American Wheat farmers, supplying the world with quality wheat for breads, cakes, noodles and pasta.
There are six classes of wheat grown in the United States they are designated by color, hardness and their growing season. Millers and bakers can produce and use flours made from U.S. wheat for almost every possible end product.
Hard Red Winter Wheat
Versatile, with excellent milling and baking characteristics for pan bread, HRW is also a choice wheat for Asian style noodles, hard rolls, flat breads, tortillas, general purpose flour and cereal.
Hard Red Spring Wheat
The aristocrat of wheat when it comes to “designer” wheat foods like hearth breads, rolls, croissants, bagels and pizza crust, HRS is also a valued improver in flour blends for bread and Asian style noodles.
Soft Red Winter Wheat
SRW is versatile weak gluten wheat with excellent milling and baking characteristics for cookies, crackers, pretzels, pastries and flat breads.
Soft White Wheat
A low moisture wheat with high extraction rates, providing a whiter product for exquisite cakes, pastries and Asian style noodles, SW is also ideally suited to Middle Eastern flat breads.
Hard White Wheat
HW receives enthusiastic reviews when used for Asian style noodles, whole wheat white flour, tortillas, pan breads and flat breads.
Durum Wheat
The hardest of all wheat’s, durum has a rich amber color with high protein content and gluten strength that is ideal for premium pasta, couscous and some Mediterranean breads.
If you have bread on your table Thank A Farmer.
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Why is common sense so uncommon?
Town & Country Gardening 
Thank you! I found this very informative. At one time, I made all my own bread, and this would have been very helpful. 😉
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I recently bought some green banana flour. It’s interesting. It seems to give the baking a particular flavour.
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After your first use of banana flour, please come back and share how it works out for you.
Happy Gardening
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Most farmers in the middle a harvest would happy to just give you a bucketful of wheat.
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One thing I learned the hard way is that all purpose flour in the USA is different from all purpose flour in Canada. Canadian all purpose flour is excellent for making bread and can be used in bread making recipes. In the USA for really good bread you need flour specifically labelled as bread flour. All purpose flour in the USA does not give the fluffiest lightest best bread. I think that it is because Canada produces Hard Red Spring Wheat and Durham Wheat almost to the exclusion of other varieties as it brings the best prices and it is best suited to our climate. Harvest is in full swing right now and there is nothing like the smell of freshly harvested wheat and no flavour like chewing those wheat grains until you get a gum of fresh wheat. I love harvest time.
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Farmers are so important. It’s not until we come to some crisis that affects crops that most of us even think about the food farmers grow for us. It’s sad how many people don’t think beyond the grocery store level of food production.
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Thanks for the info on the different types of wheat.
I agree with you on gluten intolerance. My niece has celiac disease and doesn’t always have it taken seriously because so many people have jumped on the gluten-free fad, in my opinion, to try to lose weight.
Bread, prepared correctly, really is the staff of life. A complete food that has kept whole civilizations going!
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It’s sad, but, there are a great number of well fed Americans that don’t have a clue where the food on their table comes from. Ask them and many will tell you food is made in supermarkets!
Happy Gardening
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Thanks P, I never knew there were so many varieties. I love making my own bread and pasta, and I started to notice, store flour smells funny. Not just stale, but like bug spray, stores have automatic bug sprayers. So I got a wheat grinder for about $20 online about a year ago and I’ve been using mostly my own flour.
Frankly, a truly whole wheat loaf was not very good, I use about two cups of whole wheat flour to a cup and a half of unbleached. Whole wheat pasta was also a bust, I have to use a little unbleached there also. Same with tortillas.
I buy my wheat berries online because when I asked for them at a local “health food store” the woman acted as though she’d never heard of them. I had only found hard red berries online, so I’ve been using those. I searched the varieties you name at Amazon.com and found a good variety in 25 – 50 lb sacks, for $1.50 a pound or less.
That’s a good enough deal for me – a quarter cup of berries produces almost a half cup of flour. A loaf of bread only takes about 3 1/2 cups of flour, so the berries go a long way. I store them in jars and in zipper freeze bags on the turnaround under my kitchen counter.
right now I’m having a hard time with my older son who thinks gluten causes all of life’s problems. Avoiding gluten on his budget has made him eat less, and that really ticks me off – I’m tired of the food fads, but I find criticizing your adult kids only makes them tell you less! He’ll figure it out.
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Hints you may or may not know.
When using ‘whole’ wheat flour (1) you will need a bit more milk or water than the recipe calls for and (2) the dough needs to rest longer to allow the ‘whole’ wheat flour to adsorb all of the milk/water.
No one wants to hear this but, the truth is many loaf breads and flat breads simply don’t come out right without using lard and or real butter over shorting or oils.
Gluten intolerance in most cases exists only in their head. Only about 1% of the US population has Celiac disease. If he has not been medically test and diagnosed with Celiac disease his perceived problems most likely are arising from something else in his living style.
Happy Gardening
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My daughter suffers from bonafide allergy to wheat, not gluten intolerance. Because of the many people who have it all in their heads, she gets flack for it but it has also made a lot of products available for her that previously did not exist. However just gluten free is not enough for her. It has to be entirely wheat free. Even with the glucose intolerance fad it’s still not easy to avoid wheat in our society.
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Wheat like corn is hard to avoid it is added to many products and if added in small quantities may not be listed in the ingredients label.
Good luck and Happy Gardening
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You should consider contacting a local wheat farmer and buy direct from the farm. At $1.50 a pound you are being ripped off. As of this morning, hard red winter wheat was selling for. $4.80 a bushel. A bushel of wheat weights between 60 and 66 pounds.
Who ever you are buying from is selling a $4.80 bushel of wheat to you for $90.00 dollars as bushel.
Happy Gardening
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Ha ha , I live in California – wheat farmers not allowed here.
http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/tehama/farmer-facing-28-million-fine-claims-no-damage-was-done-to-his-land/546140802
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