The T number on a bag of French flour tells you how much of the wheat kernel is left in it, not how strong it is. It is an ash measurement: a sample is incinerated and the mineral residue is weighed, so a T45 is the whitest, most refined grade and a T150 is whole wheat. Protein and gluten strength are set separately by the wheat the mill chooses, which is why the T45 we stock has more protein than our T65. If you bake baguettes, buy T65. If you laminate croissants or mix brioche, buy the T45 Gruau Rouge. If you want a country loaf with real wheat flavor, buy T80. The rest of this guide explains why, with the mill's own numbers, and maps each grade to the American flour it replaces.
Every flour named here is a Grands Moulins de Paris product from our Grands Moulins de Paris collection, stocked in Brockton, MA in 25 kg bags and shipping nationwide, with next-day UPS Ground in Massachusetts.
Shop this guide: T65 Tradition for baguettes and hearth breads, Gruau Rouge T45 for croissants and brioche, La Finoise T55 for viennoiserie and enriched pastry, and Millstone T80 for country loaves. The buying table at the end matches each bag to the bake.
French flour types were fixed by a national order of 13 July 1963 that defines each type by its ash content on a dry-matter basis. The mill burns a flour sample in a furnace and weighs what is left. Bran and germ carry most of the minerals in a wheat kernel, so the more of the outer kernel a flour contains, the more ash it leaves. The type number is that ash figure multiplied by 100: a T55 leaves roughly 0.55 g of ash per 100 g of flour.
| Type | Ash content (dry matter) | What it is | Typical French use |
|---|---|---|---|
| T45 | below 0.50% | Most refined white flour | Pastry, viennoiserie, brioche; the gruau grades are the strong ones |
| T55 | 0.50 to 0.60% | Standard white flour | Pain courant, viennoiserie, brioche, pâte feuilletée |
| T65 | 0.62 to 0.75% | Slightly less refined white flour | Baguette de tradition, pain de campagne, levain breads |
| T80 | 0.75 to 0.90% | Farine bise, semi-whole wheat | Country loaves, stone-milled rustic breads |
| T110 | 1.00 to 1.20% | Whole wheat | Pain complet |
| T150 | above 1.40% | Whole wheat with all the bran | Pain intégral |
Two consequences follow. First, ash is not protein. A mill can make a strong T45 from hard wheat and a weak T45 from soft wheat, and both are legally T45. Second, ash is flavor and fermentation. The minerals and enzymes that ride along with the bran feed yeast and levain and darken the crumb from white to cream, which is why a T65 baguette tastes like more than a T55 one even at the same hydration and schedule.
The figures below come from the mill's published technical sheets, not from a general chart. They matter because the protein order is not what most American bakers expect: the T45 is the strongest of the four.
| Flour | Type | Protein (per 100 g) | Fiber | Ingredients | Designed for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gruau Rouge T45 | T45 | 12.1 g | 4.0 g | Wheat flour, wheat gluten | Traditional-method viennoiserie and recipes rich in butter, eggs and sugar; high hydration tolerance; freezer stable |
| La Finoise T55 | T55, all-purpose | not published by the mill | not published | Wheat flour, wheat gluten, ascorbic acid, enzymes (per our bag) | The all-purpose grade: brioche, viennoiserie, pastry doughs with inclusions, and everyday white bread |
| T65 Tradition | T65 | 10.3 g | 4.0 g | Wheat flour, wheat gluten, malted wheat flour | Baguette de tradition française; cream, open crumb and a very crisp crust |
| Millstone T80 | T80, stone-milled | 10.7 g | 5.3 g | Stone-ground T80 wheat flour | Rustic loaves with a bran-flecked, lightly open crumb and a well-colored crust |
Read the protein column against the type column and the logic of the range appears. The mill puts its strongest wheat, plus added gluten, into the refined T45 because croissants and brioche have to carry 50 percent butter or more and still rise. The bread flours sit lower, at 10.3 to 10.7 g, because a baguette wants extensibility and an open crumb rather than a chewy, tight one. French bread flour is not weak; it is tuned for a different result than an American bagel or sandwich flour.
