I think it is a question of semantics. From what I see on the Web site, I think Shambo is absolutely right, especially since she uses that brand! They really should not be using the word "flour" on the packaging, but they do. It does depend on the type of flour you use for your bread on how much gluten you will need. Apparently there are some special bread machine bread flours. I haven't seen them but that would present an additional conundrum. I use organic whole wheat bread flour that I get at the health food store, and King Arthur organic white bread flour that I get at ye olde grocery store. For a long time I couldn't find real whole wheat bread flour, and the labeling was confusing on that too, but the kind I get is the hard wheat kind, or so it says on the label. It gives me good results, that I know. It's also tricky when they add wheat gluten to low gluten flours to make them into "bread flour." I'm gonna have to try that honey wheat now, sounds like one BF will like. Right now we are lovin' up the yogurt bread. That's one of my favorite recipes in Beth's book. You get the sourdough taste without the sourdough fuss. I make a lot of the recipes in there with half whole wheat flour even though the recipe doesn't call for it. I just like the taste and texture of whole wheat better. I add a little more liquid to compensate, but not much. With this week's yogurt bread I subbed one cup whole wheat bread flour for one of the white, and subbed oatmeal for 1/2 cup of the flour. It has been a great loaf, albeit not very pretty looking! I have so many of those breads on my "to try" list, lol! Before my oven gave out I was just using the dough cycle and baking them in a small loaf pan in the oven. I don't like the big hole you get in the loaves when you use the bread machine to bake in. But it is a godsend right now with my oven being broken. We eat around the hole, lol! I also find some of Beth's breads very yeasty-tasting. I'm wondering if that just goes with the territory of homeade bread, in particular the kind made in the bread machine. Oh, and BTW, being able to find and buy real whole wheat PASTRY flour, has revolutionized my non-yeast baking. I get superior muffins and cakes using it, as opposed to the all-purpose whole wheat flour that was the main offering in the stores for so many years. I remember a time when I was happy they just started carrying whole wheat flour, let alone the different kinds. That's one modern trend I am happy about!

--Whole wheat pastry flour is milled from low-gluten, low-protein, soft wheat varieties. I use soft white wheat for pastry flour, or anywhere I don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt is another good wholegrain choice when you don't need a lot of gluten development. Spelt has a gluten level that is 5,000 parts per million; compared to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million and go up from there. --Technically, "all-purpose" flour was developed commercially for bleached/unbleached flour from a mixture of hard wheat and soft wheat. There's enough hard wheat so it has enough gluten to make yeast breads, and enough soft wheat flour so it makes decent quick breads, pastry or cakes - so it covers "all purposes", but it's NOT the optimum choice of flour for most things, other than soft dinner rolls. We've just developed our flour use from the most common commercial flour available - all-purpose - with occasional moves to Southern all-purpose for biscuits and quick breads, and the even more elusive cake flour for beautiful tender cakes. Even in the world of commercial bleached/unbleached all-purpose flour there are great differences... Northern all-purpose flour (King Arthur and Robin Hood - 11-12) have a higher protein level than National Brands (Gold Medal and Pillsbury 10-12). Southern all-purpose flour (7.5-9.5) is milled from soft wheat, so it's best used for quick breads, biscuits, muffins, pastry, cookies, cakes - foods where you don't want a lot of gluten development. A mix of 3:2 hard wheat to soft white wheat is a great "all-purpose" mixture when you want soft yeast rolls. Otherwise, choosing a mix of hard wheat and soft wheat is less than optimum for other baked goods. --Whole wheat "bread" flour would mean a high protein level milled from hard wheat. Bleached/Unbleached bread flour has a protein level of 13-14. I've milled wheat that was 16% protein and made yeast bread with it, but it takes a lot more kneading to develop the gluten and you find you have tough bread as a result of the high protein level. This also happens when you add too much vital wheat gluten to a recipe, so more (protein/gluten) is not necessarily better. The protein levels of wheat I purchase is generally between 13% and 14% protein, which is more than enough to raise a lofty loaf of bread. If you tend to get short squatty loaves of 100% whole wheat bread, there are other factors you need to address besides protein/gluten levels - such as stop using a (quick mix) direct dough method and switch to a sponge method. A sponge will help soften the bran - the sharp edges of bran can cut the gluten strands. A sponge method also helps develop the gluten without kneading. Adding an acid ingredient (vinegar, lemon juice, ascorbic acid, etc) to the recipe has a positive effect. There is a substance in wheat germ called Gluthione which breaks down the gluten strands. Adding an acid, such as ascorbic acid, counteracts the negative effects of Glutathione. Ascorbic acid helps to prevent the gluten bonds from breaking down and will repair the gluten bonds, so you'll get a high-rising loaf of 100% whole wheat bread. I generally add 1/8 t. ascorbic acid per loaf of bread when making bread that includes wheatgerm (as a single ingredient or from whole wheat flour). -Something we tend to forget, or possibly didn't even know, hard wheat wasn't even available for milling until the late 1870's when the German Mennonites arrived here in Kansas and brought the granddad of all hard winter wheat varieties, Turkey Red, with them from Europe. Prior to the developing of the hard winter varieties of wheat, all flour was milled from soft wheat. The mills liked soft wheat for milling into flour because it was easy to grind in one pass through the mill, and had a much larger extraction of flour. Soft wheat tends to be a plumper seed with more endosperm, while hard winter wheat is small and rather wrinkled with more bran and less endosperm. You can tell the difference between hard and soft wheat when you mill it at home - the hard wheat flour is more coarse and gritty from the bran, while soft wheat renders a very soft, talcum powder feeling flour. --"Bread flour" or high protein flour milled from hard wheat, was available to commercial bakers and they referenced it by calling it "strong" wheat flour. Strong and weak wheats indicate a wheat or flour's baking strength. It wasn't until the advent of the bread machine in the 1980's that high-gluten bread flour became available for home use. Up until that time all-purpose flour, which is a medium-protein level flour, was about the only kind of flour available for home use. If "whole wheat bread flour" is called for, it means use a "regular" whole wheat flour which is milled from hard wheat, instead of "pastry" whole wheat flour, which is milled from soft wheat. -Grainlady

