High-extraction, additionally referred to as bolted flour, hits the candy spot between white and entire wheat: It brings the wealthy nuttiness of entire grains, whereas additionally offering the loft and chew many bakers search for when making artisan loaves. To get bolted flour, millers sift out solely the coarsest bran and germ. The ensuing flour brings depth, caramelization, and complexity to baked items. For bakers who need each taste and texture, this can be a nice flour to make use of.
I’ve by no means been nice at selecting up informal hobbies—the second one thing will get its hooks in me, I develop into fixated. After a profitable run of no-knead loaves made with all-purpose flour, I instantly constructed two totally different sourdough starters and browse each article and recipe I may discover to copy one of the best naturally leavened loaves from native bakeries. My pantry quickly overflowed with luggage of various flours from mills throughout the nation. There was spelt for added taste, mild rye for feeding my starter, a wide range of heirloom entire wheat flours for texture and tang, and artisanal white flour to behave as a base for the combination.
But probably the most prized flour in my assortment was additionally the one I knew least about: a bag of bolted flour—a sifted flour with the bran eliminated—from a neighborhood mill in Wisconsin. The ingredient added depth and richness to my bread. Whenever I leaned closely on bolted flour for my nation loaves, focaccia, pizza, or baguettes, I unlocked new ranges of nuttiness with a young crumb that I could not obtain with both white flour or entire wheat flour alone. The solely problem? I did not actually know why.
What Is High-Extraction Flour?
The time period bolted “refers to a bolting material used to separate the bran out of your wheat flour,” says Wes Gardner, mill supervisor at Meadowlark Organics in Ridgeway, Wisconsin. “It’s the term we use for the high-extraction flours that we offer—basically, a type of flour with some of the bran and germ removed.” Wheat consists of three components: the germ, which serves as dietary storage for the plant; the bran, which is the powerful, outer shell; and the endosperm, the white starch that offers flour its construction and texture in baked items.
White flours have many of the bran and germ eliminated, permitting the endosperm-rich flour to bond extra simply with water, kind sturdy gluten strands, and provides bread its peak. In entire wheat flours, the powerful bran flakes hinder gluten improvement, leading to dense loaves with a good crumb construction. “High-extraction flours, like our bolted flour, take away the bigger particles of the bran and germ,” Gardner says. The smaller particles that make it by means of contribute a nutty, grassy taste paying homage to entire wheat, whereas nonetheless permitting the bread to realize the peak and dough power of white flour.
“High extraction flours are the best of both worlds for performance and flavor,” says Serious Eats contributor Andrew Janjigian, writer of the Wordloaf newsletter and upcoming cookbook Breaducation. “If I had a bakery, I’d try to make almost everything with high-extraction flours,” Janjigian says. He defined that eradicating bran from flour is an previous method amongst bakers of naturally leavened breads in France—and a part of the rationale individuals romanticize the baguettes they tried at a neighborhood bakery in Paris. “You get the complex flavor of whole wheat while still retaining the delicate, open crumb that baguettes are known for.”
Regular entire wheat flour can produce an excessively dense crumb, because the bran particles inhibit gluten improvement, whereas normal white flour alone can yield bland loaves. High-extraction flour falls someplace within the center, bringing sweetness, nuttiness, and minerality to breads whereas permitting for an open, mild, ethereal crumb. It additionally promotes extra browning, leading to loaves with deeper caramelization than these made with white flour.
How Is High-Extraction Flour Made?
Meadowlark, like many smaller regional flour mills, makes use of a stone mill to grind its wheat berries. Stone mills function with two grooved stones set in opposition to one another: One stays stationary, whereas the opposite rotates in a circle. As wheat berries are fed into the mill, the stones grind the germ, endosperm, and bran collectively right into a high-quality powder. The result’s entire wheat flour, which then goes right into a barrel sifter—an extended barrel with an auger that strikes the flour by means of it. Inside the barrel is a mesh sleeve with particular gap sizes measured in microns. “As the flour is spun by the auger, it is pressed in opposition to the sleeve,” says Garder. The bigger particles are trapped by the mesh, whereas the smaller ones go by means of to develop into high-extraction flour.