T65 is the baguette flour. The mill's own formula for its Tradition T65 runs 1,000 g flour, 650 g water plus a 40 to 50 g bassinage, 18 g salt and 7 g fresh yeast, mixed 12 minutes on first speed to a dough temperature of 24 to 25°C, then bulk fermented two hours with two folds or blocked overnight at 4°C. Divide at 350 g, proof 30 to 45 minutes and bake at 250°C for 20 to 23 minutes. That formula, scaled to a 10 kg mix and converted to instant yeast, is in our baguette de tradition formula on T65. The same flour makes a good pain de campagne and a clean, cream-colored sourdough.
Gruau is the French word for the strongest grade of flour, milled from hard wheat and, in this case, reinforced with wheat gluten to 12.1 g protein. The mill lists it for traditional-method viennoiserie and for doughs rich in butter, eggs and sugar, notes that it takes high hydration with a wide tolerance window, and states that it supports freezing, which is what a bakery that shapes croissants on Friday and bakes on Monday needs. Our croissant lamination formula on Gruau Rouge uses it with 82 percent butter sheets, and our panettone flour guide pairs it with a high-gluten American flour for the strongest enriched doughs.
La Finoise T55 is the all-purpose flour of the range. The mill lists it for brioche Nanterre, mini brioche, gâteau des rois, baba, savarin and doughs that carry raisins, chocolate or candied fruit, and the ingredient line on our bag adds wheat gluten and ascorbic acid, which is how a miller builds strength into a white T55. It also makes an everyday white loaf and a pizza base when you do not want the color and flavor of T65. It is the flour behind our brioche formula on La Finoise T55, which scales a 50 percent butter Nanterre from one loaf to a bakery batch.
Stone milling leaves the bran in larger flakes and keeps some of the germ oil, so a T80 loaf has a visibly flecked crumb and a wheatier flavor than anything made from roller-milled white flour. The mill's formula for its stone-ground T80 runs 700 g water per 1,000 g flour, plus or minus 20 g, with 18 g salt and 7 g fresh yeast, a bulk fermentation of 60 minutes, a fold and 60 minutes more, a 12 to 14 hour cold block at 4°C, and a 250°C bake. Use it alone for a pain de campagne, or blend 20 to 30 percent into T65 to add color and flavor to a baguette without changing the handling much.
American mills grade by protein and market by use; French mills grade by ash and market by use. The two systems do not line up cleanly, but the table below gives working equivalents using the published protein and ash figures for the American flours we stock.
| American flour we stock | Protein | Ash | Closest French grade | What changes when you switch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| King Arthur Round Table pastry | 7.8% | 0.45% | No French equivalent in our range | A French T45 is refined like pastry flour but far stronger. For pie and tart doughs, stay on pastry flour. |
| King Arthur Sir Galahad (all-purpose) | 11.7% | 0.50% | T55, or T65 for bread | Slightly less protein on the French side; dough is softer and more extensible, so mix a little less and fold more. |
| King Arthur Special (bread flour) | 12.7% | 0.50% | T65 for lean bread; Gruau Rouge T45 for enriched dough | Expect a more open crumb and thinner crust on T65; drop hydration to the mill's number and bassinage back up. |
| Gold Medal Full Strength | 12.6% | not published | T65 for lean bread; Gruau Rouge T45 for enriched dough | Same adjustment as above. |
| Gold Medal All Trumps and King Arthur Sir Lancelot (high-gluten) | 14.2% and 14% | not published; 0.52% | None. Blend Gruau Rouge with high-gluten for panettone-class doughs | No French white flour matches this protein; keep a high-gluten flour on hand for bagels and for blends. |
The practical rules for moving a recipe across are short: start from the French mill's hydration rather than your American one, mix less and fold more, and keep an American high-gluten flour in the building for the doughs that need 14 percent protein. Our guide to converting an American recipe to French flour works through each of those with a baguette and a brioche as examples.
