Tang Zhong Gone Wrong
As I threatened, I did a Sprouted 4 Grain Sourdough Tang Zhong bread this weekend.
What a disaster. After choking down one slice I actually threw it out (sorry the pic is just a link, still working on it).
Forgive the uneven final proof (I just forgot to spin it from the warmth).
The problem was that it was so 'gummy' as to be unpalatable. It just squished down when pressed with no bounce back.
Briefly, the recipe was lean, 50% sprouted flour (half of that Kamut, the other, rye, barley and Hard Red Winter) and about 50% Bread flour, with some ground flax and sesame seeds thrown in there.
The final dough was 1000g with a hydration at 82% and it was baked to 210F internal. Perhaps I should have baked on, but it had been a hour at 375F and was nicely browned.
The Tang Zhong was 25g (sprouted) bran to 125g water, brought to 145F, then cooled. It was a lot more liquid (and not much like a 'roux') compared to vids and pics of Tang Zhong that I've seen.
I baked it as a loaf rather than a boule (only because it had been so long since I did so).
It tasted pretty good however (tho a bit sweet considering no sugar)
Any thoughts?
Head hung in shame,
dobie
![http://s1037.photobucket.com/user/baguette/media/20151212TangZhongGoneWrong_zpso0itkqcb.jpg.html?filters[user]=144323157&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0](http://s1037.photobucket.com/user/baguette/media/20151212TangZhongGoneWrong_zpso0itkqcb.jpg.html?filters[user]=144323157&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0){kind=link}
good and just needed to be toasted to really make it taste great and pretty. The sweetness comes from the sprouted flour.. Why throw this bead away? At least make croutons or dried crumbs for stuffing with it!
I don't think much of anything was wrong with it. Looks like a soft moist crumb to me?
PS Tang Zhong is needed for sprouted grain breads. The crumb is already sweet, soft and moist enough. I'm thinking that you might have tossed the best tasting toast of all time - but such thoughts aren't helpful and near cruelty:-(
Happy baking
dbm
You are probably right. Toasting or coutons would have been a good idea.
But I just couldn't stand to see it sitting there and laughing at me anymore; so it is gone. I know, anthropomophizing bread is not a sign of sound mental health, but I did what I had to do to maintain what little sanity I had left. I feel better now.
It was all I could do to share the debacle with TFL (and if I can help just one person from making the same error, I feel the embarressment worth it). Tongue in cheek.
But, you are right. It was well raised and quite tasty (if a bit sweet). But the gummy was extraordinary.
And you are clearly right as to the cause of the sweet. As I have boosted the percentage of sprouted grain, it has come on stronger.
I am thinking one day I might do a 'fruit bread' with this as a base (minus the Tang Zhong).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing Tang Zhong, it just didn't work very well in this application. I know it was all just a fun experiment, but still..., oh, the horror.
dobie
dbm
Yes, but never not helpful. Perhaps I panicked. Properly dehydrated, they most likely would have been wonderful. The flavor was quite good.
And you are right, considering how gummy and wet it was, it sliced wonderfully. Makes no sense to me how or why, but it did.
But it was just so far from what I was looking for, I 'jumped the shark' and just lost it, then tossed it. I will try to remember greater restraint the next time I so humiliate myself (or is it the bread that humiliates me?).
Just kidding, I know it is me who humiliates the bread.
Thank you for the reminder.
dobie
Tangzhong doesn't work too well if not done with bread flour. It needs strong gluten and white bread flour works best.
I think sprouted bran wouldn't work hence the liquidness.
Win some, lose some. You won the Levain de Campagne.
Abe
Thank you for the sound condolences. May she rest in peace.
dobie
to work so hard on something and have it become bird food. Dabrownman is on to something...I have often toasted a less-than-stellar bread, and this weekend just made a big batch of breadcrumbs from some second-rate rolls. At least the schnitzels they cover will taste delicious !
I followed your link and was amused to see that photobucket can turn your photo into a number of items. LOL to the Christmas cards featuring your crumb shot and wishing me a 'Happy Holidays!'
Hi Windishgirl
First, I didn't really mind making bird food as an experiment. There is always a risk, and (as you know, to the benefit of your schnitzel) sometimes you pay. But the cost of tuition is pretty low in this school.
Actually, it was so gummy, I wouldn't even put it out as bird or squirrel food, as I didn't want to risk their lives.
Not to mention, just by the hickory nuts alone (not to mention the acorns, the black walnuts and the rest), believe me, the squirrels around here are not going hungry this winter.