ci_lantro No. You owe NO apology. I'm not offended at all by what you wrote. I'm happy. I'm happy you're there and not here. I meant that literally. I didn't want to start a debate lest someone reading be offended. The climates are extremely horrible here, right now. Financial, political and literal climate. With the price of oil really low people in the industry are running away as fast as they can. The price of oil being really low means our economy is deplorable. Meanwhile, the governor banned the right of cities to raise minimum wage. She banned the right of cities to ban fracking and running all over the place with corporate money in blatant shameful ways while crushing our education system. Quakes, quakes, quakes. And I live in the oil pipeline hub. People are sensitive about this subject and that's why I wasn't sufficiently clear in the original post. I didn't want to bring it up. lol In short, I wish I could leave. Can I come stay with you? LOL Just kidding. But I'd give anything to leave under decent circumstances. I won't have a home standing in a few years. Insurance won't cover damage from these quakes. Talk about depressing: I have 1/2" cracks in my sheet rock and all the other problems with finish on a mildly quake-damaged home, but the quakes are so numerous making repairs - even if we could afford them - is not cost prohibitive. 2 and 3 times a day. It gets on a roll. In generally, there is 1 good-sized "I feel it" quakes a week but every now and then it's non stop with sleepless nights up to 15 times within 24 hours. Like many homes in this area, the origin portions of the house is from the 1930s. Def not quake proof. The old historic buildings downtown have fallen to the ground from the quakes and the city is cleaning them up ... at our expense. The oil natives in the state are pitted against those who believe in man-made quakes and the science that backs it. I understand. Many here have had family in oil for generations and the reality ... well, it's just hard for them. I've never been in oil, but I'm not stupid about its importance to our economy even if the price of gas is cheap. The rest of us need homes and most of us never recovered beyond the 2000 tech bubble. We moved to rural areas, like this, to live within our means. In short, I was being blunt and literal on my post. It's only a sore spot because it is really bad right now, but not because you wrote anything offensive. If I'm not careful, I start to feel hopeless. So, the first thought I had to your post was, literally, thank god she's not here.

I use it frequently instead of white flour, but it is difficult to tell when the roux is done because it starts out with the brown color that I normally want when I use white flour. Basically, I just cook the roux for a certain amount of time and then assume it is done - I probably undercook it. It does have more flavor, and it works just as well for thickening for my purposes.