All About Wheat Flour

First off, Palouse Brand wheat flours have the best things in common...they are all 100% whole grain, stone ground flour which means no bleach, no bromate, no GMOs and no artificial preservatives. All are sourced directly from our farm where we care about our farming practices, as they are essential to providing full transparency to our customers. In addition, all of our flours are cleaned, milled, and packaged by our own employees right on the Palouse where they are grown. 

What Makes Our Flour Different?

Now let’s talk about some differences! Palouse Brand provides four varieties of wheat flour. Three of these varieties are hard wheat and one is soft wheat. Our hard wheats are higher in protein, typically between 11-15% while our soft wheat is lower in protein, typically between 8-10%. Our higher protein flours will offer more gluten forming proteins to provide structure and strength to your doughs. Our lower protein flour will offer less gluten forming proteins to provide a tender and delicate structure. With milled flour such as ours you do have to pay close attention to the amount of water you are using. Multi-purpose being a lower protein content isn't a big issue, however our high proteins flours absorb water more therefore adjust recipes as you go with this in mind. We think all of our flours offer a unique place in your recipes. Read below to find out how.

Whole Wheat Bread Flour

Made with our Hard Red Spring wheat is our strongest protein flour. At 15% protein, it is perfect for robust flavored hearty loaf breads, baked free form or in a bread tin. It will support a strong starter for those sourdough breads! If you are new to baking with whole wheat, try substituting this flour at 50% for white flour and go from there. Once you get comfortable with the nuances of baking with whole wheat, you can up the %.

Whole Wheat Flour

Made with our Hard Red Winter wheat has a great nutty, robust flavor at a lower 11% protein content. This makes a perfect all around flour for many purposes. We suggest using this flour for enriched sandwich breads, bagels, pancakes, waffles, chewy cookies, or heartier muffins. Make your favorite bran muffin with no need to add any bran! It is very diverse and the opportunities are endless. In these recipes, this flour can be exchanged at 100% but feel free to replace at 50% and go from there.

White Bread Flour

Made with our Hard White Wheat is our second strongest protein flour at 14% protein. The flour is still 100% whole grain and is only called “white” due to the variety. It is a lighter color grain which gives a sweet, mild flavor that differs from the traditional red wheat varieties used in whole wheat flours. We find this flour to be very kid friendly and recommend it for hearty loaf breads, sandwich breads, pizza dough, bagels, focaccia, ciabatta, and much more! Again, we stress to start with partial 50% whole grain flour if you are new to whole grain baking and grow from there.

Multi-Purpose Flour

Made with our Soft White wheat is our lowest protein flour at 9%. This flour is the other of our “white” wheat varieties that is 100% whole grain but ground from a wheat that is lighter in color and gives a sweet, mild flavor. This is the flour you will want to use for your cakes, muffins, biscuits, tender cookies, tart shells, coffee cakes and quick breads. We find much success at switching this flour out at 100% with white flour. Give it a try and let us know how it goes!