Heartland Mill

Not all lots have data for all tests. The Hearth Bake Test is performed on UBUE, malted UBAP, High Gluten (Strong Bread Flour), Baker's Patent, and Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour milled from hard red wheat. Our lab runs Chopin Consistograph and Alveograph tests on all our roller-milled white flours.

For lab information on Whole Wheat Flour and Whole Wheat Berries, just match the last six numerals, which will indicate the blend from which the flour was milled (or of the unmilled wheat). We mill this flour daily, and have found over the years that there is not significant performance difference within a blend.

Flour quality lab data

Our grain and flour is tested numerous times between harvest and sale of the finished flour. Tests of the finished product are the most pertinent to our bakery customers. We make the most useful of the data from those tests available to customers at this website. Those who want more detailed information or data on lot numbers not listed here are encouraged to contact our director of technical services via email. Just click on the link.

These are the values we feel are the most useful for predicting flour performance

Protein
Moisture
Ash
Falling Number
Damaged Starch %
Alveograph/Consistograph
Constant Hydration
- P/L
- W
- G

Adapted Hydration
- T/A
- Fb
- Hyd 2200

Consistograph
PrMax
TPrMax
Tolerance
Water Absorption

Bake tests:: Pup Loaf: inverse density value (cc/g)

Hearth test: quality rating, 1.0 is perfect and unattainable.

(Our earlier Hearth Bake Tests were rated only on inverse density.)

Where do these values come from and what do they mean?

Protein: This is simply the percent, by weight, of the flour that is protein, assuming for the sake of uniformity, 14% moisture in the flour. We use NIR (Near Infra-Red) analysis because it’s quick, easy, and accurate.

Moisture: We use the same piece of NIR equipment to determine the moisture content of the flour. We often cross-check this with other NIR machines and with a balance oven.

Ash refers to the mineral content of the flour and correlates to the degree of refinement. The higher the ash percentage, the more bran is left in the flour. Our unbleached flours range from 0.44% for some runs of Baker’s Patent to as high as 0.54% for some lots of unbleached all purpose flour. This value, like protein, assumes 14% flour moisture. Our stone-ground whole wheat and Golden Buffalo flour are considerably higher in ash.

Falling Number (FN): Now things start getting tricky. Falling number relates to the alpha amylase activity in the flour. A certain amount of enzyme activity is necessary for proper fermentation during the production of biologically-risen breads. Too much can cause problems (sticky dough, for one). The lower the FN, the more enzymatically active is the flour. Our all purpose, unbleached enriched flour has malted barley flour added to adjust the falling number downward to fall within a range considered “ideal.” All other Heartland flours are unmalted and their higher falling numbers reflect this. Bakers using unmalted flour should add their own malted barley flour for improved fermentation and crust color.

Damaged Starch: When wheat is milled into flour some of the starch granules in the endosperm are broken. This damaged starch absorbs much more water than the undamaged granules. If too little damaged starch is in the flour, it will be difficult to mix normal to high-hydration doughs. If there is too much, the flour will exhibit high absorption, but the loaf may flatten at the end of proofing as the excess water is released. In between these extremes, as damaged starch increases, absorption will go up, but at the expense of extensibility and overall dough strength.

This is well demonstrated in Alveograph studies. The same wheat blend, milled with different mill settings or different tempering times before milling, will result in different levels of damaged starch. The resulting flour will show absorption increasing as starch damage increases. The Alveograph "P" value will also rise, and the "L" will shorten. Interestingly, there is a range of "P/L" in which the "W" (strength) will reach a peak level, then it will drop off. "P" does not increase as "L" shortens, thus resulting in lower overall strength, "W."

Even within an acceptable range of damaged starch, performance is influenced by even seemingly small differences. Too little damaged starch will result in overly extensible doughs, with insufficient elasticity. Too much and the extensibility suffers.