Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Flour shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Flour offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Flour at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Flour? Wrong! If the Flour is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Flour then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Flour? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Flour and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Flour wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Flour then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Flour site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Flour, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Flour, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

An ingredient used in many foods, flour is a fine powder made by grinding cereals or other edible starchy plant seeds suitable for grinding. It is most commonly made from wheat—the word "flour" used without qualification implies wheatflour—but also maize (now called maize in many parts of the Western Hemisphere), rye, barley, and rice, amongst many other Poaceaees and non-grain plants (including buckwheat, grain amaranths and many Australian species of acacia). Ground legumes and nuts, such as soy, peanuts, almonds, and other tree nuts, are also called flours. The same substances ground more coarsely are called "meal" instead of "flour".

Flour is the key ingredient of bread, which is the staple food in most countries, and therefore the availability of adequate supplies of flour has often been a major economic and political issue.

Flour always contains a high proportion of starches, which are complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides.

Wheat flour is one of the most important foods in European and American culture, and is the defining ingredient in most types of breads and pastries. Regulations in many countries require that wheat flour be enriched flour to replace nutrients lost in the production of refined flour.

When wheat flour is mixed with water gluten, a complex protein, develops. Gluten is what gives wheat dough an elastic structure that allows it to be worked in a variety of ways, and which allows the retention of gas bubbles in an intact structure, resulting in an aerated final product with a soft texture, desirable for breads, cakes and the like.

Some people suffer from an intolerance to gluten known as Coeliac disease. Increased awareness of this disorder, as well as a rising belief in the benefits of a gluten-free diet for persons suffering certain other conditions, has led to an increased demand for bread, pasta, and other products made with flours that do not contain gluten.

There are some exceptions; in the UK, cornflour is the white, powdered starch of the maize grain, not ground maize.

Types of flour Wheat flour {| align="right" class="wikitable" padding="10"|-! Protein!|-| 5-8%| Cake Flour|-| 8-10%| Pastry Flour|-| 10-11.5%| All-Purpose Flour|-| 11-13%| Bread Flour|-| 14% and up| High-Gluten Flour|}Much more wheat flour is produced than any other flour.

Wheat varieties are called "white" or "brown" if they have high gluten content, and "soft" or "weak flour" if gluten content is low. Hard flour, or "bread" flour, is high in gluten, with a certain toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and so results in a finer texture. Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.

In terms of the parts of the grain (the grass seed) used in flour—the endosperm or starchy part, the germ or protein part, and the bran or fiber part—there are three general types of flour. White flour is made from the endosperm only. Whole grain or Wholemeal flour is made from the entire grain including bran, endosperm, and germ. A germ flour is made from the endosperm and germ, excluding the bran.

Wheat flour is highly explosive when airborne. The most benign cases occur in classroom flour bombs; more sinister applications include fuel-air explosives improvised by so-called "Anarchy#Anarchism" or terrorism. In medieval flour mills, candles, lamps, or other sources of fire were forbidden.

All-purpose or plain flour: This flour is a blended wheat flour with an intermediate gluten level which is marketed as an acceptable compromise for most household baking needs.

Bleached flour:Treated with flour bleaching agents to whiten it (freshly milled flour is yellowish) and to give it more gluten-producing potential. Oxidizing agents are usually employed, most commonly organic peroxides like acetone peroxide or benzoyl peroxide, nitrogen dioxide, or chlorine. A similar effect can be achieved by letting the flour slowly oxidize with oxygen in the air ("natural aging") for approximately 10 days; however, this process is more expensive due to the time required.

Bromated flour: This is a flour with a maturing agent added. The agent's role is to help with developing gluten, a role similar to the flour bleaching agents. Bromate is usually used. Other choices are phosphates, ascorbic acid, and malted barley. Bromated flour has been banned in much of the world, but remains available in the United States.

Cake flour: This is a finely milled flour made from soft wheat. It has very low gluten content, making it suitable for soft-textured cakes and cookies. The higher gluten content of other flours would make the cakes tough.

Graham flour This is a special type of whole-wheat flour. The endosperm is finely ground, as in white flour, while the bran and germ are coarsely ground. Graham flour is uncommon outside of the United States and the cities of Romania. It is the basis of true graham crackers. Many graham crackers on the market are actually imitation grahams because they do not contain graham flour or even whole-wheat flour.

Pastry flour or cookie flour or cracker flour: This flour has slightly higher gluten content than cake flour, but lower than all-purpose flour. It is suitable for fine, light-textured pastry.

