Now that I’m grinding more and more of our flour, I am learning a lot about what types of grain work best for what I’m making. I currently have three types in my pantry, hard red wheat, hard white, and soft white.
I purchased my hard white and soft white grain from Azure Standard. They seem to have the best prices for bulk grains. The hard red wheat I found at Walmart of all places. I’m sure that it’s not organic, but the price was right and I wanted to give it a try.
The main difference between hard red wheat and hard white wheat is the color. Red wheat still has the genes for bran color, while white wheat was developed from red wheat, but the color has been eliminated.
The Results
~ I thought that the dough from the hard white was the easiest to work with, and held it’s shape the best.
~ The bread made from the hard red grain had a bitter aftertaste. The dough seemed a little dry, but it still formed a nice loaf.
~ The soft white bread cracked and seemed a little dry. I enjoyed the taste, but my husband did not.
Overall, if I had to pick just one type of wheat to have in the pantry it would be hard white wheat. It won me over in taste and workability.
It would be interesting to try this experiment with cookies or pasta. Maybe once we get the wood cook stove going. I hope that this post answers any questions that you may have about choosing grains. As always, if you do have a question please feel free to either leave it in the comments or email me.