Choosing flour without overthinking it

People ask us about flour more than about anything else, usually after buying an expensive bag that did not fix the thing they hoped it would fix. Flour matters, but not in the way it gets talked about.

Look at the protein number

On the back of the bag, in the nutrition table, there is a figure for protein per hundred grams. That is the number to read. Protein becomes gluten when it meets water, and gluten is what holds gas in.

• Around twelve to thirteen grams is a strong bread flour. Use it for loaves, sourdough and anything chewy.
• Around nine to eleven grams is plain or all purpose flour. Softer, and better for the tender buns we bake.
• Around seven to nine grams is a soft cake flour. It has no business in a loaf of bread.

A bag marked 00 is milled more finely, not made stronger. Fine milling changes the texture and the way the dough feels, not the amount of gluten available. It is a lovely flour and it will not turn a weak dough strong.

Wholemeal drinks more

Wholemeal and rye contain the bran and germ, which soak up water and cut through gluten strands like small blades. Swap a quarter of your white flour for wholemeal and the dough will feel tight and dry. Add about five percent more water and give it twenty minutes to settle before you decide it needs more.

Rye has very little usable gluten. A rye loaf is held together by starch rather than structure, which is why ours is dense on purpose and baked in a tin.

One bag, learned properly

We use one strong white and one wholemeal, both from the same mill, and we have not changed them in years. That is not loyalty, it is that a dough behaves differently with every flour and it takes a month of baking to learn a new one. Pick one, buy it repeatedly, and you will get better faster than you would by shopping around.

Keep it cool and use it up

Flour is not immortal. Wholemeal has oil in the germ and goes rancid in a warm cupboard in a few months, which you will smell before you taste. White flour lasts far longer but slowly loses strength. Buy the size of bag you will actually finish.

If you are working on sourdough, flour makes more difference than it does anywhere else, and we spend a good part of Sourdough Basics, a Morning on exactly this.