The worst part was the time and care put into the sprouting, dehydrating and milling of the berries. And it wasn't so much the effort as it was the fact that now they are gone. A squirrel's life is so much easier.
Well, dabrownman definitely knows what he's talking about, but I just had to clear my brain 'palate', so to speak (and believe me, I've got plenty of bread crumbs).
Regarding 'Crumb Shot Xmas' cards, you have got to be kidding me! I never signed up for that (intentionally).
Unlucky the poor soul who recieves one as a Holiday salute.
I wish that I could see that, but the secutity on this 'borrowed' computer is tighter than a 'cat's butt in flea season' and little gets thru (including most of the pics on TFL).
Thanks for the heads up tho, I'll check it out on a friend's computer tomorrow. I might even have to send myself one (just for the hoot of it).
And as Tiny Tim said, 'God bless us everyone' (with a crumb shot).
dobie
I thought Tiny Tim played the ukelele and sang "Tiptoe Through the Tulips."
*grin*
MonkeyDaddy
Now that you bring him up, he was quite the music historian.
Just before he died, he did an album of covers with a band called 'Brave Combo' (I believe). He did a beautiful version of 'Hey Jude' and a killer take on 'Stairway To Heaven'.
Well worth a listen if you come across it.
Oh, and he was quite the baker as well ;-)
dobie
I see the name of a great new Kung Fu movie!
(now where did I hide those ninja stars???)
That's pretty funny Alan. Perhaps, the last 'Lost' Bruce Lee film.
By the way, I've been looking for a place to thank you for your video on 'Double Hydration Bouabsa Baguettes', and I suppose this is as good a place as any.
First, while I did make a batch, I thrice humiliated them. Over proofed, poorly scored and over baked. They were still quite good tho. The fault was all mine (and of 'life' for getting in the way of good timing).
But realize this, that video is 38 minutes long; and NEVER once did I find myself tapping my foot and saying, 'Come on, get on with it. Why are you wasting my time?', as happens with so many other, much shorter videos on youtube.
It was good to see another's take on the things I do so often, and I learned a lot in doing so. From blading the lame to how you S&F plus many other useful hints I was not aware of (dough can go slack after a 100 or so S&Fs, but soldier on, it'll come back).
I think your camera person and your editor did a pretty fine job as well. I think you all should do more videos, if you were so inclinded.
Anyway, thank you so much for that; for the confirmation of what I was doing right as well as for the new ideas to the future.
dobie
Thanks for those embarrassingly fine words of support (I'll get the check in the mail straight away). The wife takes all the credit for the camera work, so she smiled when I read this to her. I tried to get Castagna to do some of it, but akin to Lucy, she too has nefarious thoughts but is also relatively useless at household tasks.
The backstory is that while spending summer of 2014 back in our beloved former city of Portland OR, the person renting the apartment to us was also a big Ken's Artisan Bakery fan, and from conversing via email knew that I was into home baking. They live elsewhere now so we never met. She really wanted to try the Bouabsa baguettes, so I promised to make a video for her when we returned home after the summer. And then at home once more, I had to ask my brother to explain how to make a video!
The one major difference between then and now is that I do the majority of the long cold retard with the dough already shaped and couched. After a few hours of bulk retard, the number of hours, as long as its more than at least one, is insignificant and allows the dough to firm up after the initial cool down. The bulk is subsequently pulled and then divided, shaped and put back to beddy-bye until literally just before the bake starts. No countertop proofing or finger dent tests. Just a straightaway bake from the retard.
I apply this method to pretty much all of the breads that I do now. I have a Hamelman WW Levain that I put into retard last night at 11 PM which I just shaped and couched moments ago (8 AM), and won't bake until early this evening. I find that doing it this way allows me to control the scheduling more so than the schedule controlling me. And other than needing adequate refrigerator space for the tray of couched dough, I haven't yet seen a downside to this method.
I applaud your strong constitution for not getting bored out of your skull during the entire rant. But it really was a fun project. I'm still waiting for Public Broadcasting to send me that contract...
Thanks, alan
alan
It is praise well deserved by you and your staff. And if not PBS then perhaps the Food Network will be calling.
I will apply your revised techniques at my next attempt. Thanks for the update. I'm so glad I was able to convince Girl that we needed a much larger fridge than is usually indicated for two folks. I can usually find a place for a half sheet of baguettes and will do so.
Interesting to hear about your dog. I can't get mine to vacuum or clean the bathroom either. However, when I'm on my hands and knees with a screwdriver in hand, they are always there waiting to get a turn at it. I think dbm has the same problem with Lucy.
