Flour
Semolina: what it is, what it is for, and the loaf it makes
It is not ordinary flour milled coarse. It is a different species of wheat, with different gluten and a different colour. Swapping one for the other in the same recipe does not work, and the table below says why.
At a glance
- Strength (W)
- 205 to 260
- Protein
- 11.8% to 14% *
- Water absorption
- 59% to 63%
- Stability
- 5.5 min to 10 min
- Ash
- 0.75% to 0.9%
- Origin
- Sul da Itália e bacia do Mediterrâneo
- Grain
- trigo duro (Triticum turgidum subsp. durum)
Sources disagree. Mill datasheets disagree with each other by a wide margin. Molini di Voghera declares W 250 and 14.0% protein for its Selezione Pugliese; other sheets for the same kind of product give W 205 and 11.8%. Nobody is wrong: Italian law only requires 10.5% protein for semola, and everything above that is each mill's commercial choice.
What it is called in each country
| Country | Called |
|---|---|
| English | fine semolina / durum flour (US: extra fancy durum) |
| Português | semolina de trigo duro (procurar a fina, não a granular) |
| Italiano | semola rimacinata di grano duro (ceneri max 0,90% s.s.) |
| Français | semoule de blé dur extra-fine / farine de blé dur |
| Español | sémola fina de trigo duro / semolina |
The recipe
Ingredients
| Amount | baker's % | |
|---|---|---|
| Fine durum semolina | 500 g | 100% |
| Water | 360 g | 72% |
| Salt | 10 g | 2% |
| Instant dry yeast | 3 g | 0.6% |
Method
- Mix the semolina with 340 g of the water until no dry flour is left. Do not knead. Cover and leave 40 minutes: semolina drinks slowly, and this rest is where it hydrates.
- Add the yeast and knead 3 minutes. Add the salt with the last 20 g of water and knead 5 minutes more, until the dough is smooth and firm. It will not go slack like a dough made with ordinary flour: that is correct.
- Bulk ferment 1 hour at 24 °C, with two folds 30 minutes apart. Then 12 hours in the fridge.
- Take it out, let it come back for 1 hour and shape a tight round. Durum is tenacious, so shape it with confidence: it can take it.
- Set it seam up in a basket well dusted with semolina and let it rise 1.5 to 2 hours, until a pressed finger springs back slowly.
- Turn it onto the hot tray, score deeply and bake at 240 °C with steam for 15 minutes.
- Vent the steam, drop to 220 °C and bake another 25 to 30 minutes, until the centre reads 96 to 98 °C and the crust is properly dark. Semolina wants a dark crust: that is where the flavour is.
- Cool on a rack for at least two hours. This loaf is better the next day.
What it is for
Thick-crusted, yellow-crumbed bread: Altamura, pane pugliese, Sicilian sesame loaves. Focaccia barese, the one with potato in the dough. Fresh and dried pasta, which is the grain's original job.
And dusting the bench and the peel, where it beats ordinary flour outright: the granules roll instead of turning to paste, and they add crunch to the base of a pizza.
Blended into common wheat flour, 20% to 30% already changes the colour of the crumb and brings an almond note that white flour does not have.
When not to use it
Puff pastry, brioche and laminated doughs generally. Durum gluten is tenacious but not very extensible: the Voghera sheet gives P/L 1.3 and a gluten index around 50. In practice the dough fights back instead of stretching, and laminating butter into it becomes a wrestling match.
Cake, no. The structure comes out heavy and the crumb sandy.
How to use it
It drinks slowly. Laboratory absorption sits near 61%, but that is the standard test, not the hydration of a recipe: a semolina loaf works well between 70% and 75%. What really changes is time. Give it 30 to 40 minutes of autolyse before the salt and yeast, or you will decide the dough is too slack, correct it with more flour and end up with a brick.
The yellow comes from carotenoids in the grain, and the yellow index is a selling parameter: the Voghera sheet asks for 24 minimum. Long mixing oxidises and destroys part of it. If your semolina bread comes out pale inside, you kneaded it too long.
And check the grind before you buy. The coarse kind, good for couscous and for dusting, will not hydrate properly in a loaf.
The story
Durum and common wheat are different species. Common wheat is Triticum aestivum, hexaploid. Durum is Triticum turgidum subsp. durum, tetraploid. This is not a coarser grind of the same grain: it is another plant, and the difference starts before the mill.
The durum kernel is glassy and so hard it shatters into angular fragments instead of powdering. That is where the Italian legal definition of semola comes from: a granular product with sharp edges. That hardness is what lets dried pasta hold its shape in boiling water, and it is why Italian pasta is made from durum by law.
Rimacinata is that same semolina put back through the rolls until it is nearly as fine as flour. And here is the part almost nobody mentions: rimacinata is not a separate legal type. Italy's DPR 187/2001 lists semola, semolato, semola integrale and farina di grano duro, then handles regrinding in a separate clause, permitted specifically for breadmaking. The bag of rimacinata you buy is ordinary semolina that went back to the mill so it could become bread.
Its emblematic loaf is Pane di Altamura, from Puglia, recognised by the European Union on 18 July 2003 as the first bread in Europe to hold a Protected Designation of Origin.
Frequently asked
- Is semolina flour the same as semolina?
- In most shops semolina means the coarse granular product and semolina flour the finely reground one. For bread you want the fine one, sold as rimacinata in Italy or as durum flour in the United States. The coarse grade will leave the crumb gritty.
- Can I use semolina instead of bread flour?
- Not one for one. As a full swap it wants more water and much more resting time, and even then the crumb stays tighter. Start by replacing 30% and work up from there.
- Is it good for pizza?
- In the dough, blended: 20% to 30% gives colour and crunch without making the base tough. On the peel it is the best thing there is, because the granules roll and do not scorch as fast as fine flour.
- Why is my semolina bread pale instead of yellow?
- Usually over-mixing. The colour comes from carotenoid pigments, and long, oxygenating mixing bleaches them out. Mix less, rest more.