What You Need to Know about Wheat

Everything You Need to Start Baking with Full-Inclusion, Local Flour

When you go to the grocery store to buy flour, it’s a straightforward decision. Usually there are a few different brands of course, and there’s usually all purpose flour, bread flour, and whole wheat (which, as we discussed last week, isn’t really “whole” at all).

But the grocery store experience is misleading because there are many, many different kinds of wheat out there! Today we’ll be discussing how to understand the options when you forgo your grocery store and instead shop from your local grain farmer. Grains in general are a big topic, so we are going to focus on wheat today, and we’ll get to other grains like rye and barley in the coming weeks.

Learning about the different types of wheat is a fun way to deepen your understanding of your local grain scene, but it’s also a very important step when you plan to bake with full-inclusion, locally milled flour. The differences between types of wheat have a very real impact on the recipe you are making. This guide will give you an overview of the varieties of wheat to help you with your flour selection. Or, if you already have some flour you would like to use, this guide will help you understand which recipes will work best with it.

Wheat (with the exception of durum wheat which we’ll talk about later) refers to grains which are members of the Triticum aestivum family. There are estimated to be 30,000 different varietals of wheat. Only a fraction of those are grown commercially, and since each varietal has it’s own special needs in terms of climate, there are usually only a handful of varietals grown in a certain area.

Like apples, each wheat varietal has a name. And, like apples, each wheat varietal has a unique flavor that is so easy to fall in love with. But one key difference is that wheat is always an ingredient. In addition to providing a great flavor, we need wheat to perform in a specific way in order for our baked goods to have the desired texture and structure.

Wheat’s protein is called gluten, and gluten is actually very complicated. But for the purpose of understanding wheat varietals, all you really need to know is that gluten is responsible for forming a web-like structure which is able to catch the carbon dioxide produced by yeast. When making bread, gluten strands catch the little air bubbles that the yeast cells produce as they eat the starch in the dough. This is what makes bread rise. When making bread, you want to use a flour with a high gluten content, or your bread will likely be flat. However, when making cakes and other pastries, you want to use a flour with a low gluten content, or your cake will have a gummy and dense texture.

So because wheat is an ingredient which performs a vital role in baking, think of the name of the varietal as supplemental information that likely has a fun history attached to it.

Rather, learn to understand wheat by looking at where it falls on three spectrums.

Spring or Winter

The first spectrum, spring or winter, refers to how wheat is classified according to when it was sown.

Winter wheat

• Winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested the following spring or summer, meaning it lies dormant during the winter.

• Because the plant relies on some of its stored energy during the winter, winter wheat typically contains less protein than spring wheat. It simply consumes more during the longer growing season.

Spring wheat

• Sprint wheat is sown in the spring and harvested in the fall.

• Spring wheat has a higher protein content due to its shorter growing season.

The next two spectrums refer to observable qualities of the harvested wheat berries. Most of these qualities are genetic, meaning the same varietal will be produce fairly similar berries year after year. However, the climate, such as temperature and rainfall, can vary year to year, and it does affect the resulting crops. You can trust how a farmer describes a particular batch of wheat berries, but be open to observing them yourself as well.

Soft or Hard

Wheat can be categorized by hardness: soft or hard. This simply refers to how hard the wheat berry is. You can test this yourself by (very carefully) chewing on one.

Hard wheats generally have:

• A higher protein content.

• A lower moisture content.

Soft wheats have the opposite:

• A lower protein content.

• A higher moisture content.

One key way berry hardness affects the resulting flour is that the bran on hard berries shatters into finer pieces when milled. However, the softer bran on softer berries is more flexible, and you will get a flour with larger, more tender bran pieces.

Red or White

Finally, wheat can be classified by color: red or white. You can be as good of a judge of color as anyone; simply look at the color of the wheat berries. Remember that this is a spectrum, and some wheats may appear to be more clearly at one end of the spectrum than others.

Red wheats

• Red wheat has a higher level of tannins, hence the darker hue.

• Red wheat also has a stronger, slightly bitter flavor.

White wheats

• The wheat kernels are white in color.

• Its flavor is sweeter and subtler than red wheat.

In conclusion, there are three spectrums to consider when selecting wheat. For bread baking, choose a wheat that is a spring wheat and that is hard. For cake making, choose a wheat that is a winter wheat and that is soft. Hard winter wheats and soft spring wheats also exist, and their protein contents will be somewhere in the middle. You can absolutely still use these in your baking. You will just need to experiment a bit more to get a feel for the specific qualities of the grain you are using. Finally, red or white is mostly aesthetic. Of course you will get different flavors from different colors of wheats, but the good news is that they will all be absolutely delicious.

This week, we’ll be baking Quince Oat Crumble Cake. We developed this recipe to use some delicious, local quince given to us by one of our market suppliers, and it has developed a cult following at our bakery. Quince can be tricky to work with, but it is easily substituted for apples or pears if you prefer. This recipe calls for a soft white winter wheat. Because it is soft and sown in the winter, it has a very low protein content. The white color makes a cake which contrasts beautifully in color to the brown sugar oat crumble. At our bakery, we use a varietal called Frederick to make this recipe, but you can use any varietal that is a soft white winter wheat. Let’s get baking!