Question for bread makers

Do you have any experience with hard red wheat flour ? I am raising my first batch of dough using 100% of this flour and it has a most unusual color and consistency - taupe, putty or clay like. It was very hard to work with using my normal proportions to have a high moisture dough and I had to add extra flour.

[Jenise]

I don't know about "hard red" but I've used a locally milled red wheat bread flour and it makes a tough, tough dough. I didn't care for it by itself and diluted it with AP flour by about 50% in order to get a consistency that still tasted like wheat bread but was reasonable to work with.

How did your bread turn out?

TERRIBLE !! It was hard, red, spring wheat from Montana. It had a very bitter taste and never developed any gluten cloak to hold it together as it raised. I must have done something very wrong as it was billed as high gluten . The crumb was fine textured, the crust never got crunchy and the taste very strange. My husband asked what we were going to do with the paving brick on the counter.
I have 5 # to use up so it will get mixed with other flours next time around.

Christina, I've never heard of red wheat flour. Is it a different strain of wheat?

Christina, I've never heard of red wheat flour. Is it a different strain of wheat?

It's the most commonly planted wheat in the US, and is the classic wheat used in whole wheat flours. Hard red wheats are characterized by a high protein content, leading to greater gluten content. This makes the flour ideal for bread-making, making Christina's comments all the more puzzling. The protein content isn't quite as high as durum/semolina, but it's pretty close, making kneading a chore and a half. Good for toning up the triceps, though.

Mark Lipton

Just consulted McGee. The most common wheat varities in North America are red, having a seed coat that is reddish brown with phenolic coumpounds and white wheat, with a much lower phenolic content and light tan seed coat and a less astringent taste.Hard red spring wheat has a 13-16.5% protein content by weight . Hard red winter wheat 10-13.5 % while hard white has 10-12%. THey are all triticum aestivum.
I surely did something wrong because my dough had no gluten - was totally relaxed and stayed that way.
The taste is very distinctive and not sure I can salvage the loaf for anything else other than compost enrichment.

I'd crumble it and let the birds enjoy it.

I was going to suggest chickens...

Thanks for the headsup, I must look into what sort of wheat we have here..