Wheat in the United States
Classes used in the United-States are
- Durum -- Very hard, translucent, light colored grain used to make semolina flour for pasta.
- Hard Red Spring -- Hard, brownish, high protein wheat used for bread and hard baked goods.
- Hard Red Winter -- Hard, brownish, very high protein wheat used for bread, hard baked goods and as a adjunct in other flours to increase protein.
- Soft Red Winter -- Soft, brownish, medium protein wheat used for bread.
- Hard White -- Hard, light colored, opaque, chalky, medium protein wheat planted in dry, temperate areas. Used for bread and brewing
- Soft White -- Soft, light colored, very low protein wheat grown in temperate moist areas. Used for bread.
Hard wheats are harder to process and red wheats may need bleaching. Therefore, soft and white wheats usually command higher prices than hard and red wheats on the commodities market.
Much of the following text is taken from the Household Cyclopedia of 1881:
Wheat may be classed under two principal divisions, though each of these admits of several subdivisions. The first is composed of all the varieties of red wheat. The second division comprehends the whole varieties of white wheat, which again may be arranged under two distinct heads, namely, thick-chaffed and thin-chaffed.
The thick-chaffed varieties were formerly in greatest repute, generally yielding the whitest and finest flour, and, in dry seasons, not inferior in produce to the other; but since 1799, when the disease called mildew, to which they are constitutionally predisposed, raged so extensively, they have gradually been going out of fashion.
The thin-chaffed wheats are a hardy class, and seldom mildewed, unless the weather be particularly inimical during the stages of blossoming, filling, and ripening, though some of them are rather better qualified to resist that destructive disorder than others. In 1799, thin-chaffed wheats were seriously injured; and instances were not wanting to show, that an acre of them, with respect to value, exceeded an acre of thick-chaffed wheat, quantity and quality considered, not less than fifty per cent. Since that time, therefore, their culture has rapidly increased; and to this circumstance may, in a great measure, be attributed the high character which thin-chaffed wheats now bear.
See also
External Links