Wheat

Please Note: Most of these flours can NOT be used as a direct replacement in modern recipes. Our All Purpose-sifted HRW (Turkey Red)- flour is the closest substitute for the all purpose white flour typically found in stores today. In most recipes (except for yeasted breads) they can be used as a substitute with minimal recipe alteration.

The type of wheat a flour is milled from determines most of it's characteristics. Bread flour is typically milled from Hard Red Spring (HRS) wheat. General Purpose flour is milled from Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat. Pastry flour is milled from Soft Red Winter (SRW) wheat.

Quick overview of wheat we have available:

Turkey Red: An heirloom HRW wheat that works great as an all purpose flour (especially sifted). Mild flavor. Can work for forgiving bread recipes, but typically doesn't have enough gluten for yeast breads.

Red Fife: An heirloom HRS wheat. The most gluten of any of our heirloom wheats, but less than many modern bread wheats.. Sifted flour makes a nice bread, but a little denser (weaker gluten) than store bought flour.

Purple Straw: An heirloom SRW wheat recently rediscovered. Good flavor and characteristics for biscuit, pancakes and other quick breads.

Einkorn: An ancient wheat with a gluten different from most other wheats. Many people sensitive to gluten can tolerate Einkorn better. Sifted, works as an all purpose flour substitute.

Glenn: A modern HRS wheat. Most gluten of any wheat we sell. Does have a strong flavor found in many Eastern European breads.

SRW (Pastry): A modern SRW wheat that was popular locally 30 years ago. Makes great pancakes and quick breads.

If you're new to artisan flours, I'd suggest starting with our sifted flours. (meaning the largest pieces of the bran and germ are removed). It's a good compromise between whole wheat flour and typical store white flour. It seems the "industry" is starting to use the term "bolted" for what we have listed on this site as sifted wheat flours. We stone grind the wheat in a single pass and then sift off the largest pieces.

Clear flours are specialty flours used in some ethnic baking (especially popular in Jewish recipes) If your recipe doesn't specifically call for clear flour, you probably don't want it.

The extra bran and germ in these artisan flours (stone ground in a single pass) usually absorb more water and take longer to do so than white flour. The larger pieces of bran also act as a knife, cutting the gluten strands as they develop during kneading.

Thanks for looking.