Self-rising or self-raising flour: This is "white" wheat flour or wholemeal flour that is sold premixed with chemical leavening agents. It was invented by Henry Jones (baker). It can also be substituted by Maida flour when cooking under the Indian Cuisine. Typical ratios are:

U.S. customary: *one cup flour *1 to 1½ teaspoon baking powder *a pinch to ½ teaspoon salt

Metric: *100 g flour *3 g baking powder *1 g or less salt

Durum or semolina flour: This flour is made of durum wheat. It has the highest protein content, and it is an important component of nearly all noodles and pastas. It is also commonly used to make Indian cuisine flatbreads.

In Britain, many flours go by names different than those from America. Some American flours and British equivalents include:

• Cake and pastry flour = soft flour
• All-purpose flour = plain flour
• Bread flour = strong flour, hard flour
• Self-rising flour = self-raising flour
• Whole-wheat flour = wholemeal flour

===Other flours===

• Maize (maize) flour is popular in the Southern United States and Southwestern United States US and in Mexico. Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn meal that has been bleached with lye is called masa harina (see masa) and is used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking. Corn flour should never be confused with cornstarch, which is known as "cornflour" in British English.

• Rye flour is used to bake the traditional sourdough breads of Germany and Scandinavia. Most rye breads use a mix of rye and wheat flours because rye has a low gluten content. Pumpernickel bread is usually made exclusively of rye, and contains a mixture of rye flour and rye meal.

• Rice flour is of great importance in Southeast Asian cuisine. Also edible rice paper can be made from it. Most rice flour is made from white rice, thus is essentially a pure starch, but whole-grain brown rice flour is commercially available.

• Noodle flour is special blend of flour used for the making of Asian style noodles.

• Buckwheat flour is used as an ingredient in many pancakes in the United States. In Japan, it is used to make a popular noodle called Soba. In Russia, buckwheat flour is added to the batter for pancakes called blinis which are frequently eaten with caviar. Buckwheat flour is also used to make Brittany crepes called galettes.

• Sweet Chestnut flour is popular in Corsica, the Périgord and Lunigiana. In Corsica, it is used to cook the local variety of polenta. In Italy, it is mainly used for desserts.

• Chickpea flour (also known as gram flour or besan) is of great importance in Indian cuisine, and in Italy, where it is used for the Ligurian farinata.

• Teff flour is made from the grain teff, and is of considerable importance in eastern Africa (particularly around the horn of Africa). Notably, it is the chief ingredient in the bread injera, an important component of Ethiopian cuisine.

• Atta flour is a wheat flour which is important in Indian cuisine, used for a range of breads such as roti and chapati.

• Tang flour (not to be confused with the powdered beverage Tang (drink)) or wheat starch is a type of wheat flour used primarily in China cooking for making the outer layer of dumplings and buns.

• Glutinous rice flour or sticky rice flour, used in east and southeast Asian cuisines for making tangyuan etc.

• Peasemeal or pea flour is a flour produced from roasted and pulverized yellow field peas.

• Bean flour is a flour produced from pulverized dried or ripe beans.

• Potato flour is obtained by grinding the tubers to a pulp and removing the fibre by water-washings. The dried product consists chiefly of starch, but also contains some protein. Potato flour is used as a thickening agent. When heated to boiling, food added with a suspension of potato flour in water thickens quickly. Because the flour is made from neither grain nor legume, it is used as substitute for wheat flour in cooking by Jews during Passover, when grains are not eaten.

• Amaranth flour is a flour produced from ground Amaranth grain. It was commonly used in pre-Columbian meso-American cuisine. It is becoming more and more available in specialty food shops.

• Nut flours are ground from oily nuts--most commonly almonds and hazelnuts--and are used instead of or in addition to wheat flour to produce more dry and flavorful pastries and cakes. Cakes made with nut flours are usually called tortes and most originated in Central Europe, in countries such as Hungary and Austria.

Flour can also be made from buckwheat, soy beans, arrowroot, taro, Typhas, acorns, peas, beans, and other non-grain foodstuffs.

Flour type numbers In some markets, the different available flour varieties are labeled according to the ash mass ("mineral content") that remains after a sample was incinerated in a laboratory oven (typically at 550 °C or 900 °C, see international standards International Organization for Standardization 2171 and International Association for Cereal Science and Technology 104/1). This is an easy to verify indicator for the fraction of the whole grain that ended up in the flour, because the mineral content of the starchy endosperm is much lower than that of the outer parts of the grain. Flour made from all parts of the grain (extraction rate: 100%) leaves about 2 g ash or more per 100 g dry flour. Plain white flour (extraction rate: 50-60%) leaves only about 0.4 g.

