What is the difference between premium flour and first grade flour

Flour is one of the key prod­ucts used in cook­ing for mak­ing all kinds of pas­tries and deli­cious dish­es. There is a huge vari­ety of its species, types and, of course, vari­eties. Two are con­sid­ered the most “run­ning”: the high­est and the first. How do they dif­fer from each oth­er and what are they used for? Our experts know the answer.

Premium flour: features, application

Pre­mi­um flour is con­sid­ered the most puri­fied prod­uct obtained from the cen­tral grain part. It is the most starchy, con­tains a small amount of pro­tein and at a min­i­mum — fats and fiber. There are prac­ti­cal­ly no min­er­als in the pow­der. The col­or is per­fect­ly white, some­times with a slight creamy tint.

The prod­uct has excel­lent bak­ing prop­er­ties: prod­ucts pre­pared using pre­mi­um flour pow­der have a good vol­ume and excel­lent taste.

What is best for:

1. For bak­ing lush bread;

2. For bak­ing from puff pas­try, short­crust pas­try, using yeast;

3. For the prepa­ra­tion of sauces (due to the very fine grind­ing, the prod­uct acts as an excel­lent thick­en­er).

ON A NOTE. Bak­ing based on pre­mi­um flour is high in calo­ries, so you should not abuse prod­ucts based on it — this can lead to the appear­ance of extra pounds. In addi­tion, the gluten in the com­po­si­tion will slow down the diges­tive process — the body will not absorb vit­a­mins very effi­cient­ly with food.

First grade flour: features, application

Such flour pow­der is made not only from the cen­tral part of the grain, but also a con­sid­er­able amount of the grain shell (about 10%). Con­tains more than the high­est grade amount of pro­tein, fat, min­er­als and fiber. The col­or can vary from white to white inter­spersed with var­i­ous shades of gray and yel­low. Due to the large amount of gluten, the dough is very elas­tic, and ready-made bak­ery and oth­er prod­ucts are fra­grant and volu­mi­nous.

What is best for:

1. For cook­ing pas­ta;

2. As a bread­ing;

3. For mak­ing savory pas­tries, such as pies or pan­cakes.

ON A NOTE. Food prod­ucts pre­pared using first grade flour are less caloric than those made on the basis of a pre­mi­um grade prod­uct. In addi­tion, they stale much more slow­ly.

Feature Comparison

For a more com­plete pic­ture, our experts made a visu­al com­par­i­son of the main char­ac­ter­is­tics of the two types of flour.

Unusual

Wheat flour of the first grade is con­sid­ered a stan­dard prod­uct that can always be found on store shelves. For those who are fond of bak­ing, it will be use­ful to find out what oth­er options can be pur­chased for mak­ing excel­lent culi­nary prod­ucts:

1. 
   spelled - Obtained from spelled wheat. Unlike clas­sic wheat, spelled is more nutri­tious, con­tains fats that are bet­ter absorbed. Spelled con­tains gluten, but the taste of fin­ished culi­nary prod­ucts is sim­i­lar to those obtained from whole grain flour.

2. 
   Semoli­na — obtained from durum wheat vari­eties, con­tains a large amount of fiber. Ide­al for Ital­ian pas­ta.

3. 
   Abyssin­ian broom­stick — an old vari­ety of grain, char­ac­ter­ized by con­sid­er­able nutri­tion­al val­ue and valu­able com­po­si­tion (includes iron, thi­amine, fiber, etc.). Con­tains a sig­nif­i­cant amount of pro­tein, small grains are used to obtain a gluten-free prod­uct. Very pop­u­lar with ath­letes, peo­ple with gluten intol­er­ance, and those who watch their weight.

How to define a quality product?

Stores offer con­sumers a wide vari­ety of prod­ucts from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers. And, although it is impos­si­ble to deter­mine its qual­i­ty by look­ing at the store shelf, it can always be done at home to see if it is suit­able for cook­ing. Remem­ber a few sim­ple rules:

1. 
   Pay atten­tion to the expi­ra­tion date — Do not buy a prod­uct with an expir­ing date. Stale on the store shelf, it becomes less free-flow­ing, harm­ful microor­gan­isms appear in it;

2. 
   Col­or dry mass should be either white or white with a yel­low / gray tint — oth­er shades are not allowed, as well as black dots, lumps;

3. 
   Taste the flour mass should not be sour, bit­ter or moldy;

4. 
   Flour packed in poly­eth­yl­ene should be avoid­ed. — it sim­ply does not “breathe” — this is how a musty smell appears.