Flour

Introduction to Flours 

Just a quick note on our flours……our flours have always been unbleached.  Now all flours in the UK are unbleached so no need to worry further. 

NB if you buy in the States - bleaching is still the norm in the USA!

To get to a white flour you need to extract the bran and the wheatgerm. The extraction is the percentage of whole grain that is present in the flour. This helps in defining the three basic types of flours: 

Wholemeal 

A 100% extraction – nothing taken out. The entire wheat grain or berry is used to produce a “wholemeal” flour. For every 1000kg milled you get 1000kg of flour 

White 

Typically a 75% extraction – with most of the bran and wheatgerm removed. To get to some highly refined white flours for specialised applications it is possible to get a lower extraction but rare in practice. 

Brown

Typically an 85% extraction with much of the bran and wheatgerm removed. The grain can also be milled down to a white flour and then some of the bran or wheatgerm is blended back in.   There are many different types of Brown Flour depending on the amounts of the wheatgerm and bran added back.  Before the popularity of wholemeal flours, brown flour was much more commonplace. 

 For a fantastic introduction try our malted & seded brown flour - 3 Malts and Sunflower Brown Flour available from our on line shop - Flour Direct

Malted 

A brown or white flour to which a quantity of malt has been added.  This gives a darker loaf and the malt provides a ready food source for the yeast.

Granary 

This is actually a trademarked name for a flour made by a larger flour company and is not a specific flour as such. The Shipton Mill equivalent would be our Organic Light Malthouse Flour. 

However for something even more special, try our 3 Malts and Sunflower Brown Flour available on line from the Flour Direct shop.  This lovely almost hessian coloured flour has the added benefit of Sunflower and Pumpkin seeds to give it a superior award winning taste and texture.