• German flour type numbers (Mehltype) indicate the amount of ash (measured in milligrams) obtained from 100 g of the dry mass of this flour. Standard wheat flours (defined in DIN 10355) range from type 405 for normal white wheat flour for baking, to strong bread flour types 550, 650, 812, and the darker types 1050 and 1600 for wholegrain breads.

• French flour type numbers (type de farine) are a factor 10 smaller than those used in Germany, because they indicate the ash content (in milligrams) per 10 g flour. Type 55 is the standard, hard-wheat white flour for baking, including puff pastries ("pâte feuilletée"). Type 45 is often called pastry flour, but is generally from a softer wheat. Types 65, 80, and 110 are strong bread flours of increasing darkness, and type 150 is a wholemeal flour.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, no numbered standardized flour types are defined, and the ash mass is only rarely given on the label by flour manufacturers. However, the legally required standard nutrition label specifies the protein content of the flour, which is also a suitable way for comparing the extraction rates of different available flour types.

It is possible to find out ash content from some US manufacturers. However, US measurements are based on wheat with a 14% moisture content. Thus, a US flour with .48 ash would approximate a French Type 55.

In general, as the extraction rate of the flour increases, so do both the protein and the ash content. However, as the extraction rate approaches 100% (whole meal), the protein content drops slightly, while the ash content continues to rise.

The following table shows some typical examples of how protein and ash content relate to each other in wheat flour:

{| class=wikitable!rowspan=2|Ash!rowspan=2|Protein!colspan=3|Wheat flour type|-!US||German||French|-|~0.4%||~9%||pastry flour||405||45|-|~0.55%||~11%||all-purpose flour||550||55|-|~0.8%||~14%||high gluten flour||812||80|-|~1%||~15%||first clear flour||1050||110|-|>1.5%||~13%||white whole wheat||1600||150|}

This table is only a rough guideline for converting bread recipes. Since the American flour types are not standardized, the numbers may differ between manufacturers.

Flour production Flour mill is accomplished by grinding grain between Mill stone or steel wheels. Today, "stone-ground" usually means that the grain has been ground in a mill in which a revolving stone wheel turns over a stationary stone wheel, vertically or horizontially with the grain in between. Many small appliance mills are available, both hand-cranked and electric.

Flour dust suspended in air is explosive, as is any mixture of a finely powdered flammable substance with air, see Lycopodium#Uses. Some devastating and fatal explosions have occurred at flour mills, including an explosion in 1878 at the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, the largest flour mill in the United States at the time.

History In history, both large and hand mills were operated. Until modern times, much flour contained minute amounts of grit, either the result of poor sifting of the grain or of grinding stones together. This grit strongly abraded teeth.

One of the most ancient methods of grinding to produce flour was by using a pair of quern-stones. These were made out of rock, and were ground together by hand. They were generally replaced by millstones once mechanised forms of milling appeared, particularly the water mill and the windmill, although animals were also used to operate the millstones.

Flour products Bread, pasta, Cracker (food)s, many cakes, and many other foods are made using flour. Wheat flour is also used to make a roux as a base for gravy and sauces. White wheat flour is the traditional base for wallpaper paste. It is also the base for papier-mâché. Cornstarch is a principal ingredient of many puddings or desserts.

External links

• Grain and wheat flour
• Cooking For Engineers - Kitchen Notes: Wheat Flour
• h2g2 entry on Bread Flour
• British Nutrition Foundation - Flour Information

References

• The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998, United Kingdom.

An ingredient used in many foods, flour is a fine powder made by grinding cereals or other edible starchy plant seeds suitable for grinding. It is most commonly made from wheat—the word "flour" used without qualification implies wheatflour—but also maize (now called maize in many parts of the Western Hemisphere), rye, barley, and rice, amongst many other Poaceaees and non-grain plants (including buckwheat, grain amaranths and many Australian species of acacia). Ground legumes and nuts, such as soy, peanuts, almonds, and other tree nuts, are also called flours. The same substances ground more coarsely are called "meal" instead of "flour".

Flour is the key ingredient of bread, which is the staple food in most countries, and therefore the availability of adequate supplies of flour has often been a major economic and political issue.

Flour always contains a high proportion of starches, which are complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides.

