English flour terminology differs between English speaking countries: all purpose vs plain flour, bread flour vs strong white flour, dark rye in US is not the same as dark rye in UK, etc. I decided to completely switch to German and Austrian flour gradings in this blog to avoid confusion.
This move will also make it easier to find correct flour in other European countries like France and Latvia which are using similar ash content based grading approach with only minor numbering differences.
I will be updating existing posts over time to reflect the changes and all new recipes will follow German and Austrian grading. This post will be linked to all recipes so that everyone can find correct flour easily.
What is malt exactly? Wikipedia states:
Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as “malting”.
When grains (or most of seeds in general) are soaked in water, they start to germinate. This is the first stage of a growing process of a plant. Germination process develops enzymes, which start to break down complex saccharides like starches into simpler ones like sugar and glucose. The same is true for complex proteins present in the grains as well. Simpler variations of carbohydrates and proteins are then used as an energy source and building blocks for a new plant.
This process is halted midway to stop grains from growing into new plants and to get access to all of the enzymes which became available. These enzymes can then be used in multiple different ways for all kinds of products, including bread and beer.
This blog is using British rye flour names paired with German flour grading. German flour grades (types) are a golden standard in my opinion and are also used outside of Germany. But since this blog is in English and I, the author, happen to live in UK, it makes sense to me to use British naming conventions.
White, Medium, Crushed Meal, Light, Dark
The issue with British names is that there are no flour standards and regulations currently in UK, so the exact meaning of the terms vary by brand. To make things even more confusing, other English speaking countries are using slightly different terminology. And they also have no standards whatsoever. I’ll try my best in this post to provide some guidance on how to deal with this mess.