Bleached flour vs unbleached flour
I’ve never used bleached flour before, but my mom bought a large bag of no name bleached all purpose flour and it was surprisingly strong for APF. Does anyone know why this is so, or did I just get a bag of flour that’s o higher in protein than most APF. I would also like to know, how to unbleached flours get so white? I’ve ground and sifted my own flour and it doesn’t look anywhere near as white as unbleached flour.
Recommended by Food52
2 Comments
I'm sure Serious Eats has an article on this. So should King Arthur Flour.
Unbleached flour will eventually turn into bleached flour with enough time. There are some other differences due to the way the two products are treated though which affect their baking properties.
Note that every flour manufacturer has their own standards for their various products and "all purpose unbleached flour" from Company A may vary a bit from a similarly named product from Company B.
I remember in the early days of the Covid pandemic a well known local commercial bakery's breads changed noticeable. I pointed this out and after much hemming and hawing one employee eventually coughed up that they had sourced different flour because their regular supplier was out of stock.
Anyhow, read some articles from reputable food writers or flour manufacturers. It's all out there on the World Wide Web.
Best of luck.