To be honest, for a long time I was sure that the flour should be exclusively of the highest grade, period! Well, for baking. Of course, you can take special flour if you are going to make homemade pasta. This is a durum wheat flour, farina di grano duro, and makes wonderful meals.
But for baking, it turns out, there are nuances. In theory. In practice, I did not have time to check everything while collecting information.
So, flour is naturally bleached, under the influence of atmospheric oxygen, and it is called "unbleached" - just a paradox. And sometimes it is chemically bleached - and such flour is called "bleached".
Chemically bleached in Russia with chlorine dioxide and benzoyl peroxide. there are other bleaching agents, but they are prohibited in our country.
Bleached flour is looser and contains less gluten. Products from it are more airy and with a more "crunchy" crust. Fast, porous bread, for example - it is made from bleached flour. I don't like it, to be honest - some kind of empty one.
Baking flour is a separate species, it turns out. This is a premium flour, but it may contain additives such as ascorbic acid. Such flour is unbleached (uh!) And is well suited for yeast dough because of its structure - it contains about 12% to 14% gluten, which is good for lush, but not too heavy and dense dough.
Although in practice I always buy the premium flour, and Kazakh flour, and I am quite satisfied with it even in a heavy pastry.
And here I come to the paradox that I encountered in my search for information about flour.
Some professionals recommend using second-grade flour for dense butter dough.
For example, Andrei Rudkov writes that in flour for baking - second grade flour - the protein content is only from 8% to 10% gluten, and it is bleached with chlorine dioxide, which allows the dough to rise faster and provides better texture.
But other sources claim that second-grade flour has a high ash content, it contains the most grain shells and therefore products from it quickly turn stale, which means that it is not suitable for baking.
Still others generally recommend using grains for baking. But the problem with grit is that grit before and grit are now two completely different products. Now gritty flour (gritty flour) is called a fairly coarse flour, similar to grains of a pale cream color.
But earlier, apparently, it was this kind of flour that was called wheat, and the grain was just white.
At least, this is exactly the information provided by N. V. Gross
Such is the confusion.
Have you come across second grade flour? And with grains?
And how do you like them in baking and in general in the dough?