France's 1993 bread decree reserves the name pain de tradition française for bread made from wheat flour, water, salt and yeast or levain, with no additives and no freezing during production. The only permitted flour adjuncts are fava bean flour up to 2 percent, soy flour up to 0.5 percent and malted wheat flour up to 0.3 percent, and those are what you find on the ingredient line of the mill's Tradition T65: wheat flour, wheat gluten and malted wheat flour. The mill's everyday pain courant grades, by contrast, list ascorbic acid and enzymes as processing aids and are not eligible for the tradition designation. If the designation matters to your shop, read the bag rather than the type number, because a T65 can be either.
For enriched doughs the question does not arise. Gruau Rouge lists wheat flour and wheat gluten only, and the extra gluten is the point: it is what lets a croissant dough hold 50 percent butter through three folds and a 90-minute proof.
Everything below ships nationwide from our Brockton, MA warehouse, with next-day UPS Ground in Massachusetts. All four are 25 kg (55 lb) bags in the Grands Moulins de Paris collection.
| Product | Buy it for | Skip it for |
|---|---|---|
| French Bread Flour T65 Traditional | Baguettes, batards, pain de campagne, levain loaves, pizza with a French crust | Croissants, brioche or anything carrying more than about 15 percent butter |
| Gruau Rouge Wheat Flour T45 | Croissants, pain au chocolat, brioche, kouign-amann, panettone blends, laminated Danish | Lean hearth bread, where its added gluten gives a tighter crumb than T65 |
| La Finoise T55 | The all-purpose bag: brioche, buns, babas, savarins, pastry doughs with inclusions, everyday white bread and pizza | Baguette de tradition, where T65 gives the flavor and crust |
| Millstone T80 | Country loaves, rustic pizza bases, 20 to 30 percent blends into T65 for color and flavor | Viennoiserie and fine pastry |
| Campaillou sourdough mix | A rye-sourdough country bread at 80 percent hydration with no starter to maintain | Anything where you want to control the formula yourself |
If a bakery is adding French flour for the first time, start with two bags: T65 for the bread bench and Gruau Rouge T45 for the pastry bench. Between them they cover baguettes, country loaves, croissants and brioche, and the pairing is the one the mill designed them for.
It is the ash content: the mineral residue left when a sample of flour is incinerated, expressed per 10,000 parts of dry matter. A T55 leaves about 0.55 percent ash, a T80 about 0.80 percent. The number tells you how much of the bran and germ stayed in the flour, not how strong it is.
No. T45 only means the flour is very refined. The Gruau Rouge T45 we stock is milled from high-protein wheat with added wheat gluten, at 12.1 g protein per 100 g, and is made for croissants and brioche. American cake and pastry flours are refined and weak at the same time, around 7.8 percent protein for King Arthur Round Table.
T55 is the usual answer for refinement, and King Arthur even describes its Select Artisan flour as equivalent to a French Type 55. On protein the French T55 and T65 we carry run 10.3 g per 100 g against 11.7 percent for Sir Galahad, so a T55 dough will feel a little softer and more extensible than the same recipe on all-purpose.
T65. It is the flour French bakers use for baguette de tradition, and the mill's own formula for it runs at 65 percent water plus a 4 to 5 percent bassinage, 1.8 percent salt and 0.7 percent fresh yeast. The full formula, scaled from 1 kg to 10 kg, is in our baguette de tradition formula article.
Yes, and many bakers prefer it to T55 for levain breads because the higher ash content feeds fermentation and gives a cream-colored, more flavorful crumb. For a rustic loaf with more wheat flavor, blend in T80 or use it on its own at around 70 percent hydration.
Usually, because they carry less protein. Start from the mill's hydration rather than your American recipe: Grands Moulins de Paris runs its T65 at 69 to 70 percent and its T80 at 70 percent, and adds the last water as a bassinage after the gluten has formed. Our guide to converting an American recipe to French flour walks through the adjustment.
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