Already within one country it can be a bit confusing: the large number of different flour types. When baking foreign recipes it gets even more difficult. This page provides an overview and helps you to determine the correct type of flour.
I actually just wanted to bake pretzels tomorrow. And as a result, I’ve been sitting on this entry and on the supposedly simple topic of flour for half a day now. But I was planning to give an overview of different types of flour anyway. I hope I am able to help some of you who are interested in baking foreign recipes. From zero to curry (or flour).
Overview of international wheat flour types
First of all: as of today, I am at war with Austrian flours. Or more with their comparability with flour types of other countries. More about this below. Here is an overview of the different types of wheat flour. Maybe I’ll create something like this for rye flour, too, if I ever bake something with it.
| Mineral content (in dry weight) | Germany | UK | USA | India | Austria | Switzerland | France | Italy |
| up to 0,5 % | 405 | soft / patent | cake / pastry flour | Maida | W480 | 400 | T45 | 00 |
| ~ 0,55 % | 550 | plain /white | all-purpose | 550 | T55 | 0 | ||
| ~ 0,7 % | W700 | 720 / Halbweiss | T65 | 1 | ||||
| ~ 0,8 % | 812 | hard / lightbrown | bread flour | W700? | T80 | |||
| ~ 1 % | 1050 | very hard / brown | first clear | W1600 ? | 1100 / Ruchmehl | T110 | 2 | |
| 1,21 – 1,8 % | 1600 | whole grain | whole grain | Atta | W1600 ? Vollkornmehl | 1900 | T150 | Farina integrale di grano tenero |
| up to 2,1 % | 1700 (shreds) |
Sources:
- https://www.baeckerlatein.de/franzoesische-mehltypen/
- https://essenzielles.at/mehlsorten-und-mehltypen-fuer-brot/
- https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehl
- https://delightbaking.com/types-of-flour-naming-conventions-in-each-country/
In Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland, the flour type is determined on the basis of the ash content of flour burned at 900°C. Therefore, the type number is meaningful in itself. This can be seen clearly in the German 550 flour. This corresponds to Swiss 550 and French T55 flour.
Flour variants: smooth, coarse, double coarse, universal
In addition to the classification according to mineral content, there are also differences in the texture of the flour. Coarser flours exist: griffiges Mehl (translates to non-slip flour) and the even more coarse doppelgriffiges Mehl. They are ground more coarsely and have a tactile texture. They absorb water more slowly than smooth flours and therefore have better baking properties. In Germany, I know of Spätzlemehl, which is also sold under this name. Most of the flours I know are universal flours.
Austrian flour types
Dear neighbors, your flour is a mystery to me. At least what the internet says about the comparability of your flour to the German one.
Often the Austrian flour type W700 is equated to the German 812. However, this makes little sense in the logic of type classifications. Presumably this is done for simplicity, since this type does not exist in Germany (no, that’s not the proper uproar yet 😉). Christopher Lang even blends German flour types to get W700 flour. Whether you really need to do that, or whether it’s not usually sufficient to just use the 812, I’ll leave for now. A short explanation of how to mix flour types can be found below.
In Austria, as in Germany, the type number corresponds to the ash residue or the mineral content of the flour, as mentioned above. How can it be that your W1600 flour is then equated with the German 1050 flour? There is conflicting information about this on Wikipedia. And I have a vague feeling that everyone has copied from others and made the same mistakes.
Wikipedia says that German 1050 wheat flour contains between 0.91 and 1.2% minerals. The overview of Austrian flour says that your type W1600 contains between 1.5 and 1.75% minerals. So far that’ s plausible.
But in the overview of Austrian flour that Wikipedia page also says that it is comparable to 1050 flour. And I don’t understand that. That makes no sense. In Germany, there is 1600 flour with just this mineral content (but this is whole wheat flour – I don’t know if that could perhaps be the difference… but that doesn’t really make sense to me either, otherwise how can you achieve the same mineral content? It’s all wheat after all…)
And all, really all, sites I’ve found on flour types say it’s the same as German type 1050 wheat flour. I doubt that. Even though everyone writes that. Feel free to leave me comments on this, especially if you are knowledgeable in the field, millers, bakers, food analysts, baking enthusiasts, whatever.
It probably doesn’t matter, since the baked goods succeed either way. But I am a numbers person and very interested in authentic recipes. Therefore, please remedy my newly won inner anxiety and enlighten me :-).
Mixing flour
According to Christopher Lang, flour types can be mixed. With the following outlined method, he explains how to arrive at the necessary mixing ratio:
visual representation for the calculation of the mixing ratio of different flour types – visual representation for the mixing ratio of different flour types.
The target type is written in the center, and on the top left and bottom left, one available flour type each is written, which must have a higher mineral content in one case and a lower mineral content in the other. On the right side, the differences are determined: on the upper right, the difference to the flour type on the lower left, on the lower right, the difference to the flour type on the upper left. As a result you get the ratio, which you only have to shorten to get a usable mixing ratio.
In this example, we want to mix type W700 (from Austria) from wheat flour type 550 and wheat flour type 1050. As a result, you need 7 parts type 550 and 3 parts type 1050.
Instinctively, I would say that this only works with types that are close to each other. With type 405 together with type 1600 I would rather leave the experiment alone.
And, of course, it is not completely accurate, since the different types of flour either contain certain components of the grain completely or omit them completely. To some extent, however, I think this will work. I applied this to the recipe for pretzels. I had Indian Maida and, coincidentally, the French T65 type of flour at home and mixed those into 550 flour. This turned out to work well as a result.