Wheat flour is one of the most important foods in European and American culture, and is the defining ingredient in most types of breads and pastries. Regulations in many countries require that wheat flour be enriched flour to replace nutrients lost in the production of refined flour.

When wheat flour is mixed with water gluten, a complex protein, develops. Gluten is what gives wheat dough an elastic structure that allows it to be worked in a variety of ways, and which allows the retention of gas bubbles in an intact structure, resulting in an aerated final product with a soft texture, desirable for breads, cakes and the like.

Some people suffer from an intolerance to gluten known as Coeliac disease. Increased awareness of this disorder, as well as a rising belief in the benefits of a gluten-free diet for persons suffering certain other conditions, has led to an increased demand for bread, pasta, and other products made with flours that do not contain gluten.

There are some exceptions; in the UK, cornflour is the white, powdered starch of the maize grain, not ground maize.

Types of flour Wheat flour {| align="right" class="wikitable" padding="10"|-! Protein!|-| 5-8%| Cake Flour|-| 8-10%| Pastry Flour|-| 10-11.5%| All-Purpose Flour|-| 11-13%| Bread Flour|-| 14% and up| High-Gluten Flour|}Much more wheat flour is produced than any other flour.

Wheat varieties are called "white" or "brown" if they have high gluten content, and "soft" or "weak flour" if gluten content is low. Hard flour, or "bread" flour, is high in gluten, with a certain toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and so results in a finer texture. Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.

In terms of the parts of the grain (the grass seed) used in flour—the endosperm or starchy part, the germ or protein part, and the bran or fiber part—there are three general types of flour. White flour is made from the endosperm only. Whole grain or Wholemeal flour is made from the entire grain including bran, endosperm, and germ. A germ flour is made from the endosperm and germ, excluding the bran.

Wheat flour is highly explosive when airborne. The most benign cases occur in classroom flour bombs; more sinister applications include fuel-air explosives improvised by so-called "Anarchy#Anarchism" or terrorism. In medieval flour mills, candles, lamps, or other sources of fire were forbidden.

All-purpose or plain flour: This flour is a blended wheat flour with an intermediate gluten level which is marketed as an acceptable compromise for most household baking needs.

Bleached flour:Treated with flour bleaching agents to whiten it (freshly milled flour is yellowish) and to give it more gluten-producing potential. Oxidizing agents are usually employed, most commonly organic peroxides like acetone peroxide or benzoyl peroxide, nitrogen dioxide, or chlorine. A similar effect can be achieved by letting the flour slowly oxidize with oxygen in the air ("natural aging") for approximately 10 days; however, this process is more expensive due to the time required.

Bromated flour: This is a flour with a maturing agent added. The agent's role is to help with developing gluten, a role similar to the flour bleaching agents. Bromate is usually used. Other choices are phosphates, ascorbic acid, and malted barley. Bromated flour has been banned in much of the world, but remains available in the United States.

Cake flour: This is a finely milled flour made from soft wheat. It has very low gluten content, making it suitable for soft-textured cakes and cookies. The higher gluten content of other flours would make the cakes tough.

Graham flour This is a special type of whole-wheat flour. The endosperm is finely ground, as in white flour, while the bran and germ are coarsely ground. Graham flour is uncommon outside of the United States and the cities of Romania. It is the basis of true graham crackers. Many graham crackers on the market are actually imitation grahams because they do not contain graham flour or even whole-wheat flour.

Pastry flour or cookie flour or cracker flour: This flour has slightly higher gluten content than cake flour, but lower than all-purpose flour. It is suitable for fine, light-textured pastry.

Self-rising or self-raising flour: This is "white" wheat flour or wholemeal flour that is sold premixed with chemical leavening agents. It was invented by Henry Jones (baker). It can also be substituted by Maida flour when cooking under the Indian Cuisine. Typical ratios are:

U.S. customary: *one cup flour *1 to 1½ teaspoon baking powder *a pinch to ½ teaspoon salt

Metric: *100 g flour *3 g baking powder *1 g or less salt

Durum or semolina flour: This flour is made of durum wheat. It has the highest protein content, and it is an important component of nearly all noodles and pastas. It is also commonly used to make Indian cuisine flatbreads.

