durum flour or semolina?

[foodie3]

whole foods sells durum flour which they also call semolina, it's quite fine and golden yellow in color, it looks identical to the one from bob's red mill which is also called semolina flour. is this different from durum flour, what does durum flour look like, how can i tell them apart visually?

[artisanbaker]

they are both milled from durum wheat. semolina is coarser.

[foodie3]

thanks, artisanbaker. this does not answer my question - i still do not know what does fine (or extra fine) milled durum flour look like and how to tell whether the product in front of me is semolina or durum flour?

[artisanbaker]

sorry.

durum flour looks more like golden all purpose flour.

semolina resembles cornmeal texture.

regards

[foodie3]

thanks again artisanbaker.

the flour i have from bob's red mill is quite fine in texture, a lot closer to flour than cornmeal, may be it's just not the extra fine grind.

[artisanbaker]

i've purchased flour from bob's before and i believe that they stone grind everything which may explain slight texture differences.

[foodie3]

yes, their products are stone ground according to the website.

looks like their semolina flour is not the same as fine or extra fine durum that my bread recipe calls for, shucks!

[heidihi]

So it seems like the labeling when it comes to semolina/durum is a mess.

My understanding was that the term semolina does not necessarily refer to the texture of the flour, although that is how many people define it.

My understanding is that whole durum wheat flour is the more nutritious version of semolina.

It is a whole grain flour where the germ, bran, and endosperm are still a part of the final flour. I've been able to find whole durum wheat flour that is yellow, fine in texture, and looks very much like what many people consider 'semolina'.

Semolina on the other hand is the refined version of the above. Essentially the starchy endosperm, stripped of the bran and germ. I heard someone once call it 'Italy's white flour'.....

Can anyone weigh in definitively on this? I get asked about this all the time and really want to get it straight.

-h

[Wolfert]

I think whole durum wheat is double milled, golden and silky, and used alone or mixed with white flour to make certain rustic breads in the Mediterranean. Is this the same as attar flour?

In the Mediterranean, I learned the difference between coarse,

fine, and medium grade semolina: the coarse is used alone to make tahini-enriched cakes, steamed desserts and dense breads; it is blended with fine ground semolina to make hand-rolled couscous; the medium grade is used for pasta and stove top breads; and there is the skinned wheat berry used

for dessert. ( In Puglia, they make a pasta like dish called grano with it.)

About a hundred years ago, wealthy Ottoman Turks soaked durum wheat berries in order to acquire a very special wheat starch. This starch produced the most voluptuous and creamy custards. First they soaked the kernels to remove the skins, then used the berries to make a soup and finally boiled down the thick liquid until well reduced. Finally the starchy debris was laid out on large pieces of cloth, exposed to the sun until dry and finally sieved to a powdery starch.

Edited September 27, 2005 by Wolfert (log)

[heidihi]

So, here is one of the sources that I came across focusing on the nutritional aspects terms in relation to the terms semolina/durum/pasta...

Paula, thanks for weighing in on this. I guess I'm trying to figure out - is semolina (regardless of whether its is a coarse, fine, med. grade) always missing the bran and germ portions of the grain? Was the semolina you worked with in the Meditteranean considered whole - or would it be processed in some way so that only the starchy portion of it was used for things like, say - couscous, or pasta?

-h

[Wolfert]

Heidi,

That is a great question, but I don't know the answer.

I think you might want to check with Michael Orlando of Sunnylandmills who sells a type of durum kernel called grano. It has very little bran removed from the surface. Check here....

http://www.sunnylandmills.com/aboutgrano.html

[heidihi]

Thanks Paula,

I'll let you know what I find out. -h

[piazzola]

One thing I know is durum flour is not semolina (coarse or fine) though it comes from the same grain but the extraction rate is lower but still high protein flour used mainly used for pasta production.

[heidihi]

From Janet Fletcher's Grain Gastronomy, "remove the bran and germ from a kernel of hard durum wheat and you are left with the endosperm, a.k.a semolina. When ground, it yields high-protein, high-glluten semolina flour, the basis of Italy's dried pasta and the basis of couscous."

From Recipes from the Old Mill by Sarah Myers and Mary Beth Lind, "Durum wheat is a hard spring wheat used almost exclusively to make pasta. Semolina is refined durum flour."

I've been using whole stone-milled durum wheat flour in combination with other flours for homemade pasta - trying to up the ratio of nutritionally intact ingredients vs. refined...a 1:1 ratio of APF to the durum wheat flour makes for a nice flexible multi-purpose pasta dough. All durum wheat flour and it gets much more hearty, textured....rustic.

Hope that helps, -h

[Adam Balic]

thanks again artisanbaker.

the flour i have from bob's red mill is quite fine in texture, a lot closer to flour than cornmeal, may be it's just not the extra fine grind.

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Durum grains are very difficult to grind to a very fine grade using stone mills, so maybe this accounts for the textural differance. Infact "semolina" comes from the Italian "semola" which means "bran".

[piazzola]

Where I am I can get durum flour in bulk minimum 5 kg bags(organic) or 25 kg bags pity that my son is gluten intolerant