April 17, 2009 - 8:41am
Rye Flour
LindyD posted a great link to the Flour Treatise in another thread. I was looking through the information on the classification of rye flour, but don't exactly understand what the chart means. I grind my own rye flour. So what do I have? Dark rye? If so, what does "limited to 20% flour blend before significant volume reduction occurs in the product" mean?
--Pamela
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Hi Pamela. Mike Avery has a simplified chart at his site. Here's the link.
Eric is aso very knowledgeable about rye and hopefully he will comment.
Thanks, Lindy, for the link to Mike's site; Mike's chart is very understandable.
--Pamela
All they are saying is that compared to the same formula baked with all wheat flour, you can substitute up to 20% of dark rye flour for the wheat flour before you see a significant decrease in loaf volume.
But, cool link. Not that I haven't read more about flour than I really should have, but this is the first place where I've seen extraction rates for rye flour linked with the flour definitions.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, Pat, for your comment. It helps me understand what the rationale is behind the extraction rate: volume as compared to a standard, the all white flour loaf.
I assume when I am grinding my own rye (no sifting) that I have is dark rye flour. I guess if I want to approximate a medium rye, I could try sifting out about 13% by weight of the bran?
The chart looks very scientific. The more I read about flour, the more I'm amazed that I can bake bread at all!
--Pamela
Yes, you could simply try sifting. If the rye bran chunks are big enough they will sift out.
What a few of us found, while trying to mill high extraction wheat is that if you have already ground the bran too finely before sifting, it just goes through the sifter. When I was trying to grind rye, I used the same process that I do with wheat - I tempered it and ground and sifted it using several passes. I actually got a nice medium rye that way.
But your experience (and your mill) may be different.
It's an amazing process this journey from plant to bread...
And then you have to have the right sized sieve too! I might experiment with sifting.
--Pamela
Historically, dark rye was to rye what first clear is to wheat, that is leftover after lighter grades of flour were removed. For all I know. Nowadays terms whole rye and dark rye are used interchangeably and the only dark rye I've ever used was most certainly whole rye.
That makes sense to me. Maybe I should just refer to what I grind as whole grain rye!
--Pamela
the article was. Quality is always relative. I learned that in China where the top quality has the lowest amount of gluten. So maybe the top quality in the States is not the top elsewhere. The article is written as if the best quality flour is the untra refined flour that is used for white fluffy toast bread. Is it not a wonder?
Mini
The article being the flour treatise?
--Pamela
Ahhhh....flour quality in China. I wonder if the quality is based on what the flour is used for? Not much bread in China. Lot's of dumplings. Some steamed breads. .....noodles.....and the ultimate noodle in China is "hand tossed" by noodle masters. I've seen this performed..it's quite a feat. The noodles are processed by hand from a large slab of dough without the use of any implements but the hands.....I'll try to find a video demonstration of this process.....it's quite amazing. I know that the videos I've watched, they always describe the dough as being made with "cake" flour.....probably the "best" quality for their "best" noodles.
You can go to youtube and search "Philippe Chow" ...pulled noodles....@6 minute video.....it's a Martha Stewert recording.....very interesting. I know that these noodles are made with "low gluten", which may explain why the highest quality flour is considered low gluten.