“Most white flours have a lot of the bran and germ sifted out that they solely symbolize round 50 to 55% of the burden of the wheat berries that have been milled within the first place,” explains Gardner. Whole wheat flours, alternatively, symbolize a 100% yield from the milled berries. High-extraction flours fall someplace within the center, sometimes yielding round 70 to 85% of the beginning wheat’s whole weight. “Some mills will even label their high-extraction flours as T80 or T85,” says Janjigian. “That quantity not directly refers back to the extraction fee of the flour.” (“T” means sort of flour.)
High-extraction, then, refers to how a lot materials has been extracted from the wheat. Typically, that is measured by burning a small quantity of flour and weighing the ensuing ash, which displays the quantity of bran remaining. “That’s why some high-extraction flours are labeled with the time period ‘ash content material,'” says Janjigian.
Roller Milled vs. Stone Ground High-Extraction Flour
Large industrial mills usually use curler mills, which depend on a collection of grinding cylinders organized in sequence. As the flour passes by means of every set of rollers, the bran and germ are naturally sifted out, making it simpler to supply commercially out there white flours. For a curler mill to supply high-extraction flour, the bran and germ eliminated throughout milling have to be blended again in on the finish to realize the specified combine. With stone mills, against this, the bran, germ, and endosperm are floor collectively and sifted solely after milling. Because the bran and germ are milled with the endosperm, finer particles of every can go by means of the sifter. These finer particles add basic entire wheat taste to the bread whereas remaining sufficiently small to let the flour carry out extra like white flour, which is why Janjigian prefers stone-ground high-extraction flour.
How to Bake With High-Extraction Flour
“At Gusto, we rely exclusively on high-extraction flours, and often blend them with whole grains like spelt, rye, and durum rather than white flour,” says Arturio Enciso, founding father of Gusto Bread in Long Beach. Gusto Bread additionally incorporates nixtamalized corn in its baking and pays tribute to panadería classics comparable to conchas and pastelitos, alongside varied naturally leavened breads. “Working with high-extraction flours has fully reshaped how I take into consideration bread,” Enciso says. “It’s pushed me to be extra intentional with fermentation, hydration, and taste improvement. These flours have extra character—they demand consideration and reward care.”
Unlike common entire wheat flour, high-extraction flours can usually be substituted one-to-one for white flour in most bread recipes. However, Janjigian notes that high-extraction flours take in extra water than white flours, so that you may want to regulate the hydration ratio by including 5 to 10% extra water than referred to as for in a recipe.. Janjigian recommends novices use a 50/50 mixture of white and high-extraction flours till they really feel extra comfy incorporating extra of the latter. He additionally mentions that smaller portions of high-extraction flour, round 10 to twenty% of the overall flour weight, will be added to pastries to spice up taste with out affecting the construction of the dough an excessive amount of. However, most croissants and different laminated pastries—which have extra delicate doughs than most breads—will seemingly lose a few of their peak. Still, for a lot of bakers, the trade-off is value it.
“High-extraction flour has made breadmaking extra significant to me—not simply technically, but in addition emotionally and philosophically,” says Enciso. “It’s deepened my connection to the grain itself and where it comes from. I now think of bread less as a blank canvas and more as an expression of the land, the miller, and the baker.”
Where Can You Find High-Extraction Flour?
“At Gusto Bread, we work with Cairnspring Mills flours. Our major high-extraction flours are Trailblazer and Glacier Peak, which we use commonly in our bread manufacturing,” says Enciso. There are a wide range of different on-line retailers providing high-extraction flours, comparable to Central Milling from Utah and Janie’s Mill in Illinois. Janjigian recommends supporting native mills that promote immediately by means of on-site shops or have their flour out there in native markets, grocery shops, and on-line.
In my very own baking, I incorporate Meadowlark’s bolted flour in virtually every thing I bake. While I began by mixing a small quantity of bolted flour into white flour for a country-style sourdough loaf, I ultimately changed 50% of the white flour for many white-flour-dominant recipes with out altering another a part of the method. I nonetheless get lofty focaccias and pizza with an ethereal cornicione, however now the flavour is undeniably extra distinctive and scrumptious.
