A/P flour?

[old fashioned]

I'm an All Purpose (wheat) flour kinda person...so if soft wheat(no or less gluten) is for pastries & such and hard wheat(gluten) is for bread...I'm guessing here all purpose (for all baking) is a mix of both types of flour. But does anyone know the percentage? Would it be 50-50? Or what?

I'm thinking of grinding, mixing & using my own since I learned this past year I can grow my own (if I can keep the birds, chickens, kids, dog, etc out of it :/ )

 

[freemotion]

If you have both, you don't need all purpose flour....use the bread flour for bread, and the pastry flour for pretty much everything else. No need to mix. Really.

Grinding your own grain is amazingly wonderful!

 

[Wannabefree]

All purpose has a lot less gluten in it if I am not mistaken. I'm really not sure Maybe someone will come along shortly with a more definitive answer for you.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I'm an All Purpose (wheat) flour kinda person...so if soft wheat(no or less gluten) is for pastries & such and hard wheat(gluten) is for bread...I'm guessing here all purpose (for all baking) is a mix of both types of flour. But does anyone know the percentage? Would it be 50-50? Or what?

I'm thinking of grinding, mixing & using my own since I learned this past year I can grow my own (if I can keep the birds, chickens, kids, dog, etc out of it :/ )

All wheat has gluten in it, as does Barley, Spelt and Kamut

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I believe that pastry flours have added gluten to them as ell, but I could be wrong.

For natural soft flours, Spelt is an excellent choice, both by itself and for mixing.

 

[old fashioned]

Maybe I should rephrase........

I like all purpose flour, how can I do it myself instead of buying it at the store?

 

[patandchickens]

I have no idea how this maps onto gluten issues; but I can tell you that a/p flour is a lot different in Canada vs the US (to the point that I cannot use many of my most-used American recipes up here without significant modification, especially with some brands of flour) so I do not think it is a certain set percentage protein for a/p flour.

I think your best option honestly (for your own flours) is to just experiment. I found that I had to adjust amounts of liquid and kneading/handling techniques, and accept a certain difference in the outcome of some recipes.

(Which btw was a very annoying thing to discover. I am enough of a modern-day gal that I always figured "flour is flour". Hmph! What makes it worse is that I then felt STUPID for making that assumption LOL)

Good luck, let us know how it goes and what you end up finding to work,

Pat

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

Maybe I should rephrase........

I like all purpose flour, how can I do it myself instead of buying it at the store?

A mixture of spelt and any other wheat of your choice.
You will get a very nice flour this way.

I mentioned the gluten stuff, cause in your op, you mention no gluten versus gltuen

 

[Shiloh Acres]

In Cali I discovered a great variation in A/P flours. Add to that the fact that I was trying to learn to bake at high altitude ...

Anyway, I can't say how to reproduce it, but you might want to look at the protein content, etc. of your favorite flour. That was where I found the biggest variation, and it does make the doughs behave differently

 

[lwheelr]

Hard Red Wheat makes a heavy flour - lots of bran.

Hard White Wheat makes a lighter flour - raises better because it is higher in gluten.

Soft White Wheat is best for pastries and crusts, it is lower in gluten, so it gets less gluey and stretchy.

Durum Wheat is firm and sort of rubbery, makes the best pasta.

I think that Hard White Wheat is probably the closest thing to All Purpose that you can mill yourself. It behaves like half AP, half Hard Red.