To truly understand how flour is made you must first understand the wheat kernel and it's parts. There are three main parts of the wheat kernel, otherwise known as the wheat berry. The bran is the hard outer shell of the kernel that is used as protection from the weather and other elements of danger that it may encounter. The reason that bran is removed before the wheat it milled into flour it due to its sharp edges. These sharp edges would cut through the gluten and would result in bread that simply is not going to rise properly. However, the bran is an extremely good source of fiber and it contains the majority of the minerals that can be found in wheat, so it wouldn't be that bad of an idea of adding wheat bran in yourself to bread that doesn't rise or in other foods. Next comes the germ. This is the part of the plant that if it were t

Finally we have reached the end of our journey. We know how flour starts out, what it's made of, what kinds there are and what they can be used for. Without flour, the way we eat today would be very different. Flour is one of the most important, if not the most important ingredients in baking, as well as many other types of cooking. Now lets get into the kitchen and start baking!!!

The next variable used for distinguishing between types of wheat it its bran color. The bran is the outer protective covering of the wheat kernel. In addition, the colors of the bran are either red or white. After these the next variable in wheat is the hardness of the kernel. Although this is a variation it is not most important of the differentiations between the types of wheat. This is what is going to determine what the flour that is made of the wheat is going to be used for. The importance is because the hardness of the kernel is directly related to the gluten or protein content of the flour that will be produced from it. The harder wheat kernels will yield a flour that has a high gluten content, and are well suited to be used with products that use yeast. While a softer kernel will produce flour which is lower in protein and will benefit from chemical leavening agents.

After learning what flour is made from, I think that the best place to go from there is how wheat becomes flour. The milling process has been around for many years and has changed greatly. It first started way back when with people using nothing more than a few stones to grind down the wheat into flour. It then gradually moved along into what is more commonly known as a mortar and pestle to grind up the wheat into the powder. This was all well and good but it was extremely labor intensive and took many hours to grind enough wheat just for one meal. It also had other drawbacks such as wearing down people's teeth from the coarsely ground grain, as well as powdered bits of stone in with the grain which was not all too healthy either. This caused the invention of the sieve, which was made out of woven grass that would filter out some of the coarser pieces of grain but it still was hell on the teeth. From here there was the invention of millstones, which were fairly large and would turn or rub against each other to grind the grain. With this, the bottom stone which was to remain stationary, had grooves that would channel the ground flour out the sides of the stones, and the top stone would be either rubbed or turned against the bottom stone. Some mills would use human or slave labor to achieve the power to turn the stones while others chose to use horses or oxen for this. Eventually there was the invention of the windmill and waterpower. This revolutionized the way that flour was made and allowed it to be done much faster and easier than the previous methods.

The next appropriate step after learning how flour is made is to learn the many different types of flour that there are, and what distinguishes one from the others. The first flour that we will discuss is straight flour. Straight flour is a one hundred percent extraction flour. The extraction rate is based one the amount of flour that can be procured from the wheat kernel after things such as the bran layer and germ are taken away, leaving behind the endosperm which is where most of the carbohydrates and protein are located. Straight flours may be used in the making of other flours such as patent, clear and low-grade flours. The next flour to be talked about is patent flour. Patent flour is considered to be the flour that is the purest and of the highest quality. It is made up of the center segment of the endosperm. This flour is divided up into five categories, which are determined, by the amount of straight flour that is used. Extra short also called fancy as well as first patent flours are made from the soft wheat. Extra short or fancy patent flour is the finest of the patent flours and

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