Anyway, thanks for all that.
dobie
With the caveat that they may not make a material difference.
Spouted grains have some inherent risks for the baker, particularly the baker who sprouts their own grains. Maintaining precise control of all stages of the process is challenging, though manageable. The biggest risk is that the sprouting goes a bit further than expected, leading to the finished product being malt powder instead of sprouted flour. If that happens, the bread will definitely be gummy and sweet, since the diastatic enzymes in the too-sprouted flour will convert more starch to sugar than wanted.
Tang zhong is effective because it gelatinizes the starch in the flour that is cooked. Bran doesn't offer nearly as much starch for the roux as a white or even whole grain flour would offer. You may receive some benefit from thoroughly hydrating the small percentage of bran but it will be a different benefit than you would receive by using flour for the tang zhong. In this specific case, there's probably no appreciable effect on the finished bread, if my suspicion that your sprouted flour had a high diastatic content Is correct.
No solid answers, I know, but food for thought.
Paul
Paul
Food for thought indeed.
When I'm sprouting, I usually find that by the time nearly all the grains are chitted, there are a few that are actually coming to true 'sprout' status (in a gardening sense) and I'm sure that would add to the diastatic quality of the resulting flour, helping it to resemble a low-temp dehydrated malt in affect.
That being said, I'm pretty sure that the state of these sprouts were no further along than the several (6-8) other times I've done this before and that did not result in this 'gummy' effect. But I will keep that in mind.
My thinking on using predominately the bran in the Tang Zhong was this. That since the bran is where most of the enzymes are, that by bringing it to over 140F, the protease enzymes would be diminished (if not completely inactivated), while amylase a & b would still survive.
I was thinking that this would allow for good breakdown of starches into sugars by the amylase without the gluten destruction of the protease. I figured there would be sufficient protease enzymes in the remaining flour to help avoid a 'rubbery' bread.
Perhaps that worked too well, and there was not sufficient protease in the remaining flour. But I don't think of 'gummy' crumb as 'rubbery' crumb (which would have bounced back when compressed, I would think), but that might be my misunderstanding.
Anyway, I was just trying to exert a little enzyme science (which I am just trying to understand), and well, the results are what they are.
Other than the Tang Zhong method, everything is pretty similar to other experiments I have done of this ilk, that did not exhibit any of the 'gummy' qualities. I used a little less salt and a little more 'sprouted flour', but not by much.
Of course, 'not by much' may be enough to be responsible for this effect, but my intuition (which could be wrong), says not.
It may be the ground up flax seed addition (25g to 1000g dough) as I know when I've tried sprouting them, they get very 'snotty' which might lead to such a 'gummy' bread when hydrated in a dough, but I have used them before much like this without the gummy problem occuring.
I still don't understand it yet, but maybe soon.
Regardless, what you bring up is good food for thought and I'm not done trying to figure it out yet.
Thank you very much.
dobie
Paul
As I try to plot my next course of action, I re-read your post, and I have first a statement, and then a question.
I have used diastatic malt (both rye and barley, homemade and store bought) before, but only in modest amounts. By that I mean, a teaspoon or tablespoon at most to a normal loaf. I never noticed any increased tenderness, or gummy-ness, but I wasn't looking for that. I only noticed a more active proof.
So my question is, at what percentage point does tenderness and or gummy-ness (that's an awkward word, isn't it) become obvious with additions of diastatic malt?
That may have been more of a player than I have realized.
TIA (and don't worry, it's all good)
dobie
at very low levels; typically in the 0.5-1.0% range, by weight. Higher levels will lead to excessive starch conversion. In turn, this leads to bread with a sticky or gummy crumb and reduced volume.
I can't speak to your experiment with the bran. My limited reading on the matter suggests that alpha-amylase is higher in the bran and the germ, while beta-amylase is more prevalent in the endosperm. Whatever is there at the start of the roux will still be there at the end of cooking, so long as temperatures don't go above 160F, or thereabout. Nothing I have seen so far would suggest that heating the bran would increase it's amylase content; i.e., make it more diastatic.
Paul
p.s. Protease enzymes work on proteins, not on starches. They don't factor into the diastatic activity of malts. Just realized I hadn't pointed that out previously.
Yes Paul
I heard that about d malt being added to flour as well as in 'conditioners'. It's not something I use often (at least not in the last few years), but I always have a little around.
My 'bran' roux experiment was not an attempt to increase Amylase a & b, rather to reduce the Protease for exactly the reason you stated.
