Czech wheat flours: hladká, polohrubá, hrubá and krupice

Czech Decree No. 18/2020 divides flour into hladká (fine), polohrubá (semi-coarse), hrubá (coarse), wholemeal and graham; krupice (semolina) forms a separate group in fine and coarse grades. What counts is granulation – the share of particles that pass through a sieve of a given mesh. At least 75 % of a fine flour must pass a 162 μm sieve, at most 75 % of a semi-coarse one and at most 15 % of a coarse one.

The second axis is ash (mineral) content. Fine wheat flour comes as light, with no more than 0.60 % ash in dry matter, semi-light (0.75 %) and bread flour (1.15 %); semi-coarse and coarse flours may contain at most 0.50 %.

Such fine grading by coarseness is unusual elsewhere. Semi-coarse flour is used for dumplings, Bundt cakes, creamed and whisked batters and the plaited vánočka; if milled too fine it does not suit dumplings. Austria's glatt and griffig also describe coarseness but are measured differently, so the categories cannot be equated. German type numbers such as 405 or 550 measure minerals and have nothing to do with the Czech grades.