Strong Flour?

grouch, Oct 5, 2:39am
Sometimes you see where a recipe and mainly bread recipes, say to use strong flour so my question is, Is it High Grade Flour?
village.green, Oct 5, 2:44am
Not really. The protein in strong flour should be higher than high grade. I generally only use plain flour for breadmaking and then add 1 Tbs of gluten flour per cup of flour to make it more suitable for breadmaking. However I am not sure whether this is a good thing to do or not. I think it is probably more technical than that and maybe someone with more knowledge will answer. You can buy strong flour here. I sometimes buy Victory strong flour from local Binn Inn type place however it is packaged by the shop so doesn't have any nutritional info on it. When I visit my mum in UK she always has strong flour in the pantry for bread making as it is specially formulated for breads etc. I think it could also be a different type of wheat?
village.green, Oct 5, 2:45am
NZ recipes tend to say HG flour for bread type recipes.
lilyfield, Oct 5, 3:27am
High Gradw
that is all we have in NZ
buzzy110, Oct 5, 3:30am
Village.green I think you are right. I have purchased flour from another poster in here who knows her flour and in whom I have the greatest confidence. She says the same as you about the protein. I too add some gluten when bread making without strong strong flour but have not found that to be as satisfactory as using strong flour. Dough made with strong flour stays more stable during the secondary proof and doesn't split open.

For some reason, over the last 3 years of making sourdough I have found that even when using high grade flour the dough splits before it has properly risen. I have had to stop using organic flours which produce even less stable dough.

Something not too good has happened to the quality of our flour so imo when a recipe calls for strong flour then that is what I would use. Even my choux pastry cases need strong flour now as they do not rise and hollow out the same as they used to do with high grade flour.

Or, conversely, it could just be the brand of flour but I have tried most of them.
sampa, Oct 5, 5:10am
The simple answer is yes. As opposed to plain flour. But, as has mentioned above, there are also many other factors that come into play. However. if you're simply wondering whether to purchase plain or high grade flour for bread baking then high grade is the better option of the two.
lenart, Oct 15, 11:26pm
Buzzy, you made me feel more clever than I am :)
My stock of strong flour nearly finished and I need to share 10kg of Champion Beta Strong flour from Gilmour's again. Who has invented 20kg bags? Will probably have to buy flour in a week or so. May be one person or two who can take 5kg each? The price works out at $1.20/kilo. And always happy to share sourdough starter to go with the flour :)
lythande1, Oct 15, 11:56pm
Yes.
And it makes excellent bread.
uli, Oct 16, 8:41pm
I suspect that "strong" flour (which is an American term) has more gluten content than our NZ "High Grade" flour.

The more gluten the better the bread quality. In NZ most people like their bread with little pores, kind of fluffy, and High Grade flour will achieve that. Although you need to bake it in a form. It will not keep its shape free form.

However if you try to make European or American bread recipes you usually need to add extra gluten to the High Grade otherwise you will not get those big holes and the bread will not keep its shape.

This is one of the reasons why in NZ "baguette" is baked in long half round baking forms. It would never keep its shape in free form, as the flour has not enough gluten.
lenart, Aug 28, 6:47pm
Champion Strong flour is milled from a different (hard) variety of wheat. Yes, it has a bit higher protein than Champion's high grade or other brands high grade, which are milled from softer wheat. It is much easier for grain mills to mill soft wheat than hard wheat, that's one of the reasons of high grade flour dominance.

Are there any takers for 5-10kg of strong flour? Great for bread baking and beyond :)