Talk:Atta (flour)

Is "hard wheat" = durum wheat?
What is meant by "hard wheat"? Is it durum wheat? -- 77.7.129.123 (talk) 20:48, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Hard wheat means just that, literally the wheat kernel is hard. Durum is one species of hard wheat, probably the hardest widely available wheat species. Durum is most frequently used for making pasta while other varieties of hard wheat (not as hard as durum but still hard) are used for making high gluten flours such as bread flour. Softer wheat varieties are used in proportionately higher amounts to make pastry flour, cake flour, and biscuit flour, or all purpose flour in the southern US. Most all purpose flour milled and packaged in the US is a combination of hard and soft varieties. Because of the wider availability of soft wheat varieties in the south (most hard wheat varieties don't grow well in the warmer climate), more of the soft wheat is used when milling in the south. This means most southern AP flours have a much lower protein content than AP milled and packaged in the north. Lower gluten/protein flours lend themselves more to making pies and biscuits and perform poorly when making yeast breads; hence southern cooks have historically tended to make a lot more biscuits than bread.

Hope that helps. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.57.60.85 (talk) 19:53, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is confusing. Having tried atta flour to make bread (and tasted both types of flour side by side), I think they are different species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.206.207.137 (talk) 00:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)