Which Wheat is Best for You?
Don’t try to use soft white wheat for making yeast-raised breads, though, because it doesn’t contain enough gluten to make these breads rise nicely.
You can order whole grain soft white wheat and grind it yourself (more about this below) or order it pre-milled as Whole Wheat Pastry Flour.
‘Hard’ wheat is available in two different colors, red and white, and is best for baking yeast breads and sourdough breads.
In the picture here, our hard red wheat (brand named, Bronze Chief) is in the back. Notice how much darker it is than the hard white wheat (brand named Prairie Gold) in the front. Both are whole wheat grains, or berries, and both are pretty equal in terms of the vitamins and minerals they contain. The thing that makes them so different is the way they perform in baking and their very different flavors.
In the picture of the flour, the hard red wheat (Bronze Chief) is on the left, the hard white (Prairie Gold) is on the right. Look closely and you should be able to see that the hard red flour is darker.
Hard red is the wheat that traditional whole wheat flour is made of. Bread made from hard red wheat flour has a hearty flavor, and it’s noticably heavier than bread made with hard white wheat flour.
Hard white flour produces a bread that is much lighter, sweeter, and milder than traditional whole wheat bread. In fact, you can almost pass this bread off as ‘white bread’ without your kids, husband, or company realizing that they’re eating whole wheat bread.
You can order both hard red and hard white flour or grind your own whole wheat berries (kernels) with a grain mill. We highly recommend grinding your own flour because the flavor, not to mention the nutrition, is much, much better when the flour is fresh. Right now, the Nutrimill Grain Mill, our favorite mill, is on sale too. You can purchase it through our co-op for local pick up, or get it shipped directly to your door by ordering through our store.
Prairie Gold Hard White Wheat is our number 1 seller, and we highly recommend it. Have you used Prairie Gold Wheat? What is your experience? Do you mill your own flour?