In Britain, many flours go by names different than those from America. Some American flours and British equivalents include:

• Cake and pastry flour = soft flour
• All-purpose flour = plain flour
• Bread flour = strong flour, hard flour
• Self-rising flour = self-raising flour
• Whole-wheat flour = wholemeal flour

===Other flours===

• Maize (maize) flour is popular in the Southern United States and Southwestern United States US and in Mexico. Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn meal that has been bleached with lye is called masa harina (see masa) and is used to make tortillas and tamales in Mexican cooking. Corn flour should never be confused with cornstarch, which is known as "cornflour" in British English.

• Rye flour is used to bake the traditional sourdough breads of Germany and Scandinavia. Most rye breads use a mix of rye and wheat flours because rye has a low gluten content. Pumpernickel bread is usually made exclusively of rye, and contains a mixture of rye flour and rye meal.

• Rice flour is of great importance in Southeast Asian cuisine. Also edible rice paper can be made from it. Most rice flour is made from white rice, thus is essentially a pure starch, but whole-grain brown rice flour is commercially available.

• Noodle flour is special blend of flour used for the making of Asian style noodles.

• Buckwheat flour is used as an ingredient in many pancakes in the United States. In Japan, it is used to make a popular noodle called Soba. In Russia, buckwheat flour is added to the batter for pancakes called blinis which are frequently eaten with caviar. Buckwheat flour is also used to make Brittany crepes called galettes.

• Sweet Chestnut flour is popular in Corsica, the Périgord and Lunigiana. In Corsica, it is used to cook the local variety of polenta. In Italy, it is mainly used for desserts.

• Chickpea flour (also known as gram flour or besan) is of great importance in Indian cuisine, and in Italy, where it is used for the Ligurian farinata.

• Teff flour is made from the grain teff, and is of considerable importance in eastern Africa (particularly around the horn of Africa). Notably, it is the chief ingredient in the bread injera, an important component of Ethiopian cuisine.

• Atta flour is a wheat flour which is important in Indian cuisine, used for a range of breads such as roti and chapati.

• Tang flour (not to be confused with the powdered beverage Tang (drink)) or wheat starch is a type of wheat flour used primarily in China cooking for making the outer layer of dumplings and buns.

• Glutinous rice flour or sticky rice flour, used in east and southeast Asian cuisines for making tangyuan etc.

• Peasemeal or pea flour is a flour produced from roasted and pulverized yellow field peas.

• Bean flour is a flour produced from pulverized dried or ripe beans.

• Potato flour is obtained by grinding the tubers to a pulp and removing the fibre by water-washings. The dried product consists chiefly of starch, but also contains some protein. Potato flour is used as a thickening agent. When heated to boiling, food added with a suspension of potato flour in water thickens quickly. Because the flour is made from neither grain nor legume, it is used as substitute for wheat flour in cooking by Jews during Passover, when grains are not eaten.

• Amaranth flour is a flour produced from ground Amaranth grain. It was commonly used in pre-Columbian meso-American cuisine. It is becoming more and more available in specialty food shops.

• Nut flours are ground from oily nuts--most commonly almonds and hazelnuts--and are used instead of or in addition to wheat flour to produce more dry and flavorful pastries and cakes. Cakes made with nut flours are usually called tortes and most originated in Central Europe, in countries such as Hungary and Austria.

Flour can also be made from buckwheat, soy beans, arrowroot, taro, Typhas, acorns, peas, beans, and other non-grain foodstuffs.

Flour type numbers In some markets, the different available flour varieties are labeled according to the ash mass ("mineral content") that remains after a sample was incinerated in a laboratory oven (typically at 550 °C or 900 °C, see international standards International Organization for Standardization 2171 and International Association for Cereal Science and Technology 104/1). This is an easy to verify indicator for the fraction of the whole grain that ended up in the flour, because the mineral content of the starchy endosperm is much lower than that of the outer parts of the grain. Flour made from all parts of the grain (extraction rate: 100%) leaves about 2 g ash or more per 100 g dry flour. Plain white flour (extraction rate: 50-60%) leaves only about 0.4 g.

• German flour type numbers (Mehltype) indicate the amount of ash (measured in milligrams) obtained from 100 g of the dry mass of this flour. Standard wheat flours (defined in DIN 10355) range from type 405 for normal white wheat flour for baking, to strong bread flour types 550, 650, 812, and the darker types 1050 and 1600 for wholegrain breads.

