endosperm of about 82%, which provides the flour,
b)The seed coat of about 15%, consisting of the pericarp, the episperm and the bran and,
c)The germ of about 3% from which the new plant will grow.
There are many varieties of soft and hard wheat and each one has different properties. The mill combines the properties of different varieties of wheat in order to have the appropriate flour for each use. To be precise, some grains are used to produce flour for bread while others brioche or pies.

Four types of soft wheat milling are made in the mill, that is, the 55% type milling, the 70% type milling, the 90% type milling and the 100% type milling. The percentage represents the amount of the grain that became flour measured from its center.

Specifically, if we grind 55% from the center of the grain, then we have the 55% type flour or the luxury flour. In other words, the 55% type flour is from the heart of the grain and for this reason it is whiter but also more expensive. Based on the 55% flour type, the mill makes all the enhanced flours such as flour for croissants, tsoureki (Greek sweet bread), brioche, etc. The 70% flour type is used in bread, and it is divided into three main categories: soft, medium, and strong. When we refer to the soft flour we mean that the dough is easier to be shaped into by hand. The strong flour gives to bread more volume but if the flour is too strong there is a risk for the crust of the bread to become “rubbery”. The 90% or 100% type flours are the so-called whole meal flours, and they can have fine or coarse bran in flakes. Moreover, they are rarely used unchanged to make
bread. We usually add a quantity of whole wheat flour and supplement with 70% white or yellow type flour. It is important to mention that the yellow flour is more expensive than the white one, but it is tastier. The yellow flour is divided into categories according to the size of the grain and not to the percentage of grinding. As a result, we have fine yellow flour, coarse yellow flour, and wheat meal. How yellow the flour is depends on the variety of wheat, the quality but also on the sunshine and rainfall of the area where the sowing took place. The yellow flour is mainly used in the production of traditional pa de pages which is sometimes called country style flour. The fine- grained yellow flour gives bread more volume and a thinner crust while the coarse-grained results in a heavier bread with a thick crust. The wheatmeal is produced from the heart of the grain and it is used in the pastry – making and pasta. The bran made of durum wheat crumbles during grinding and for this reason, there is no yellow whole wheat made in a roller mill on the market. In the stone mill we can grind all kinds of wheat although it is prevalent to grind coarse yellow wheat. Stone mill flour is 100% whole meal from durum wheat while it is coarser than the roller mill flour. It is healthier because it contains all the bran and germ. In addition, these are the ingredients that retain most of the volatile compounds which are responsible for the aroma of the resulting flour and bread. Thus, the flour that has been milled in a stone has an extremely good taste with strong aromas. Its color is much darker than the white or yellow from that of the roller mill. The bread made only from a stone mill flour is dark, with a firm structure and small volume. But if we want bread to have the aromas and taste of stone mill flour, but a perfect appearance we need to combine it with a stronger flour.