Straight, Patent, and Clear Flour

Once the grindings and siftings are complete and the maximum amount of flour has been obtained from the grain, the various streams of flour are either blended or kept separate, depending on the desired flour to be bagged. If all the sifted flour is reblended, and therefore the entire endosperm is recombined, the result is called “straight flour.” “Patent flour” is flour milled from the part of the kernel closest to the center of the endosperm, and for bread baking it is generally considered to be the best. “Extra short” or “fancy patent” is the designation for flour milled from the very heart of the endosperm, with short, medium, and long patent slightly farther from the center. Flour milled from the outer periphery of the wheat kernel is known as “clear flour”; it is darker in color due to the higher level of minerals present toward the periphery, and higher in protein than patent flour, although not all of the protein is usable in the sense of being beneficial to bread volume. Typically, clear flour is used in the production of American-style rye breads; the darker color of the clear flour is not considered a negative factor in these breads.