Organic Bread Flour

Organic bread flour is different from all-purpose flour and other flours.

Bread flour is unbleached with a higher gluten and protein content than all-purpose flour. The wheat is known as a hard wheat which is also high in starch content.

Bread dough is kneaded because you need to work the flour to develop the gluten. This prepares the dough for when you bake it and the flour protein reacts with the liquid. The result allows the protein to capture the gas released by the yeast. This process of chemical reaction is what causes the dough to rise.

All-purpose flour has a balance of high and low gluten wheats. The protein content is much lover than what’s found in bread flour. The consistency of bread flour is chewy and dense.

There are three main parts to a grain (grass fruit) of wheat. Whole wheat flour is made form the whole grain:

Three Parts of A Grain:

Endosperm (Starch)

• White flour is milled only from the endosperm.

Germ (Protein)

• Germ flour is made from the endosperm and the germ part of the wheat grain.

Bran (Fibre)

• Bran flour is made only from the bran part of the grain.

Bread flour is often combined with other flours so the dough can rise. An organic source of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is sometimes added to create a finer texture and increase the loaf volume.

You can increase the shelf life from several months to a year by storing your flour in an air-tight container in a freezer.

Two types of milling process are used to grind grain into flour. One is the ancient way by using a stone wheel. When a flour is advertised as stone-ground or stone-milled, it means the process used to grind the grain was with a set of large stones. A stone wheel rotates over a stationary stone. The grain is ground in between the two stones and creates flour.

Many people prefer to purchase stone-milled flour over steel-ground flour. This is because during the process of a steel-ground flour, the friction of the steel rollers generates and retains more heat than when ground with a stone. This temperature rise damages the gluten and robs some of its potency. When you purchase stone-milled grain, you know the bulk of the gluten is undamaged.

One of the arguments against stone-ground flour is that the friction of the two stones rubbing against each other chip off minute particles of stone that falls into the flour. Scientists believe that the 15th and 16th century skeletal remains reveal a significant grinding down of the teeth due to eating foodstuffs made from stone-ground flour. There’s no further evidence that consumption of miniscule stone particles has any detrimental or long-lasting effects on you. Steel-cut flour has no danger of stone particles being chipped and displaced in the flour.

Many people prefer to use bread flours for baking bread, but you can use other flours as well. Some of the popular flour choices are listed below.

Whole wheat bread flour is made from hard wheat. It produces a dense, nutty-tasting bread but needs white flour mixed with it in order to rise as high as other breads.

Gluten flour is a spring wheat that’s high in protein. If you’re diabetic and on a restricted diet, this is a good choice for you. Gluten flour is great to mix with other non-wheat flours to give you many different tasting breads.

If you’ve never tried baking bread using spelt flour, then you are in for a royal treat. Once you’ve baked a loaf of bread using organic spelt flour, chances are you’ll be spoiled. Spelt is one of the oldest known grains and was referred to as the staff of life in the Bible.

Many people who are unable to eat gluten due to an allergic reaction often can tolerate spelt. This flour doesn’t require as much kneading as other ones.

Up until the 1920s, spelt was the choice bread flour, but because it was labor intensive to mill, it was abandoned for other grains and new hybrid wheats. Over the past decade, spelt has been redeemed and rediscovered. It gives a loaf of bread a fine texture that is close and dense. The flavor is exceptional and when sliced hot with butter, it practically melts in your mouth.

Many states across America are starting grain initiatives. The motivations are global and are in response to a growing demand in the United States. One group, the Carolina Stewardship Association in North Carolina, partnered with the USDA, NCDA and the North Carolina State University in the latter’s project, North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project. Due to a reduction in wheat yields, the state, which imported most of its grains from other states, bakers were unable to obtain much needed grains. The project has brought twenty farms and twenty bakers together in an effort to support a local mill.

You may be able to purchase organic flour for bread make directly from local mills. There are several online sources where you can purchase organic flour milled for breads.

Bread Flour:

• Fair Haven Flour
• Arrowhead Mills
• Barry Farm
• King Arthur Flour
• Organic Baker’s Choice
• Bob’s Red Mill Whole Wheat

Bread Recipes:

• Wheat Bread
• Barley Bread
• Gluten Bread

If you are just starting out using organics and supporting those who provide them to the marketplace, using organic bread flour is an excellent place to start introducing organic food to your family.

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