Besan is one ingredient, milled from chana, and yet two sacks of it can behave completely differently. The variable is the grind, and buyers who do not know to ask for one or the other often end up blaming the flour for a result the grind caused.
Our mill has made besan since around 1960, when Sh. Shakti Khullar Ji set up a small unit and named it Todarmal after his father. This is the question we are asked most often about it.
Barik: the fine grind
Barik is milled fine. It hydrates evenly, disperses smoothly into liquid and gives a clean finish with no perceptible grain.
That makes it the grind for anything where smoothness matters: pakora and bhajiya batters, kadhi, besan chilla, and sweets such as besan laddoo and mysore pak, where a coarse flour would read as gritty. When a recipe just says besan without qualifying it, barik is almost always what is meant.
Mota: the coarser grind
Mota is milled coarser, and it is chosen where texture is wanted rather than avoided. It gives more body and a slight bite, which suits rustic preparations and some regional recipes where the flour should be felt rather than dissolve away.
It is a smaller and more seasonal line than barik, simply because retail demand runs overwhelmingly to the fine grind.
Why the grind changes the result so much
Two reasons, both practical.
Hydration. Finer particles take up water faster and more evenly. A barik batter comes together smooth in a couple of minutes; the same water in mota leaves lumps that need working out and can still cook unevenly.
Surface area. Finer flour binds more readily, which is why barik coats a pakora in an even film while a coarser grind sits thicker and patchier.
Is besan the same as gram flour?
Yes. Besan is the Hindi name, gram flour the English one, both meaning flour milled from chana.
What besan is not is chickpea flour milled from kabuli chana, the large pale chickpea. That is a milder, paler flour and substituting it changes both flavour and binding. Recipes translated from English sources sometimes conflate the two, which is worth knowing if a result comes out wrong.
Storage, and why besan does not keep like other flours
Besan is more perishable than most buyers expect. Milling exposes the oil in the gram, and that oil begins to turn, which is what produces the faintly bitter, stale taste in besan that has sat too long.
Keep it sealed, cool and dry, and use it within a few months of milling for the aroma it should have. This is also why we mill against orders rather than holding long stock: a fresher mill date does more for the finished dish than anything else on the label.
Buying besan in quantity
We supply besan in barik and mota, in 500g and 1kg retail packs, 20kg small pack bulk and 30kg loose bulk for buyers filling their own packaging or supplying kitchens directly.
The rest of our milled range sits in the flours and atta category.