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Wheat
The most effective grain for bread-making is wheat. It tastes good - nutty with no bitterness - and it performs consistently well. An ear of wheat has all the ingredients for a good loaf: starch for bulk to feed the yeast and to turn a golden brown during cooking; germ to give essential fats and oils which enhance breads nutritional value; bran to help our digestive systems; and gluten which allows bread to stretch and rise.
Strong Flour
The primary rule for producing a really good wheat loaf is to use strong bread flour. What differentiates a bread flour from flour more suited to making cakes and biscuits, is the gluten content. Gluten is a protein present in all wheat in varying amounts. Wheat grown in hot, dry summers in a short season will have a higher gluten content. These wheats are known as hard or strong. The high gluten content will ensure an extensive and even rise and a lighter loaf.
Stoneground 100% Wholewheat or Wholemeal Flour
As the name suggests, this flour is ground on a traditional millstone and made from the whole grain of the wheat, from which nothing is extracted and to which nothing is added. There is no difference between wholewheat and wholemeal flour, unless the packaging on wholemeal flour states that barley and/or rye are added to the wheat.
When wholemeal has been stoneground, it will be stated on the packaging. If it does not say this, the chances are that the flour is reconstituted. In other words, it is a roller-milled flour, which is bleached and to which the bulk of the bran and wheat germ removed by the roller-milling process has been returned.
80% - 90% Extraction Flours
Between 10% and 20% of the bran (the outside layer of the wheat) is sieved off to leave a finer, paler and lighter flour than 100% wholewheat. Provided it is labelled as stoneground, this is natural flour with only bran removed; it will not have been bleached or reconstituted . This type of flour is sometimes called wheatmeal and produces a loaf of a finer flavour and texture than wholewheat.
Strong White Flour
The best strong white flour is stoneground which is then sieved to remove most of the bran and the germ which constitutes almost all of the nutritional value. A by-product of this process is the wheat endosperm, which is known as semolina. Strong white flour will make a light and creamy bread which is best eaten very fresh.
Unless the packaging says it is unbleached the flour will have gone through a bleaching process, inspired by a desire for whiter-than-white bread in the 19th Century. Unbleached white flour is a pale cream colour.
Granary-type Flour
This is a combination of 80% - 90% extraction flour and malted wheat or barley flour. Malted wheat or barley has been allowed to start to germinate, thus releasing some of the sugars locked up in the germ. The result is bread that has a characteristic sweet nutty flavour, much favoured by many people.
Beware additives to granary type flours. Unless the packaging states that it is stoneground wheatmeal with added malted grain, it is almost certain to be roller-milled flour with added caramel, bran, molasses and malt extract.
Brown Flour
This is not normally suitable for making good bread unless it is a strong brown flour, but it is worth mentioning here as the brown in its name will usually be caramel. Unless the packaging tells you otherwise, it is roller-milled bleached flour with caramel and sometimes some bran added. This is another reconstituted flour.
From website www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2198586
Explanation of the various WHEAT grains/flours
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