Pseudocereal
Buckwheat Groats
Fagopyrum esculentum
Pseudocereal — a knotweed, not a grass
In the atlas
Buckwheat is a triangle-seeded herb that borrowed wheat's name and none of its gluten. Russian blini, Breton galettes, Japanese soba, and Polish kasha all start here. The 'wheat' is a translation accident (the seeds look a bit like beech nuts). Toasted groats are kasha; raw groats mill into a gray-purple flour with a wild perfume.
Origin. Southwest China; traveled the Silk Road to Russia and Brittany
Flavor. Forest honey, cocoa, a little barnyard (in a good way).
Worth knowing
- Gluten-free. Soba labeled 100% soba is GF; many soba noodles are cut with wheat.
- Complete-ish amino acid profile for a seed — high in lysine.
- Rutin (a flavonoid) is the nutritional talking point.
- Dark flour includes the black hull dust; fancy 'fancy flour' is paler.
Flours you can make
| Flour | Extraction | Protein | Gluten | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole-grain flour | 100% | 13.3% | 0% | Everything the berry holds — bran, germ, and endosperm. Mill 1:1 by weight. Use within days, or freeze. |
| High-extraction (85%) | 85% | 13.2% | 0% | Sift once through a #30–#40 sieve. Keeps most flavor and minerals, slightly stronger dough than 100%. |
| Sifted / bolted flour | 75% | 13% | 0% | Second sifting (#50–#60). Lighter crumb, longer shelf life, less fiber. Bran left behind is gold in porridge. |
Nutrition / 100 g
- Calories
- 343 kcal
- Protein
- 13.3 g
- Carbs
- 72 g
- Fiber
- 10 g
- Fat
- 3.4 g
- Iron
- 2.2 mg
- Magnesium
- 231 mg
- Zinc
- 2.4 mg
- Thiamin
- 0.1 mg
- Selenium
- 8 µg
Typical whole-grain flour / 100 g.
Sources & USDA linksBuy it retail
- Bob's Red Mill
- Azure Standard
- Pleasant Hill Grain
- Breadtopia
- Japanese and Eastern European grocers
Availability rotates by harvest. Search the berry name plus “food grade.”
Bakes well as
Mill Buckwheat Groats now
Miller’s desk
Grain to flour
Vital wheat gluten booster
Most bags of vital wheat gluten are 75–80% protein. The booster is added on top of the flour, not swapped in.
Whole-grain flour · No gluten
- Whole grain needed
- 505 g
- Flour you’ll get
- 500 g
- Bran left behind
- 0 g
- Protein in that flour
- 66.5 g · 13.3%
- Natural gluten
- 0%
- Add VWG
- None needed
- After VWG
- 13.3% protein · 0% gluten
About 3 cups of berries → 4.2 cups of whole-grain flour. Whole-grain milling is essentially 1:1 by weight; sifting is where you lose bran.
How to mill it
Raw groats for flour; toasted kasha if you want blini that taste like a campfire.
Fine. Toasted kasha mills darker and louder in flavor.
Tempering: No.
Everything the berry holds — bran, germ, and endosperm. Mill 1:1 by weight. Use within days, or freeze.
Milling 101 →Next: bake it
Pick a loaf for this flour
13.3% protein after VWG · Buckwheat Groats whole-grain flour. Sandwich loaf, focaccia, sourdough — the kitchen will scale dough, hydration, and times to this mix.