• French flour type numbers (type de farine) are a factor 10 smaller than those used in Germany, because they indicate the ash content (in milligrams) per 10 g flour. Type 55 is the standard, hard-wheat white flour for baking, including puff pastries ("pâte feuilletée"). Type 45 is often called pastry flour, but is generally from a softer wheat. Types 65, 80, and 110 are strong bread flours of increasing darkness, and type 150 is a wholemeal flour.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, no numbered standardized flour types are defined, and the ash mass is only rarely given on the label by flour manufacturers. However, the legally required standard nutrition label specifies the protein content of the flour, which is also a suitable way for comparing the extraction rates of different available flour types.

It is possible to find out ash content from some US manufacturers. However, US measurements are based on wheat with a 14% moisture content. Thus, a US flour with .48 ash would approximate a French Type 55.

In general, as the extraction rate of the flour increases, so do both the protein and the ash content. However, as the extraction rate approaches 100% (whole meal), the protein content drops slightly, while the ash content continues to rise.

The following table shows some typical examples of how protein and ash content relate to each other in wheat flour:

{| class=wikitable!rowspan=2|Ash!rowspan=2|Protein!colspan=3|Wheat flour type|-!US||German||French|-|~0.4%||~9%||pastry flour||405||45|-|~0.55%||~11%||all-purpose flour||550||55|-|~0.8%||~14%||high gluten flour||812||80|-|~1%||~15%||first clear flour||1050||110|-|>1.5%||~13%||white whole wheat||1600||150|}

This table is only a rough guideline for converting bread recipes. Since the American flour types are not standardized, the numbers may differ between manufacturers.

Flour production Flour mill is accomplished by grinding grain between Mill stone or steel wheels. Today, "stone-ground" usually means that the grain has been ground in a mill in which a revolving stone wheel turns over a stationary stone wheel, vertically or horizontially with the grain in between. Many small appliance mills are available, both hand-cranked and electric.

Flour dust suspended in air is explosive, as is any mixture of a finely powdered flammable substance with air, see Lycopodium#Uses. Some devastating and fatal explosions have occurred at flour mills, including an explosion in 1878 at the Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis, the largest flour mill in the United States at the time.

History In history, both large and hand mills were operated. Until modern times, much flour contained minute amounts of grit, either the result of poor sifting of the grain or of grinding stones together. This grit strongly abraded teeth.

One of the most ancient methods of grinding to produce flour was by using a pair of quern-stones. These were made out of rock, and were ground together by hand. They were generally replaced by millstones once mechanised forms of milling appeared, particularly the water mill and the windmill, although animals were also used to operate the millstones.

Flour products Bread, pasta, Cracker (food)s, many cakes, and many other foods are made using flour. Wheat flour is also used to make a roux as a base for gravy and sauces. White wheat flour is the traditional base for wallpaper paste. It is also the base for papier-mâché. Cornstarch is a principal ingredient of many puddings or desserts.

External links

• Grain and wheat flour
• Cooking For Engineers - Kitchen Notes: Wheat Flour
• h2g2 entry on Bread Flour
• British Nutrition Foundation - Flour Information

References

• The Bread and Flour Regulations 1998, United Kingdom.

BBC - Food - Glossary - 'F'
BBC Food's guide to food terms: 'F' ... Flour. Flour is made from finely ground cereal, such as wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice and maize (corn).

Flour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ingredient; flour is a fine powder made by grinding cereal grains or other suitable edible plant matter that is high in starch. It is most commonly made from wheat — the word ...

Flour Advisory Bureau - Flour for Homebaking & Breadmaking, Wheat ...
Flour Advisory Bureau and the Bread for Life campaign bring flour and bread information to the web.

Flour Advisory Bureau - Flour for Homebaking & Breadmaking, Wheat ...
Flour Advisory Bureau promotes the role of flour & bread as part of a balanced diet through educational material. For further information email us on FAB@nabim.org.uk or call us at ...

British Nutrition Foundation
Flour: Key points • In the UK, wheat flour is most commonly used for the manufacture of food products, although rye and cornflour are also used.

Anne Fine: Flour babies
Flour Babies by Anne Fine is a book for older children. It won the Whitbread Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal.

The Flour Station - craft breads from a truly British bakery
Bread, bakery, Flour, Station, London, British, Battersea, Borough, Market, artisan, craft, loaf, quality, traditional, leaven, sourdough, granary, wholemeal, bloomer, granary ...

Greens Flour Mills Limited
www.greens-flour.co.uk. This site is currently undergoing re-development. Apologies for any incovenience caused.

Andrews Flour (DDS)
Presents an overview of the company and gives details on the services and products that are available.

Flour sales and flour milling information
WWW.FLOUR.COM Welcome to the World of Flours & Flour Milling: Featured Milling Companies