Food Storage Friday: Hard Wheat vs. Soft Wheat
Food Storage Friday: Hard Wheat vs. Soft Wheat
Hard Wheat vs. Soft Wheat
Bread has been called the “staff of life.” It is one of the oldest food stocks known to mankind. The key component to almost any bread is flour. Flour is made from wheat and wheat needs to be the building block of any long term food storage plan.
Wheat is a mystery to many people. People generally are at a loss as to the proper methods of turning a seed into bread, but they know that they need a wheat grinder of some sort. A wheat grinder can be something as simple as two flat stones that rub against one another or something as elaborate as a Whisper Mill. I own both types of mills. The Whisper Mill for daily use and the stone mill for times when there is no electricity. Even with a good mill most home bakers still have poor results when trying to turn the seed into bread. I have found that these poor results are almost always the result of not knowing the type of wheat to use for the given application.
Wheat comes in many forms. You might find it called winter wheat, red wheat, white wheat, and a hundred other names that for the most part don’t give a bit of information to the home baker as to which wheat will be best for bread or biscuits. There is hope. That hope comes in the form of two simple words: hard and soft.
Hard wheat is wheat that contains a high degree of protein for it’s weight. Soft wheat has a large degree of starch for it’s weight. Almost all wheat packaging will contain information as to the hardness of the wheat.
Bread flour is generally made from 100% fine grind hard wheat.
All-purpose (AP) flour is generally a 50/50 mix of fine grind hard wheat to fine grind soft wheat.
Cake flour is generally 100% extra fine grind soft wheat.
Pastry flour is generally 2/3 fine grind AP flour and extra fine grind 1/3 cake flour.
Biscuit flour is generally 3/4 fine grind AP flour and 1/4 extra fine grind cake flour.
Using the flour formulas, it is possible for the home baker to determine what percentage of hard to soft wheat they need to have on hand in their kitchen. The following are examples of how this information is applied: A baker in the southern US might want a 60% soft wheat to 40% hard wheat ratio in storage. The southern baker is very likely to make biscuits. However, a family in the southwest US might want a 50/50 ration if tortillas are on the menu often. Still a family in the mountain western US might want a 70% hard wheat to 30% soft wheat ratio as this will allow for more bread making compared to tortilla, cakes, or biscuits.
Buying and using wheat is really as simple as determining what you like to bake and eat, and then buying the proper ratio of soft to hard wheat to meet those needs.
Enjoy.
Ⓒ 2010 William J. Burnett
Friday, April 16, 2010