Grains Used In Bread

Bread is a staple food that is made by cooking dough of flour and water and perhaps more ingredients to tastes. While bread is mostly cooked by baking, some communities are known to fry or steam the breads, which can either be leavened or unleavened. Some of the common ingredients of bread, in addition to water and flour is milk, sugar, egg, salt, fruit e.g. raisins, spice, vegetables e.g. onions, seeds e.g. poppy seeds and nuts such as walnuts.

The quality of the bread dough and the quantity of the finished bread in terms of nutritional value is determined by the flour used. Flour, is a product made from grounded grains. The different types of grains used to make flour will provide the protein and starch necessary to produce bread. Breads will come in all colors, shapes, sizes, and textures depending on the type of grains, nuts or seeds used. The following grains are very popular in making bread and can be easily milled into flour.

• Buckwheat – Fagopyrum plant seeds are used to manufacture buckwheat flour, whose strong flavor is preferred in making bread
• Rye – when rye is milled into flour that is used to make bread, it tends to be very elastic compared to that of wheat. As such, rye bread should strictly be made using leaven or sourdough instead of yeast. One can add whole rye ‘berries’, cracked rye or rye flakes in breads
• Oats – whole oats that have been thoroughly cleaned, toasted, hulled and then thoroughly cleaned again are known as oat groats, which can be ground to make oat flour for bread. Unlike rye, buckwheat, and wheat, oat flour doesn’t have gluten. At times, some home grain millers will add oar bran (the outer cover of the oat) to bread as it is believed to be rich in soluble fiber
• Flaxseed – this is another rich content of soluble fiber, which can be added to bread as they are or when ground
• Barley – being among the hardiest cereals, barley flour is ground pearl barley. Just like oat flour, barley flour contains has no traces of gluten.
• Triticale – this is a hybrid of rye and wheat which is highly rich in protein and is known to taste sweet and nutty at the same time. Note that Triticale is very low on gluten meaning you have to combine its flour with wheat flour when you use it in bread.
• Wheat – this is the most common grain used in bread. It boasts of starch and 3water soluble protein groups – globulin, albumin, and proteases, and 2 non-water soluble protein groups – gliadin and glutenin. When you mix water and flour, the soluble proteins will automatically dissolve, leaving you with the gliadin and glutenin which forms the main structure of the dough.

Raw wheat berries, the hulled whole kernels are the ones that are ideal for breads. You can use them to make your home milled flour for making bread or better still sprout or cook them to make the same. The wheat grains can be amber, russet, white, or purple in color. The main wheat grain for yeast bread is the hard red winter wheat, although hard red spring wheat can also be used to make whole wheat yeast breads, especially the no-knead breads. For breads that don’t need yeast such as pancakes, waffles, quick bread, and muffins, you can never go wrong with soft white wheat, which is the most commonly used choice.

The above-mentioned are the main grains used in bread. For added taste and flavor in bread, one can always add some seeds, nuts, etc, which can also be ground using a simple home grain miller to give the desired results.