April 21, 2020 - 11:57am
Soft White Wheat Berries vs Hard Red Winter Wheat Berries
Hi,
I need to buy some wheat berries and have the above two options. What's the difference between the two?
Thanks,
Yippee
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Soft White Wheat Berries vs Hard Red Winter Wheat Berries
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Hard wheats have higher protein, typically 12% or more, so they would be closer to a bread flour. Soft wheats are closer to 9% so are more suitable for cakes or pastries.
I personally find that the red varieties have more flavor than white varieties, but that’s a subtlety.
Winter varieties, so I’ve read, have less damaged protein than spring varieties so make a stronger, less extensible bread dough. I’ve tried and have made bread successfully with both. When I purchase 50 lbs. of berries I will chose the hard red winter variety.
-Brad
Because 50 pounds are so much, do you think the idea of buying only a bag of berries and grinding them when I need bread flour without buying another pack of bread flour is feasible? :-) And from where did you get your wheat berries?
Thanks,
Yippee
i think I've seen some majority-WW stuff in your posts, so I know you're familiar with it.
Just remember that fresh-milled home-milled WW is also different than store-bought WW.
Usually needs more water, longer soak, less oil, and less starter/yeast as it ferments very fast.
Unless your family is already used to 100% WW, you'll still want to use at least some store-bought AP flour or store-bought bread flour.
in whole-grain stuff, unfortunately. So, 100% WW is not for them.
Hi Yippee,
I get most of my supplies from Central Milling. I have had my Mockmill for nearly a year and a half now, and I incorporate whole grains into all my bakes. Recently I have been experimenting with near 100% whole grains and have had nice results with Maurizio’s 95% WW Loaf and also an einkorn pan loaf I learned at a class. I more commonly add up tp 50% whole grain to my sourdough breads, so I still use a fair amount of white flour. Fortunately, whole berries last much longer than flour before turning rancid, I’ve read you can keep them up to 2 years so it’s fairly easy to use up the berries for me.
I also have a set of sifters with mesh sizes 20, 30 and 45. The #20 is very coarse and takes out the large chunks of bran. The #30 is the one I use most, and depending on the grain I get extraction rates of about 90-94%. (Khorasan wheat/Kamut is a different story, I get over 98% extraction- I guess the bran shatters more easily.) It will take me about 5 min. to sift 1 kg of milled flour. I have found the #45 to be quite slow, gives a low extraction, maybe 60-70%, and still it doesn’t replace white flour, so I continue to buy bread flour, though in smaller amounts. I throw the sifted bran into quick breads and such, or use it to coat the outside of loaves.
Hope this is some help.
-Brad
and involves a lot of work if I only buy the berries. Thank you for your insights. BTW, how long does a bag of Beehive/AP flour keep before it goes rancid? Now I have something new to worry about. :-)
Yippee
...should last a year from purchase, maybe more. Since the germ is removed, there is nothing to go rancid. I have kept it almost a year without seeing degradation in quality of the breads I’ve made. Storing it in a freezer will extend the life.
There is or should be a date code on the package, I think they describe it on the centralmilling.com site. Don’t quote me, but it’s something like the first digit is the year and the following 3 digits are the day it was milled, with 001 being Jan. 1st and 365 being Dec. 31st.
-Brad