What does the designation Type 550 mean for wheat flour?

Everyone has bought a pack of commercially available household flour and then wondered what the label “Wheat Flour Type 550” is all about. Not only the type of grain – such as wheat or rye – but also the so-called “type designation” provides information about the composition of the flour.

Little flour sorts and types

So let’s briefly follow the way back to the mill: During flour production, the cleaned grain is crushed between two different, fast-running grinding rollers. The grain can be ground to different degrees of fineness. Flour, baking meal, wholemeal meal or wholemeal flour are left over in different proportions.

If the degree of fineness of the ground grain is less than 180 microns, it is referred to as a so-called type flour. The degree of grinding indicates what percentage of a certain type of flour is produced, based on 100 kilograms of the starting grain.

The higher the degree of grinding, the darker, more protein-rich, fiber-rich and mineral-rich the flour is. The lower the degree of grinding, the lighter and stronger the flour.

The brightness or type is determined by determining the mineral content. If you burn flour at around 900 degrees Celsius, the minerals remain as “ash”.

Flour is not just flour

According to the amount of these residues, the different types of flour are designated with numbers. 100 grams of wheat flour of wheat flour type 550 therefore contain an average of 0.55 grams of minerals in the dry matter.

While type flours have a minimum shelf life of one year or more, wholemeal flours should not be stored for longer than four to six weeks.

In addition to wheat and rye flours, the grains  spelled , triticale – a cross between wheat and rye – as well as  barley ,  oats  and  corn are mainly  used for bread making. ( aid)