Wheat Flour: what’s the real meaning of T45, T55, and T65?

Any time we go shopping we can see a huge range of different types of Wheat Flour: 

• Type 45 (T45)
• Type 55 (T55)
• Type 65 (T65)
• Type 150 (T150), and so on. 

But, what does that mean? 

This numerology/classification is different across different countries in the world. However, laboratory analysis is similar. The food Industry classifies Wheat Flour accordingly to its Ash content. 

But, what is Ash in Food? 

Ash is the mineral material-inorganic part of Flour.

 It’s called Ash because its residue that remains after incinerating, removes water and organic material such as fat and protein.

The Ash content of any given flour is affected primarily by the ash content of the wheat grain from which it was milled and its milling extraction. 

We can divide the Wheat Grain into 3 different parts: 

Bran – the fiber-rich outer layer, that protects the seed

Endosperm=Flour – the middle layer that contains carbohydrates and proteins-Glúten protein lives here

Germ – that will originate a new plant – germination- if we hydrate it like during school times, it will grow 🙂

The goal of milling is to separate the Endosperm from the Non-endosperm parts (Bran&Germ) of the wheat kernel. 

However, this separating is difficult and never clean. Thus, there is always contamination of endosperm with non-endosperm and vice versa. 

Higher Endosperm contamination results in a higher Mineral (Ash) content that’s why a Flour Type 150, has more minerals and it’s darker than a Flour Type 55.