I know dabrownman has said recently (and I've read some reports off-forum as well that agree) that the gluten destruction by Protease is not usually an issue.
But I'm not convinced of that yet. Thus this experiment.
But I had no idea that d malt would create gumminess. Thank you for that.
I'm in the middle of making a batch of rye d malt and when I'm done, I think I might make two comparative loaves, one with more d malt than normal and one with none.
I'm also going to dehydrate half as 'white' (under 115F) and the other half as a 'red' (over 140F but under 150F) to try and destroy the Protease but not the Amylase. I don't know that that would truly be considered a 'red' malt as dbm describes, but I'll find out.
Thanks for your input. Now I'm off to try and understand the differences between Amylase alpha and beta.
dobie
heated to temperatures above the point where all enzymes are denatured and then taken to the temperature where caramelization begins 325 F or 350 F to lend additional color and flavorings besides the browning of sugars ie the creation and browning of amino acids as well. Nothing like red malt to color and flavor bread with Toadies being a distant 2nd in my book.
I'm not convinced that the gumminess was totally due to excessive amylase activity but it may have contributed. In order for amylase to do its thing the starch has to be damaged (this is accomplished by milling) or damaged by sprouting (which does increase enzymes as well) or by gelatinizing the starch granules ( this is what Tang Zhong process does).
In this case, you have all 3 at work..... plus heat and extra enzymes from sprouting. The result an more soft, moist and gummy crumb than you would like - that was not caused by protease activity (especially since you denatured much of the protease which is also found in the bran.)
dbm
Thank you for the clarification about the 'red' malt, I suspected as much (from what little my reptilian brain remembered). Some day soon, I will make and use some (but the list is long).
What would you call a d malt dehydrated to between 140F and 150F? I would be doing this to degrade Protease but not the Amylase. Of course, now I have to consider it 'accelerating' Amylase (but ignorance on that still reigns).
I think I've heard of 'Brewers' malting to this temp, but I am not sure why (and I guess that is another issue).
As I recall (from previous discussions we've had), that to some extent, all sprouted grains are 'diastatic' to some degree.
Now I'm thinking it will be three comparative loaves using a simple Bread flour. One with no malt, another with white malt and the third with a 145F malt. I think that is where I'm heading.
It'll be a few days, as the rye to malt is still sprouting (and I am going to take it to a 'gardeners' sprout, not just chitted).
I too am not yet convinced of anything regarding the 'gummyness', but the evidence is mounting and as you said, was probably the result of all three treatments.
I will get back to Tang Zhong once this malt experiment is done.
Thanks for the input (and the wrenches),
dobie
diastatic power of wheat or barley - so it doesn't have much oomph anyway. You want to keep the temperature at 142 F to denature the protease and still have Amylase a & b
When you are drying the grain you don't have to worry about accelerating enzyme activity. The acceleration happens when you really get the ground flour wet and heat it up at the same time - like a 200% hydration scald at 150 F, Brewers mash, (not malt) malted very coarsely ground grains at 150 F in water at 1560 F for a couple of hours to really get all the starch in the mash to turn to sugars. Bread makers don't want all the starch to turn to sugar only enough to keep the wee beasties alive and provide enough residual sugar to brown the loaf properly and make the loaf a bit sweat tasting if that is what one wants.
Except for Lambic beers, there usually isn't any LAB in the mash which is also a difference from SD bread making but similar to yeast breads.
dbm
Snap. You have brought me back to reality. I got my barley and rye mixed up in terms of diastatic potential.
I'm not sure what I will do with the rye that is now just past chitted, but I will start the barley right away.
Thank you about the difference between 'mash' and 'malt', and the different intents accordingly. I'm assuming the '1560 F' was a typo. (I'd have to go visit my friend's kiln to attain that temp).
So, there is a point at which too much sugar can be converted within a flour. Who knew (other than you, certainly I did not). Much appreciated.
I will as well check out 'Lambic' beers.
Thank you friend,
dobie
s150 F Lambic id a special beer dear to my heart and my favorite to make at home. It is Sourdough Beer and about the best tasting and most expensive too!
dbm
I think that might just have to be my first brew.
Later this next year tho (a lot to learn yet).
dobie
any kind but it makes them work more efficiently and much faster which makes it seem like there are more of them.
dbm
Very interesting.
Just for clarity, I wasn't thinking to create more, just degrade the Protease.
But now (as per the norm), you have thrown another wrench in the gears of my thinking.
I appreciate that (and will research accordingly).
dobie